The Franchise Ratings Guide: 3000 Franchisees Expose the Best & Worst Franchise Opportunities [Paperback]

Gary Kowalski (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 28, 2006

In America, a new franchise outlet opens every eight minutes—a rate that is accelerating both here and worldwide—yet to date, no publication has provided more than a cursory glimpse into the owners’ experiences. The Franchise Ratings Guide is a deeper examination, revealing an industry in which deceit is common and a full 30% of franchise owners regret their purchase.

The Franchise Ratings Guide provides essential and thorough advice on pre-purchase steps, in-depth, actual owner insight from more than 3,000 franchise owners, and reference data on each company surveyed, including contact, investment, and royalty information. It’s got all the information you need to make an informed investment decision.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Mr. Kowalski is a former franchisee of H2O Plus, a former Managing Director for Parson Consulting, and is currently Manager of Operations for a start-up mortgage bank in San Francisco, CA. He is not affiliated with any franchise company or organization.

Product Details

• Paperback: 508 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse, Inc. (February 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595380948
• ISBN-13: 978-0595380947
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,086,774 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great read and invaluable aid, April 29, 2006

By 

R Marc (Fairfield, Connecticut) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Franchise Ratings Guide: 3000 Franchisees Expose the Best & Worst Franchise Opportunities (Paperback)

I've done quite a bit of research on franchises and there are some great books available, but The Franchise Ratings Guide offers unique insights I haven't seen anywhere else. It's the only book I've found that provides feedback from actual franchise owners on questions such as work hours, ease of communications with franchisors and other franchisees, training, income, grievance solving, royalty, stress levels and the ultimate question of whether or not owners would make the decision to buy their particular franchise again. The book also offers best/worst lists as well as detailed responses broken down by the 216 franchises. There's also franchise specific contact, term and fee details. Overall, the text is concise and informative, and should not to be neglected. Chapter three is a must read!

It's great to get real world perspective from those who actually bought and own a particular franchise. Whether you're trying to decide if franchise ownership is right for you or make the difficult decision of which franchise to move ahead with, you owe it to yourself to get this book. I've bought two copies (one for me and one for a potential partner)

Highly recommended for anyone considering investing in a franchise business!

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Questionable value, March 27, 2007

By 

PH (USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Franchise Ratings Guide: 3000 Franchisees Expose the Best & Worst Franchise Opportunities (Paperback)

I purchased this book based on the other reviews but was disappointed. While it does give information based on feedback from actual franchisee, I question the value because of the small sample size of many of the reviews. Do you really want to base a buying decision based on responses of 16 out of a total of 4500 franchisees? I personally won't put much faith on rankings with such a small sample size. However, some of the smaller franchises had a much better response rate which could provide good insight.

I also would have like to see some hard income numbers. The survey asked if they were making what they expected or more or less. This is somewhat worthless without knowing how realistic their expectation were.

1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent resource tool, January 29, 2007

By 

E. WOO "the reader" (pleasanton,ca. usa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Franchise Ratings Guide: 3000 Franchisees Expose the Best & Worst Franchise Opportunities (Paperback)

This book is great for anyone who wants to get into a franchise or to know more about franchisees. Its definitely open my eyes about how the franchisees operates and whats the pro's and con's.