In 1995-6, my GF and I were talking about our depressed economic situations, and we lamented that we didn’t have a franchise to sell cell phones, and gabbed about how our fortunes would be changed were we to be in that situation. Of course, when the opportunity came up to get a cell phone franchise in 2001, I went to a location and found that the opportunity was as rare as Amway.
So, what would it have taken in 1995? More specifically, how could I have got into the loop? What did they have that I didn’t?
thanks,
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Nobody was selling cell phones in the mid-1990’s. Cell phones were given away by service providers in return for signing a contract to use their service.
Contracts were typically sold in one of two ways: either through a company-owned store, in which case the way to operate one was to get hired by the company as a store manager, or through an existing electronics retailer like Circuit City or Wolf Camera with whom the cellular company would contract. There was no such thing as a “franchise” just to sell or service cell phones.