A lawyer is going to look it over and tell you if there are any legal gotcha’s, but they aren’t going to give you business or financial advice.
Do you want to spend 80-100 hours a week working for less than minimum wage? The lawyer doesn’t know the answer to that. The lawyer doesn’t know what kind of market potential, hasn’t done research into the industry, couldn’t tell you if things are overpriced or not.
Then a small business advisor, or something of that nature. I thought a business lawyer may point out something like “hey – do you understand what this means?” (I’m sure our property lawyer did, including stuff he felt we shouldn’t be paying for) but, if not, run it through both.
The only time I did any stock purchasing/selling was through TD Ameritrade, and everything went really well. (Including my profits, though they obviously didn’t have anything to do with that.)
Even during a time of low inflation, not raising prices for a full decade is ludicrous. That sandwich probably changed from a money-maker to a loss-leader during that time.
Possibly, but there were a handful of items that corporate liked to keep at a consistent price point. The JJ had just gone up from 99 cents not long before i started there, and the tacos were 2 for 99 cents for something like 25 years, and the franchisees weren’t allowed to raise the price until a few years ago when it went to $1.29 for 2.
There were a few times when they had us stop putting tomatoes on the JJ because tomato prices were high. Also, most people ordered it with cheese, and the two American singles they got cost a lot less than the 40 cents they paid for it.
Yeah, in a time long passed, MickieD dropped one of the two slices of cheese in their Double Cheeseburger and tagged it McDouble in order to keep the price point under a buck.
I actually preferred it, liking the cheese to burger ratio better. I order a 2x1 at In-and-Out for the same reason.
Adding to my own post; in any event, fries and soda are where burger restaurants make all of their money, since the ingredients cost a few cents per portion and they get sold for several bucks each.
Wow. That’s a really nice thing to hear. It’s been tough as I don’t have nearly as much time to post as I used to, and I’ve never been a fan of the new board software. Still, I’ve been here for nearly 20 years and I hope I’ll never completely disappear.
I worked at a movie theater which had pretty reasonable prices for food. It was on a military base so kept prices low not to gouge military families (we ourselves were federal government employees working there, so weird being a civil servant selling movie tickets and candy). So the prices were low, even ticket prices were crazy cheap. We even had people who bought a movie ticket to get into the lobby, then bought food, and left with the food without watching the film.
There we made most profit on soda and popcorn. Same general idea.
I certainly feel bad for the people who lose their money, but one benefit of calling out their behavior as foolish is that it enlightens other people that it is a foolish behavior. Hopefully some people will learn to be wary from stories like this rather than by getting burned in deals like this. Too many people are too trusting of companies and sign things without understanding what they are signing. If it’s just something relatively benign like a gym membership that won’t let you out of the contract, no big deal. But when someone is signing a contract which involves a significant portion of their assets, it is foolish to sign without having a good understanding of what is being agreed to.
The problems with the deal in the OP wouldn’t really even need a lawyer to point out. The numbers are there for anyone to work out themselves. If someone can’t figure out that this is a bad deal on their own, then it’s foolish to get into this deal. If nothing else, stories like this should have people realize that if they don’t understand the business model and are making their decisions based on the lofty promises in the sales pitch, they are being foolish if they take the deal.
I take your points, but am still saddened and angerby a system that allows businesses to develop and deploy a business model that depends on tricking people, taking advantage of them, whatever we think about the capacities people “should have” to resist, and plays on good human emotions–trust, sympathy, empathy, community–for profit.
Marks RNATB on the ‘potential immortal’ list. Do you know Kenneth?
You’re both right.
@Filmore, it is completely dumb to buy a business unless you are experienced in the business itself (or the business of business, a rarer skill), can read the contract, and work out the numbers. No doubt about it. You may even be able to skate by on the Charles Foster Kane model - you buy a yogurt franchise and, because you have so much money to start out with, the franchise is never undercapitalized and you can learn on the fly, eventually becoming a great yogutprenuer.
But to @Kropotkin’s point, it’s almost a matter of faith among a large subset of Americans that business success is just theirs for the taking, that they know better than the guy running this joint. They buy into LinkedIn culture, with “hang in there” memes and tales of toughness, sacrifice, and inspiration. They go to networking meetings to boost each others morale, then go to bankers to see how long they can make this stretch even longer, long enough for the elusive success to find them. Their cash reserves drain, second jobs are applied for, kids start to work for free, loans are taken out, secured and unsecured, because the only people they really know in the business is the franchiser who sold them the damned thing and all they want are their fees and royalties.
So you have a society which tells a segment of the population that a business is almost a birthright, an education system not at all geared towards process and mathematic analysis, a masculinization process which prevents many of these people from saying they are in trouble and asking for help, and predatory capitalists. What could go wrong?
Which branch was the base?
A little known fact, and in the digital age may no longer be true, is that congress budgeted a small amount of money for keeping the troops happy. The army and its spin-off, the air force spent their money on things like recreation centers and hobby shops where you had equipment like darkroom equipment and woodworking gear.
The navy, having the majority of its personnel at sea and not so many on shore spent its share on buying 16mm movies and projection equipment. On ships the movies were free, on shore would be a theater with a nominal charge like 25- or 50-cents. One of my duty stations (I was in the navy – I was not a sailor) was a joint command so we had both a theater and hobby shop.
The vast majority of recreational stuff was paid for by profits from the exchanges and commissaries.
The most basic due diligence would be to Google the name of the business plus scam and to call a few franchisees in nearby regions and ask how it’s going.
I’m with you, but . . . haven’t you just defined “marketing” as it’s implemented most commonly?
Occasional visits are better than none! Even tho you are a bigshot lawyer now, I always think “sunglasses guy” when I see your name. And not in a bad way. 
Spot on. Marketing for any product doesn’t usually point out it’s downsides. It’s all puppies and rainbows. You have to be able to sort the wheat from the chaff. If you can’t do it, and many people can’t, get some help or run away.
Yes, except I left out “make use of sophisticated research by psychologists to manipulate people by playing to their fears and hopes and human frailties.” The fact that “puffery”–the bloating of claims about products–is recognized under the law as acceptable business practice is just the tip of the iceberg
[Yossarian] I intend to live forever or die trying! [/Yossarian]
I tried that for PuroClean, along with a few other attempts to dig up dirt on their franchise program, and didn’t find any red flags. So maybe it’s not as easy as it might seem to find out the real story.
Calling other franchise owners is a good strategy, but even there, you might run into a self-selection process - you are more likely to reach the ones who “made it” and of course you won’t get any that tanked and disappeared.