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Today, with franchise opportunities abound, people can invest in everything from restaurants to hotels and even gourmet dog treats. With this many opportunities, how do you know which one is the best investment for your time and money? While it is not the most glamorous or seemingly fun franchise opportunity, investing in freight franchises can definitely be one of the most lucrative. In fact, industry experts estimate positive growth in the coming years for the multi-billion dollar shipping and transportation industry.

With positive projected growth and trillions of dollars in annual revenue, many people might consider starting a freight franchise as a sole proprietor in hopes of receiving maximum return on investment. However, those considering this route should take into consideration that a sole proprietorship of freight franchises will likely require increased start-up capital, designing a set of company-best practices from the ground up, more time to build a reputation, and more.

By choosing to partner with a freight franchise that has a solid industry reputation, you get the benefit of taking advantage of their industry experience and capitalizing on their well-known name. More importantly, partnering with freight franchises has shown to be more profitable than a sole proprietorship since franchisees can take advantage of expert training and support, quicker start-up, company promotions, and proven business models.

Another advantage to becoming a freight franchisee is that the franchisor has well-established relationships with companies and can provide excellent sales leads for acquiring new customers. Plus, the franchising company has also likely worked out logistical issues to ensure that your customers’ shipments transport easily, quickly, and at the best cost possible.

The worst thing that could happen in the franchise relationship is a franchisee which has been terminated for cause taking revenge. You see, if the termination is not done right it can severely hurt the brand name of the franchising company online. It’s even more critical today than it ever has been considering social networks, and the viral nature of negative comments in social media. Franchisors have often been criticized by franchisee attorneys, when settling legal disputes and demanding a “gag order” or legal requirement with penalties that the franchisee never talk about the negotiation or the termination, or any of the details.

Many believe this goes against free speech, however in business law, the parties can agree to anything they wish, and generally it is a stipulation that is put in there by franchisor attorneys to prevent the franchisee from causing financial harm to the brand name post termination. A rogue franchisee which has been in a franchising system for a while knows the ins and outs, and there are many ways that they can go online anonymously, or have a friend post information which will be detracting to the franchisor, perhaps spilling the beans of a failed product launch, or an upcoming change with a franchising company.

Now then, there have been franchisees which have put up websites such as “Such and Such Company Sucks dot com” and in this case the franchisor can have that website turned off because it violates their Federal Trademark and copyright, as it uses their company name in the website domain. Nevertheless, it takes time to get that done, and by then the damage has already hurt the brand name. And even if the franchisor can soothe a rogue franchisee, get the website taken down, the chances of them collecting any damages are slim to none because a former franchisee that’s been terminated, probably doesn’t have any money.

Before I franchise my company, I ran one of our mobile service units with a team of workers, in the automotive sector. We often got tips, and I quickly realized that I needed to share those tips with the rest of the crew. As the crew leader, truck manager, and sole proprietor, generally the customer would give me the tip, and it was very easy for me to put in my pocket and forget about it. However, those tips should be distributed amongst the rest of the crew.

After I franchised my company, I made sure that I put this into the confidential operations manual. You see, I wanted the franchisees to realize the power of those tips from the customers, because it increased customer service, and made employees care more. When the employees know they are getting the tips they are more likely to give better service, and be more polite to the customer. In doing so this also causes more referrals and increased business from each and every customer.

If you go into a Starbucks you’ll notice there is a tip jar, and when someone puts money in the tip jar that money is distributed amongst all the employees at Starbucks, based on the numbers of hours they’d worked. This is the fair way to do it, and if each employee knows that they make more money each week, even if it’s only $5-$10 in additional tips, they are liable to give better service to each of us customers in line when we are ordering our Frappachinos. Do you see that point?

What I find very interesting, as now that I retired I do a little franchise consulting, and I often produce franchise manuals for franchising companies, is that many of the franchisors aren’t thinking here, yet so many of them run a mobile service businesses, or companies that survive and thrive other customer service. And when they don’t give good customer service, those franchised outlets fail. I’ve always wondered how come franchisors that develop their perfect business model don’t have such policies.

As a former franchisor, now retired, I often think back about the relationships I’ve built with our franchisees when we first got going. It seems to me that our first 25 to 50 franchisees were all on my speed dial, I knew them all by name, as well as their families, and even their pets. However, as the franchise company grew larger and larger, I didn’t know all the franchisees by name, nor did I talk to them very much. Rather I relied on our older franchisees that I had a relationship with to feed the information the marketplace to help us modify our franchise business model to compete.

Now then, I would like to explain how old a franchisor founder can get into this trap. You see, if you are constantly talking to a small group of franchisees, they will come to you with their complaints, and you will solve their individual problems, and yet you won’t assist other franchisees with the same problem, or handle their frustrations, and therefore allow hostility to form with disgruntled franchisees, that you had no idea were out there.

Sometimes, it’s good to take some of those original franchisees and put them into more of a leadership position, making then the regional heads of larger groups of franchisees, and sort of a mini Franchisee Association within your organization. Therefore, franchisees that are having problems will go to them first, and then when those leadership franchisees get a number of complaints which are similar, they will come to you. I used to have a rule; “call three, then me,” in other words, talk to other franchisees first about any challenge you have, then if no one knows the answer call me personally and here’s my direct cell phone number.

It is often said in the franchising industry that allowing franchisees which are too entrepreneurial into your system is a mistake. If you aren’t in the franchise industry, you probably haven’t ever heard about this, and you are saying; “huh?” But perhaps I should explain it to you. You see, franchisors have a specific business model, and each franchisee that joins the system is to run their business model exactly in that specific way.

As a former franchisor founder, I can tell you that in the many years of developing our business model, I had built all the mistakes out of the company, and continually refined it until it was good enough to franchise. If a new franchisee comes in and doesn’t want to follow the program, or acts like a rogue franchisee trying to modify and change the system here and there, they are liable to go back and make all the mistakes that the business model had built out of the program. Therefore it makes more sense to only allow franchisees that will follow the system exactly, without deviation, into the system.

Okay so, now that I’ve explained why this is important, let me explain why it is also a double edge sword. You see, in the marketplace you need innovation, and when customers ask for certain things, you need to oblige. If a franchisee is following the system, they are liable to tell a customer; “I am sorry, our policy is to do it this way.” And if all of your franchisees say that, and there is a trend in need, desire, or wants from customers out there, eventually you will have to acquiesce, and your entire franchise system will have to change.

Of course change comes very hard if no one within your organization is entrepreneurial. Now then, those entrepreneurial franchisees who have somehow worked their way into your system, are going to be hard to please, because they want to do things their way instead of your way. I would submit to you as a franchisor founder you need to take your most entrepreneurial franchisees, who will also be the most outspoken, challenging your system at every turn, and often becoming a pain in your rear end – and you should put those franchisees on your speed dial.