A Little Franchise Brokers/Consultant's Tussle

Here is a quote from Mr. Seid concerning us:

"It is important to point out that not all brokers practice their craft the same way, which highlights the fact that obfuscation is not an essential element of franchise sales. Each of the major broker networks, while disclosing that it is paid by the franchisor, in one form or another represents that it provides no-cost, beneficial services to prospective franchisees. On some of the web sites, though, a prospective franchisee is led to believe that the broker is its coach, adviser or consultant. Indeed, some brokers describe prospective franchisee as their clients, even though they are paid and are agents for the franchisor. An assertion that the prospective franchisee is the client when the broker is a paid agent of the franchisor is totally unsupportable. The conflict of interest and the unfairness to a potential franchisee are apparent."

Mr. Seid doesn't seem to be a big fan of franchise brokers-consultants. Howard Bassuk, the former president of Frannet, a franchise brokerage outfit that I left last year, told our entire group during one of our "meetings", that "Michael Seid is starting to warm up to the idea of franchise brokers." Ok, Howard. I am certainly feeling Seid's love.

In an interesting twist, Kelly Spors just added a Part 2 to her article, prompted no doubt by my op-ed post, and by  a number of emails she woke up to, when she logged in to her WSJ site.

Read it here,Kelly. Kelly? Kelllllly? Cmon. Call me, and let's chat. Our services are not perfect, and there certainly are some bad eggs out there, but if your readers are prospective franchise buyers, don't you owe it to them to get the entire story out?

{Kelly, I am really easy to reach. I'm even giving you my Toll-Free Franchise Number. It is 1-800-460-8299. My email is franpro at sbcglobal dot net}
Oh yeah, here is my website, Kelly...