Bradley Sugars Successful Franchising Review

Successful Franchising by Brad Sugars

Book Review - 1.5 Stars

How can I put this nicely?

"Successful Franchising" by Bradley J. Sugars is a shocker.

The book is so bad that I had to go back and remind myself about my own rating scale:

• 2 Stars - Poor -This book doesn't belong in your library.
   
  
• 1 Star - Unreadable - This book should never have been printed and the waste of the trees is criminal.

But Successful Franchising is also a book that drives me crazy.

It's a ramble through the foothills of what Brad Sugars knows about franchising, promising a lot but delivering virtually nothing.

You see, I know that the author knows a lot about successful franchising. He just doesn't reveal any of his secrets in the book.

Bradley Sugars is founder and chairman of Action COACH, the world's biggest business coaching franchise with more than 1,000 offices in 22 countries.

Successful Franchising should have been a cracker, it is a major disappointment!

"But Paul, what's so bad about it?"

Who's it for

First Brad Sugars promises to tell you "everything you need to know about buying a franchise" and "how to franchise your own business". But sorry Successful Franchising misses on both those counts.

Personally I would have preferred separate books.

One from the franchisee's perspective - "Help I'm thinking about buying a franchise with my life's savings. I've always wanted to be my own boss but I don't want to waste my money buying a bad franchise."

The second from the franchisor's - "Help. I think I've got a great idea for a franchise. My local business works well but the business type mean that it is essentially local. I want to grow and make lots of money and I think that franchising is just the thing. But I don't want to spend huge fees with a specialist franchising consultant if the business actually fails an obvious test or franchising isn't really for me."

They are two very different standpoints and while it's useful for the one side to understand the objectives of the other, it creates muddled thinking having a book that addresses both.

Lazy writing based on cut and paste

I find it difficult to believe that Brad Sugars wrote this book (and I have since heard that he used ghostwriters but that doesn't absolve him of responsibility for the poor quality of Successful Franchising.)

I've seen him present live at his "Billionaire In Training" event and Brad Sugars is a great communicator. Not everybody's "cup of tea" but I found him funny, entertaining, compelling and with a good message but not one of those adjectives fits this book.

Much of the text of Successful Franchising looks as if it has been cut and pasted from other books and resources. There are few joins and the writing is very dry, text book style rather than management book style.

But in other places the writing is unbelievably sloppy.

I remembered this quote because it is at the end of the book (page 114) when he is writing about the relationship between franchisor and franchisee "This relationship is far more complicated than is the case with other businesses because it is a complex one..."

Successful Franchising is too short

Before we get the Action COACH advertising copy the book runs out on page 118 but don't worry. You can always read the 29 pages promoting Action COACH at the end.

You probably won't want to because the 118 pages are already scattered with praise for Action COACH.

They've been up to their old tricks again

It seems that on Amazon, Brad Sugars has a loyal bunch of fans with rave 5 star reviews. Subtle they are not as they only review books by Bradley Sugars.

At the moment on Amazon.com there are just two reviews for Successful Franchising - both 5 stars.

One by someone who seems to have read 12 books, the other 9 books - all by Brad Sugars and all rated with 5 stars.

I have given you the Amazon.com links so you can see for yourself what I mean.

Such manipulation is unworthy of an organisation as good as and as prominent as Action COACH. What they do reflects on the entire business coaching profession.

The strange thing is I don't understand why Brad Sugars and his associates do it. The profit from the sale of a book is so small compared to the damaged reputation that a book this bad does to Action COACH.

I mentioned it before when I reviewed "The Business Coach" (a little bit better) and "Instant Cashflow" (much better and a book that I recommend you buy) also by Brad Sugars where many more people have been at posting artificial reviews.

The content in Successful Franchising is not good enough

Chapter 1 - Introduction

A quick review of the different ways of getting into business - start it yourself, buy wholesale (from the previous owner and Brad Sugars shows that he's a capitalist's capitalist when it comes to negotiating a price - start at zero and work up) or buy retail (pay close to the asking price - usually a franchise).

Chapter 2 - The Action Story

First we get Brad Sugars' background and until I read this, I had no idea that he used to work for Robert Kiyosaki (of Rich Dad Poor Dad fame) which certainly explains why some of the Billionaire In Training material was so derivative of Kiyosaki.

Then we have Action COACH's vision and mission statements followed by their 14 points of culture followed by Brad Sugars Entrepreneur's Credo and his role categories.

Next, just in case you missed that the point of the book is to promote Action COACH, we have a description of the Action COACH franchising systems followed by how one system is broken down into different sub-systems and the list of manuals that a new Action COACH franchisee will receive.

Do you get the idea that he may be pushing an Action COACH franchise?

So far we have 27 pages of introductory waffle. But would an Action COACH wannabee be turned on or off by this book?

Part 1 - Humble Beginnings

A story of the Howard Johnson's franchise going back to 1925. This would have meant more to me if I had heard of Howard Johnson. It is then followed by some brief details about franchising.

Part 2 - So You Want To Buy A Franchise, Do You?

A little look at why you want to be self employed.

This section makes the point that you can go into franchising for several reasons.

Either because you want to run a business selling hamburgers, fixing paint chips on cars, unblocking drains...

Or because you want to have your own business and buying a franchise is a good stepping stone. You have the chance to see how someone else has designed a business to work again and again.

Part 3 - The Business Mind-Set

After an introduction to the Action COACH Business Chassis (for my comments see my review of The Business Coach) we then have the six levels of entrepreneurial mind-set (confusingly from 0 to 5 and clearly inspired by Robert Kiyosaki).

Part 4 - Buying A Franchise

This is probably the bit that most people buy the book for but when they get home they will find that it only goes from page 49 to page 58 and Brad Sugars' Top Tips are simplistic.

Part 5 - Selling A Franchise

Just in case you get confused this isn't about franchising your business.

It is about selling your franchise as a franchisee when you have realised that you are bored, it doesn't work as you expected or you've made so much money...

Or at least that's what it's supposed to be about but the person tasked with cutting and pasting got carried away so you get more about being a good salesperson (for general products and services) than you do about selling a franchise.

Part 6 - Franchising Your Business

So you don't want to be a franchisee but you want to franchise your business. Well Brad Sugars gives you a summary of his knowledge as one of the most successful franchisors of a professional franchise in the world.

The trouble is that it only runs from page 77 to 91 so you can tell that it's hardly an in-depth examination of a major decision you may or may not take.

Although it's short, it is the best section of the book and the one bit that stopped me dishing out my first one star grade.

In this section you will have a brief introduction to:

• How to go about franchising your business
   
  
• Franchise versus license - a license allows someone to use your brand name.
   
  
• A franchising example - surprise, surprise it's an Action COACH client showing how clever Action COACH were.
  
  
• The structure - Brad recommends master franchises.
   
  
• Brad's top tips for franchising a business
   
  
• Common mistakes

Part 7 - A Question Of Relationships

The master of cut and paste has been at it again as we get a bit about customer service, a bit about stakeholders and a bit about communications.

Conclusion on Successful Franchising by Bradley Sugars

We've reached the end of Successful Franchising.

Did I mention that the book runs out of any steam that it has by page 118?

My Verdict on Successful Franchising

Successful Franchsing by Brad Sugars is horrid and it completely fails in its goals.

It's lucky that I'm in a charitable mood and given it a 1.5 star rating.

Yes Successful Franchising really is this bad!

You won't learn how to franchise your business with this book.

You won't learn how to buy a franchise with this book.

And even, with its shameless self promotion of Action COACH, you won't come away with the right impression of Brad Sugars' major achievement in creating the world's largest business coaching franchise.

It's another wasted opportunity. Don't waste your money buying this franchising book or your time reading it.

Over the next few months I will try to find you franchising books that are worth reading. If you can recommend a better book on franchising then please, let me know.

Franchising is too an important area for me to ignore.

Do You Agree With Me That Successful Franchising Is A Terrible Book?

I well any and all comments but if you are an Action Coach, don't pull the Amazon trick so declare your interest.

Update - August 2008

"Successful Franchising" has been removed from my library and sent to a charity shop. I couldn't justify giving the book any space in my collection.

See two videos of Brad Sugars explaining the benefits of business coaching.

Other books reviewed by Bradley Sugars - The Business Coach, Instant Cashflow,

Comments

[Bill Dueease]

You uncovered the real purpose of his book. To promote the continued sales of Action Coach Franchises.

I commend you for having the courage to write the truth. Are you being generous with your 1.5 rating?

The manipulated self promotions Brad uses by having shills rate his book artificially high at five stars on Amazon IS a very common practice he employs to promote himself and his franchise sales. Look into his self anointed top franchiser awards.

Brad would be foolish to reveal any insider information about his franchising schemes.

I would encourage you to find out whether the people who purchased his franchises ever made a penny from their costly purchases. The only winner in Brad's franchise scheme is Brad.

[Paul Simister]

Hi Bill

Thanks for commenting on the blog. It's always nice to hear from other people in the profession.

It sounds like you have very strong views about Brad Sugars and ActionCOACH.

I certainly think some of the books are a major letdown and do a disservice to the concept of business coaching. I would have hoped the largest firm would have set a better example.

However here in the UK Midlands I hear some good things about the local ActionCOACHs. Some not so good things as well but that might be because people think that's what I want to hear as they are the competitor I encounter most.

As my blog is getting with hits by people who seem to be interested in starting a career as a business coach, I was thinking about having a feature on each of the business coaching/advisory franchises.

So watch this space. I may give a chance for happy current ActionCOACHes and any disgruntled former ActuinCOACHes a changes to express their views.

Now that could be very interesting.

I don't know anything about his top franchiser awards.

Back on the "Successful Franchising" book, I suspect that my copy will be heading for the paper recycling skip as I can't imagine ever wanting to read it again. A man can only take so much.

I wasn't expecting him to spill too many of the beans on ActionCOACH but I had expected a good general book about franchising. I fail to see how a book this bad, encourages any potential franchisees to commit.

Look out for the next Brad Sugar book to be reviewed some time in January 2008

Cheers
Paul

[Lee Duncan]

Paul,

This is a very honest review of a book that's unworthy of Brad's name. Sadly I think he became too busy with growing his own franchises to really do justice to a topic that he clearly has a great deal of expertise with.

I personally find only two of Brad's books to be so good that I am confident to recommend them whole-heartedly to anybody - Instant Cashflow and Billionaire In Training. Both are inspirational and easy to read.

Thanks for an honest review,

Lee Duncan
"People don't go into business just to survive, but that's what most of them end up doing"

[Paul Simister]

Hi Lee

Thanks for your comment but I am waiting in vain for people to come on and defend the book.

I can't understand why anyone would want to publish this book and it should have been stopped at the editors desk.

I agree with you about Instant Cashflow as a good contribution but I've not been brave enough to read Billionaire In Training yet. I have to work up the enthusiasm to read and review these Brad Sugar books which I originally bought as part of my competitive analysis.

Paul

[Tina]

I am so glad I quit my job and started a franchise years ago. I wouldn't be financially independent and I'd still be putting in long hours at someplace I didn't want to be. A franchise is the safest and best option for any entrepreneur.

[Lee Duncan]

Wow Tina,

That's a glowing testimonial to franchising - I guess you've been really successful. In my experience working with a load of franchisees, I saw very few who were financially independent as a result. In fact, at least 50% were struggling to scrape a basic living.

I think a good franchise matched to the right personality can be a great fit, but I think it would be wrong to wholeheartedly recommend franchising as the best route for everybody.

Regards,

Lee

[Paul Simister]

Tina

You have clearly worked hard and chosen your franchise well.

Statistics I hear quoted (by the franchising industry) show that it is a much less risky way of starting a business but I still hear about plenty of people who have bought a franchise and then been let down by poor marketing and sales systems.

As in any purchase, you do have to do your due diligence and carefully check out the franchise.