Kiyosaki’s magic quadrant
Visit the Franchise Expo yesterday.
So many opportunities are presented to visitors with huge promises (payback time in 4 months??).
But the funny thing is most of the brands are so new to be franchised.
Hmmm… I even already forgot most of the brands now.
Then I realised there is a very funny business here.
There are persons who (might) succeed in building a restaurant or small business (“Brand Owner”).
They have a dream to expand but with no money to spend.
And there are persons who sees this opportunity and claim to be a ‘franchise consultant’.
“I can make your brand to be internationally recognized”.
And last piece : in Indonesia, there is a lucrative segment : executives. They have a big savings. Most of them read too much about Kiyosaki, trying to have their own business and let ‘the money works for them’.
So voila… franchise is a very excellent business connecting these three forces.
But for me, the most important thing for franchise is its root : brand/image.
Brand Owner’s biggest legacy is not the know-how, but the know-who.
I don’t say it is easy to open a children training center (although I have a friend who open a child training center with curriculum he creates based on his personal research, and he’s IT person). But it is more difficult to know where the business should open, and how the business get its customers.
In the expo, so many brands are new.
But only a few of them are really ready to be franchised.
The rest, it seems that they only want to get quick money from people 🙂
In other words : rather than paying them the franchise fee and 5-15% of the sales revenue, I better learn their curriculum (or hire one of their chef), and create my own brand. It will make no difference. Or if you want to get 20%-30% annual return, take a look at mutual funds or stock market. That’s also a good bet.
Hopefully, next year when I visit this expo again, some brands are already successful in the market, and I do wish that to happen, otherwise we will see more foreign brands (including our fellow neighboring countries – Thai-Sing-Mal) in our malls. They’re true franchiser. Their objective is expansion.