- Little screening. They would sell the $65K+ franchise to anyone who came up with the money.
- Little support. They want you to "sit in the basement and make cold calls all day long" - their words - for the first 6 months to a year.
- A franchisee becomes a glorified salesman for the corporate brand and pays for the privilege: initial fees of tens of thousands of dollars plus thousand or two/month paid to the corporate.
- They expect you to follow their marketing message and pay them additional fees for it, but it generates almost no leads. They want you to only use the corporate message which is restrictive and ineffective.
- They are paranoid about their franchisees "stealing" their intellectual properties while they have built their business from on the knowledge of franchisees and many other people.
- Non-exclusive territory. Their franchisees step on each others' toes and fight with each other, often ruthlessly and bitterly for business.
- Too many "don'ts": don't record yourself (this is a training business!), don't blog, don't do social media. (Except corporate supplied and endorsed materials which don't help much in the local market.)
- Old-timers get "grandfathered" and protected against many of the new and restrictive policies, which change frequently.