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What is Private Franchising? It is Nothing Someone Made It Up By Lance Winslow

The Federal Trade Commission has an obligation to the general public, their stated consumer education mission and to the over regulated franchising industry and the small business operators running Biz Ops to separate the two business models by way of legal definition. Any failure to completely separate them will trigger additional problems down the road and cause the current on-going process of rule review to continue, without any formalization for decades.

This of course is good for attorneys who make money on these ambiguities for lawsuits and great for Federal Trade Commission tenure and job security. A few also realize it could allow for additional travel budgets of governmental employees during these rule making processes on the taxpayers money. It would also trigger more time-out, “let’s think about this one”-coffee breaks on various floors of the Federal Trade Commission’s fully furnished 1970 desk style ambiance. However it is not good for consumers or industry and creates unleveled playing field on one hand and complex barriers to entry for start-up entrepreneurs with regional dominance and efficiencies, which lend them selves well to the franchise business model on the other. This is because Biz Op MLM salespeople are purporting that they as similar to franchised business, by using terms like ‘Private Franchising’ in their presentation.

These MLM business sell in coffee shops and public presentations, which would send chills down the spine of any compliant franchising executive or real franchisor. So then, what is a real franchisor? What is private franchising? What is a Business Opportunity? What is an MLM business? What is a hybrid or cross-breed of any of these combinations? How on Earth in laymen terms can the Federal Trade Commission explain this to us, so that we might explain the differences to consumers when asked. Where on the Federal Trade Commission website is there a place which describes all of them and the possible variations? Due to the introduction of the term “Private Franchising” in the interim between 1999 comments and 2004 evaluations of possible definition revisions by Federal Trade Commission it appears that the definition landscape in the real world is hyperspacing the definitional upgrades to the franchise rule in the wonderful world of bureaucracy. We should not kid ourselves into thinking that the latest FTC report or any subsequent changes now, will change anything in the actual market place as to the number of; non-existent fraud events in franchising. The number of fraud cases in franchising is basically nil as per Federal Trade Commission’s own statements to congress. Yet the MLM crowd is manipulated truth by miss using the word franchising and that misrepresentation is damaging consumers. Think about it.