The Best Franchise Opportunity – How to Determine it

Deciding to get a franchise is only the first of several major decisions a prospective franchisee will have to make. The next is determining the best franchise opportunity.

The best franchise opportunity is a totality of many factors. These factors are like parts that make up a whole. They work together to achieve a beneficial result.

Foremost of these factors is the prospect’s financial capability or ready access to financing since a large amount of money is required for the franchise fee, down payment on the lease, and other expenses. In addition to being financially ready, he should make a complete self-examination to determine his personality and preferences so that he can find the right kind of business that will match his style.

Preferably, the prospect must have conducted his own research and market study before setting up a meeting with the franchisor. This will enable him to inquire intelligently about important details relative to the company and the arrangements under the franchise. This way, he does not enter into something that he does not know much about, wherein he will have to depend mainly on the franchisor for information. This kind of information is unreliable since it has already been edited to come up with a highly convincing franchise presentation.

In asking questions, the prospe...
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There has in the last year or so, been an uptick in the number of lawsuits in the United States against Chinese companies. I do not have hard numbers to back this up, beyond the numbers of my own small law firm, but I have no reason to believe these are unrepresentative. This is happening for the following reasons, among others...

• There has been an increase in business between U.S. and Chinese companies.
• Lawsuits do not usually happen immediately after business relationships have been established. They usually happen years after that, when business has reached a level worth suing over, when the relationship has soured, and when it has become clear there will be no resolution without court intervention.
• Economic downturns tend to increase the likelihood of relationships souring and litigation ensuing.
• More Chinese companies are doing sufficient business in the United States so as to make collection of a United States judgment far more likely. I see this as the key reason.
• Chinese companies tend to hire lousy lawyers because they are unwilling to pay for good lawyers. This makes them a relatively easy litigation mark. U.S. lawyers are starting to catch on to this.
• Chinese companies tend not to take litigation seriously and often find themselves in trouble with U.S. courts for having failed to comply with U.S. discovery rules.  This too makes Chinese companies a relative...
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{I love lists. I love ranking things, even as I realize how fundamentally arbritary and ridiculous such endeavors can be. Every time Rolling Stone rolls out another “Top 10o songs Middle-Aged White Guys THINK They Should Like and Have in their Vinyl Record Collections”—and mind you, I pretty much have nothing against middle-aged people (I’m damn near one; yeah, damn near) or white guys or vinyl record collections—I accept them as arbitrary and ridiculous but I also always feel like those lists are so stagnant in the most trendy, impersonal, rock-crit way that they have nothing whatsoever to do with the songs/albums/concerts that people actually like. So upfront, I’m letting you know that I think these songs are the best songs mostly cause they’re my favorite songs, the ones with the highest number of plays on my iTunes, the ones I force onto new and old friends via mix-CDs and Facebook-status-message lyric quotes. And though I know many of you would NEVER EVER allow that you like some of them—too pop? too rap? too girly? too cheesy? too something?—I’m the type that once I like a song I tend to love it forever. Songs don’t get old for me. In fact a few of the songs on this list are records I first heard at age 9 on AM radio in my mother’s Cutlass. Yeh, some of them are old-fashioned; some of them have probably lost their preening pop-culture lust...
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