Jul 16, 2026 · 38 min · 11 segments
Most people have strong opinions about franchising—but how many of those opinions are actually true? In this episode of Franchise Unfiltered, Wes Barefoot reacts to a podcast criticizing…
And I can tell you this from my experience at this point, I've helped well over 100 people get into franchise businesses.
The primary motivation for almost everyone I've worked with is not solely financial, it's lifestyle driven, right? They are trying to move away from more stress to less stress.
They're trying to build a life on their own terms where they're not dictated by someone else's schedule, and they're not putting in all of their time, hard work and energy to build something that someone else owns.
So love the premise that that these guys are focusing on in their podcasts figured I would throw that in there.
Well, I think franchising ends up being one of those things that people assume is the fast track to success.
Instead of starting a business, I'm not going to be a plumber.
I'm going to go buy a plumbing franchise.
I'm going to buy a moving franchise.
Well, McDonald's is so successful, so my new food franchise will be absolutely phenomenal because McDonald's was phenomenal.
It becomes this excuse to go to do a buy a business or do something that you assume is going to be successful because it has a name attached to it.
And it's funny because I think the failure rate on franchises is no different than the failure rate among everybody else.
The only real difference is, is it looks like your franchise has been in your neighborhood longer because the owner who couldn't make money got kicked out.
And then they move the next guy in who also couldn't make money.
But the building has stayed there and the business has stayed there for a long time.
And it's a really good point because the franchisor is trying to sell franchises.
They don't want the market to see it's failing.
So when a franchisee is failing, they just move in corporately, take it over, run it for a little bit, sell it to another person.
Franchisee.
But they won't let it close from the... point of view, it looks like it's successful.
Yeah, like it's always been there.
Yeah.
And I can tell you this from my experience at this point, I've helped well over 100 people get into franchise businesses.
The primary motivation for almost everyone I've worked with is not solely financial, it's lifestyle driven, right? They are trying to move away from more stress to less stress.
They're trying to build a life on their own terms where they're not dictated by someone else's schedule, and they're not putting in all of their time, hard work and energy to build something that someone else owns.
So love the premise that that these guys are focusing on in their podcasts figured I would throw that in there.
Well, I think franchising ends up being one of those things that people assume is the fast track to success.
Instead of starting a business, I'm not going to be a plumber.
I'm going to go buy a plumbing franchise.
I'm going to buy a moving franchise.
Well, McDonald's is so successful, so my new food franchise will be absolutely phenomenal because McDonald's was phenomenal.
It becomes this excuse to go to do a buy a business or do something that you assume is going to be successful because it has a name attached to it.
And it's funny because I think the failure rate on franchises is no different than the failure rate among everybody else.
The only real difference is, is it looks like your franchise has been in your neighborhood longer because the owner who couldn't make money got kicked out.
And then they move the next guy in who also couldn't make money.
But the building has stayed there and the business has stayed there for a long time.
And it's a really good point because the franchisor is trying to sell franchises.
They don't want the market to see it's failing.
So when a franchisee is failing, they just move in corporately, take it over, run it for a little bit, sell it to another person.
Franchisee.
But they won't let it close from the... point of view, it looks like it's successful.
Yeah, like it's always been there.
Yeah.
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