Thursday, January 15, 2009

Small Business Digest - Ready to Grow Through Franchising? by Andrew J. Sherman

Over the last five decades, franchising has emerged as a leading intellectual properly leveraging strategy for a variety of product and service companies at various stages of development. Recent International Franchise Association (“IFA”) statistics demonstrate that retail sales from franchised outlets comprise nearly 50 percent of all retail sales in the United States, estimated at over nearly one trillion dollars and employing over ten million people in 2002. Notwithstanding these impressive figures, franchising as a method of marketing and distributing products and services is really only appropriate for certain kinds of companies. Despite the favorable media attention that franchising has received over the past few years as a method of business growth, it is not for everyone. There are a host of legal and business prerequisites that must be satisfied before any company can seriously consider franchising as an alternative for rapid expansion.

Continue to read at the ASBDC website: http://www.asbdc-us.org/Resources/SmallBusDigArticle-Franchising.html

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