ANPR Hotline

June 4, 1997 2:50 pm

Hello, my name is Lance Winslow, Car Wash Guys International, 5699 Cannon Road, Suite 130, Agora Hills, California, 91301. The phone number is 888-Wash-Guy.

I have a couple of concerns. I am a new franchisor and I noticed that on the front of my UFOC I have to disclose that you guys have not checked this information, you don't know if it is correct, and you suggest that the franchisee go see an attorney, an accountant, or someone who is of competence.

So any way, being a new franchisor, it thought that was great. They should probably go see someone like that. It makes sense. Well, various franchisees, prospective franchisees, have been out to see people and they'll go see a financial advisor. Well, it is real interesting that a financial advisor usually is hooked up with some kind of firm that sells life insurance, annuities, variable annuities, bonds, stocks, whatever. And they look into my franchise and they say, of course, first liar wins, right. This is a terrible franchise, invest your money with Prime America, we can get us 19% a year on your money and that would be much better than buying a franchise.

So, the franchisee, prospective franchisee, says I talked to a financial advisor and they said it just wasn't good for me, I should put my money in the stock market. Well, we all know that the stock market is going to crash here, probably before you transcribe this thing, and it is really interesting that who is considered an expert, a financial advisor.

Now they will go talk to an attorney too, who has never even seen a franchise UFOC because he does not specialize in the industry, doesn't know a thing about it. Mine is a very standard, like most, and they will say that there are stipulations in here that just probably aren't very good for you and you probably shouldn't sign this. What does an attorney know about information on franchising if he specializes in something else.

The same thing for accountants. What does an accountant know, what can they tell the franchisee about this document if I don't disclose earnings claims, because I am new and I don't have enough franchisees to put a disclosure of that in there anyhow. Now in the future, of course, I will, but right now I can't because there aren't any franchisees.

So now we have all these things that says to go talk to an expert in the field. But I am finding that the experts aren't expert at all.

Let me tell you another story. I have a franchisee that went to the SBA to talk to a score counselor. This guy was 60 years old, nice guy, meant well, but his main experience was working for some big corporation. He didn't know diddly about franchises. As a matter of fact, he was an Amway salesperson in his retired life and volunteered for score. He told people that if they invested in the franchise, they couldn't make another investment for the next 10 years. So he discouraged them from doing it, and they decided not to do it. Meanwhile, they have 3 kids just about college age that really could have used the money. We have a $300,000 route for them. I am in the mobile car wash industry, and they were only going to invest $52,000 and they were going to make $300,000 gross a year and probably net a minimum of $125,000 a year and this score . . . . .