Dear Franchise Seeker,
If you are interested in buying a franchise and want to save literally hundreds of thousands of dollars… then this free website will show you how.
Here’s the story:
My name is Jeff Lerner, founder and creator of FranchiseWisdom.com.
I am also the owner of a number of other businesses and Internet marketing sites. I have owned multiple restaurant franchise units in the Houston, Texas area, and am the cofounder of a mobiel marketing agency and an internet marketing company. I’ve also spent several years succeeding in real estate, mortgage lending and investing, built a theatrical production company and have even been listed as one of the top 500 home business professionals in the world (according to the prestigious BusinessForHome.org website).
Anyway, here’s why this is important for you:
I purchased my first franchise at the age of 27.
And my goal was probably very similar to yours –
To build a solid business of franchise units that would pay me over six figures after the first few years, that I could then expand and keep working on (if I chose to) or sell off for a nice 7-figure pay out and retire.
I put up roughly $253k of my own money to get started.
(In the form of a bank and SBA loan.)
The rest was financed by investors.
Luckily, through my business ventures I had made many relationships with high level investors who trusted my business instincts and knew my track record of building and growing companies.
But you know what?
Even with all this business experience at my back… even with all the investor confidence and advice I had… and even with a detailed, “can’t fail” business plan…
I Ended Up Homeless Less Than 12 Months Later.
And the worst part was… it all could have been avoided had I known just a few simple things only a franchise owner who has been robbed, burned and harassed like I was (by banks, franchisors, lawyers and even a ruthless bureaucratic government “goon squad”) can describe.
Needless to say, I have a unique perspective on what works with franchising.
And, even more importantly, I know what does NOT work.
For example…
To get started, I secured roughly $550k in financing to buy my first franchise.
I opened two popular sandwich shops in the Houston, Texas area — which at the time was the perfect restaurant location. There were many reasons for this, but the main one was I had a plan to get large Fortune 500 company clients in the oil and gas industry as regular customers.
The idea was they would buy dozens of lunches each day for their employees.
This would bring us a nice, steady stream of customers, day in, and day out.
It was a great plan, too.
And everyone was on board with it.
Long story short… we ended up opening two stores, and I borrowed the $550k — half of which was secured by investor money and the other half was in my own name (which was a BAD idea).
Then, 11 months later…
Both Stores Were Out Of Business.
Question is… what happened?
Was I just ignorant of how business works?
Did I not know what I was doing?
Was I not experienced enough?
Not a chance.
Fact is, I was more qualified than 99% of franchisees.
That was why investors and the banks so eagerly backed me.
You see, what happened was… we were blindsided by market forces beyond our control. The best way to describe it would be like a tornado. You can be the most experienced home builder on the planet, but a raging tornado can wipe out your house and all your possessions in a heartbeat, and there’s nothing you can do but watch.
And in our case…
We Lost Several Big Accounts Overnight.
How?
Remember the big 2008 financial crash?
Well, being in Houston, “energy captial of the world”, our big accounts were energy companies. These companies would buy 50-100 lunches sometimes in a single day, and we were making a lot of money, extremely fast (right in line with our business plan).
In fact, the money came so fast, we started planning to open another 8 stores.
Then the economy tanked.
And suddenly those big accounts stopped ordering.
You see, most of them were in the oil business and, as you may remember, the 2008 recession caused oil to drop from over $140 a barrel to $60 per barrel. The result was, they stopped ordering food for their employees while the rest of our regular customers fled to our biggest competitor who was offering $5 foot long subs (an offer which by the way hurt our competitors’ franchisees as much as it hurt me, but that’s another story).
How can you compete with that?
How can you predict market forces like that?
You can’t.
And every franchise is subject to this.
Even if you’re not in a restaurant franchise — there are sweeping market forces that can happen at any time (again, rushing up on you like a tornado) and…
Wipe Out Even The Smartest And Most Experienced Franchise Owners.
Anyway, here is the point:
That is just ONE example of what can happen to franchisees who are not prepared.
And that’s why I created this website.
To prepare YOU for franchising.
This is one of my “missions” in life.
I would have gladly paid thousands of dollars to learn what I will give you free on this website. In many ways, it is exactly like being handed over $500k in “street smart” franchise experience… for free.
