keith...
I was able to locate a few more resources.
One forum I found online "where franchise
ownership/business is discussed among franchise
owners/managers" is the following:
http://www.franchise-chat.com/forums/franchise/index.html
This is an international site, and includes
posts from people seeking to become franchisees,
people offering business opportunities, and
people discussing the relative merits of
franchisers with whom they have become, or
might become affiliated.
There are posts which receive no response, and
posts which have received 81 responses, so the
level of interest obviously varies by topic.
Such sites might be scarce due to situations
as outlined in the following page:
http://www.startupjournal.com/franchising/franchising/200005170924-morse.html
"FranchiseHandbook.com took its message board
down recently after a bunch of franchise-unit
owners posted an intolerable number of complaints
about various franchise systems. "Some of them got
really nasty," says Barb Yelmene, advertising
director of Enterprise Magazines Inc., Milwaukee,
the parent company of FranchiseHandbook.com and
other forums that present various business
opportunities."
"The nastiness comes as relations between system
operators and their franchisees are strained, as
chains saturate cities with new shops that often
encroach on existing franchisees' territories."
"Ms. Yelmene says the Web emboldened the
malcontents: 'I think when people get on the
Internet, they're willing to say anything.'"
"The angry franchisees would advise prospects
to steer clear of certain systems. Not
surprisingly, some of FranchiseHandbook.com's
big advertisers -- the chains themselves --
weren't too thrilled, and complained. Ms.
Yelmene says that is part of the reason
FranchiseHandbook.com suspended the message
board. Two other reasons: The complaints were
anonymous, and thus impossible to verify, and
teenagers started leaving sexually explicit
messages. She says that by dismantling the
message board for a while, the company will
lose some of the squawking franchisees
(and the teenagers). She hopes to get it
running again, albeit in a more controlled
structure."
Business Week Magazine also sponsors a
small business forum, for which you must
sign up to join:
http://login.prospero.com/dir-login/index.asp?webtag=bw-smallbiz&lgnDST=http%3A%2F%2Fforums%2Ebusinessweek%2Ecom%2Fbw%2Dsmallbiz%2Fstart
so I can't tell you about its content.
And the American Franchise Association, here:
http://www.franchisee.org/member.htm
sponsors an MSN Community which looks
promising, and must be joined by request:
http://groups.msn.com/FranchiseeOperators/_homepage.msnw
I would try to apply directly from that page,
from the link for "Join this Group"
It occurs to me that what you want to do
might also be presented by way of meetings
through the auspices of the Small Business
Administration in your area. The SBA site:
http://www.sba.gov/ has a page to locate
offices in your state:
http://www.sba.gov/regions/states.html
Perhaps contact with your local office
would provide information regarding meetings
in which you could promote your concept,
or allow you to set up such a meeting
with local businessmen.
Have you considered the option of utilizing
the services of a flyer/coupon delivery
service such as ValPak?:
http://www.valpak.com/index.jsp
ValPak is a nationwide organization, which
franchises its services throughout the
country. You might also locate similar
services which provide the same service
in a more localized neighborhood.
Searches cone, via Google:
franchisers online forum + "fast food"
://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&cat=&q=franchisers+online+forum+%2B+%22fast+food%22&sa=N&tab=dw
SBA
://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=SBA
valpak
://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=valpak&btnG=Google+Search
small business forum
://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=small+business+forum
small business + "online forum" + "fast food"
://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=small+business+%2B+%22online+forum%22+%2B+%22fast+food%22
I hope this information is useful. If it
exceeded your expectations, I don't know if
you can raise the question price after it's
been answered and before you rate it. If
not, that's okay.
If I can further assist you with this query,
please feel free to post a request for a
clarification of the answer before you rate
it.
sublime1-ga |
