Peter,
To be honest I'm with you on that one, however Ben is a very good businessman and his core business is selling products to the general public and professional restorers who use his products on clients leather, that will never stop as that is where he makes his real money. LTT are exactly the same and Joe Public can buy any products from either company and will be given the same advice on applications.
Franchaising is a way of giving national recognition to a particular brand, in this case the Furniture Clinic brand. People can hopefully then expect to get the same level and quality of service from any FC franchaisee, similar to McDonalds, Chem-dry, Rainbow, Molly Maid, etc, etc. This is the main reason we decided to delve into the franchaising route, I've looked at many franchaises in the past but have always been put off for one reason or another, main one being that you had to pay a percentage of turnover to the franchaise. FC is different in that it's a fixed monthly fee regardless of turnover levels
As for the costs of the franchaise, it's £7000 for the initial area, including 2 weeks intensive training, products, equipment, etc. Then a fixed fee of £200/month, this is about the same as we were spending on trying to advertise our own leather repair services previously....... with very little success.
There are grants out there for different things in different areas, best to speak to your local Business Link for local information, we've done very well out of grants.
