And, what the global, digitized market is teaching the people who are thinking in these terms, is that contracts cannot drive a business relationship that does not regularly, willingly and frequently self refresh. No single concept of business can be said to have a reliable five or ten year life cycle if it never within that period enables its operators to expand and diversify. Franchise support is no longer telling people how to solve their daily operating problems in a single business context. Franchise support is now, whether we like it or not, showing people how the investment they made in us can hybridize, diversify, combine and expand to keep pace with what none of us could have foreseen ten years ago. Indeed, ten years ago there were only about fifty pages on the entire internet.
Today there are millions.
A properly and competently counseled franchise investor today has no where to put his money, because the franchising industry has yet to realize and accept this truth. Old line franchise opportunities are not being bought by anyone other than existing franchisees in the same system who are bottom feeding, buying other franchises in the same system for pennies on the dollar. The business of franchising is franchising, franchising anything, fit or no fit. There has to be movement to new opportunities within any single franchise offering, because the rate of change is now exponentialized compared to even five years ago. If something is potentially profitable, it can be put into any franchisor operation with the hiring of the right people.