Franchisee resource center

There seems to be a lot of confusion amongst early-stage business owners concerning use of the various trademark symbols (TM, SM, and (R)). This article addresses when to use which symbols, and when not to use any of the symbols at all.

Think about the last time you hired a plumber or an auto mechanic, or a lawyer for that matter. Without asking, you probably knew that the person you hired owed you a legal duty to perform the job in a competent manner consistent with the standards of his or her profession. The same is true when you bought a new car or built a new house. You rightly expected that the seller would stand behind its responsibility.

In the past few weeks, I’ve discussed what constitutes trademark infringement, how to protect your image and intellectual property online, and some recent developments in the law regarding use of competitor keywords in search engine marketing. This article goes back to the fundamentals, and discusses ten tips for selecting a trademark.

On the subject of “fairness” in franchising, we will try to separate the optimists from the pessimists . Hopefully, we will make an optimist out of even the most cynical readers amongst us.

AS: The finance background is helpful but absolutely not necessary in opening the franchise. It was helpful that I knew how to read the financial statements, but it is not a skill that cannot be learned quickly. In retrospect, any experience that one has is helpful in opening and running your own business. You are faced with so many different challenges on daily basis, therefore the more experience you have with Marketing, Operations and Finance, the more tools you have to solve these problems the best possible way.

Other major advantages of home-based franchise opportunities are low start-up costs and overhead expenses.The initial investment required for an at-home franchise is typically much lower than a conventional franchise, often in the $15,000-$30,000 range. Some home-based businesses can be started with just $10,000. Since franchisees do not need commercial space, work-from-home franchises also have low overhead costs and require little to no inventory.

FranchiseHelp interviews J.R. Cottle, franchisee and area developer of Highway 55 (formerly known as Andy's Burgers Shakes & Fries) casual restaurants. J.R. started working as a fry cook at HWY 55 as a teen and now owns multiple HWY 55 restaurants with plans to introduce the franchise to South Carolina. He draws upon his experience as an employee and his current perspective as a franchise owner to offer his advice and best practices to prospective franchisees, employees, and employers alike.

A duty to be fair or to be reasonable hardly seems to be unfair or unreasonable, but many franchisors and their attorneys believe that the implied covenant is dangerous or ill-advised and should be abolished. Their concern is that, by its very nature, a duty to act in “good faith” or to “deal fairly” or “reasonably” is inherently unclear.

Because we have 30 years of experience as the largest frozen yogurt concept, our size allows us to provide services to franchisees that smaller brands don’t have the resources to provide. We are only as successful as each of our individual franchises are, so it is of utmost importance that we offer a service model, economic model and brand model that are appealing and profit generating for our franchisees.