The Messiah's* guide to franchising - What potential Franchisors need to know

The great thing about being a member of a franchise, is that providing that it was your spouse’s idea to join and not yours, there are hours of enjoyment complaining about the fees and the lack of support.  It is a luxury that we small business owners, not operating under a franchise operation and with only ourselves to blame, can only envy.

However, we small business owners live in hope that one day we may find people who want to copy our way of doing things.  The trade mark carefully crafted from our children’s names.  Our views (which our spouse never wanted to listen to) set out in an operating manual (OM), quoted by our franchisees/disciples in reverent terms.  Visits to far flung outposts to preach our vision.  A sought after speaker to motivate the unwashed masses of our industry to “Do It Our Way”.

Government distrust of Messiahs has been around for sometime*.  Messiah’s have arrived from industries as diverse as “hot dog selling" to “dog poo picking up” and government have adopted industry codes to regulate these erstwhile charlatans.

Here are seven tips for budding Messiahs:

The law will allow you to be a Dictator in the name of protecting your brand but a benign one who must treat his subjects fairly well and act reasonably and not thuggishly which. frankly, takes a lot of the fun out of it.

* see New Testament.

© Paul.Brennan 2009. All rights reserved.  

If you were interested in this topic see Copyright Law for Creative People by clicking here

Click here if you need to speak to a lawyer dealing with IP and franchsing

Click here for legal books and eBooks by Paul Brennan. 

Sponsored by :

 
 

Paul Brennan, lawyer

sponsored by Brennans solicitors - a Queensland, Australia law firm - Individual Liability limited by a scheme approved under professional standards legislation.
ABN 60 583 357 067
email: info@brennanlaw.com.au

Please see the copyright notice and legal disclaimer