Bradley J. Sugars - Successful Franchising - 1.5 Stars

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

It's 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.

But it's 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 (or Brad Sugars as he is better known) is founder and chairman of ActionCOACH, the world's biggest business coaching firm with more than 1,000 offices in 22 countries. And it's all been built on the back of franchising.

The book should have been a cracker, it is a major disappointment!

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

Who's it for

First it promises to tell you "everything you need to know about buying a franchise" and "how to franchise your own business". But sorry it 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. I've seen him present live at his "Billionaire In Training" event and he is a great communicator. Funny, entertaining, compelling and with a good message but not one of those adjectives fits this book.

Much of the text 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..."

It's too short

Before we get the ActionCOACH advertising copy the book runs out on page 118 but don't worry. You can always read the 29 pages promoting ActionCOACH at the end. But you probably won't want to because the 118 pages are already scattered with praise for ActionCOACH.

They've been up to their old tricks again

It seems that on Amazon, Brad has a loyal bunch of fans with rave 5 star reviews. But 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 ActionCOACH.

The strange thing is I don't understand why they 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 ActionCOACH.

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

The content 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 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's 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 ActionCOACH'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 ActionCOACH, we have a description of the ActionCOACH franchising systems followed by how one system is broken down into different sub-systems and the list of manuals that a new ActionCOACH franchisee will receive.

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

So far we have 27 pages of introductory waffle. But would an ActionCOACH 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 ActionCOACH 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's 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's given 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.

But 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 ActionCOACH client showing how clever ActionCOACH 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

We've reached the end. Did I mention that the book runs out of any steam that it has by page 118?

My Conclusion and Verdict on Successful Franchising

The book 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.

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 ActionCOACH, you won't come away with the right impression of Brad Sugars' major achievement in creating the world's largest business coaching firm.

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

But over the next few months I will do my best to find you franchising books that are worth reading. If you can recommend a better book on franchising then please, just let me know.

Franchising is too an important area for me to ignore.

To Your Success

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

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

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