A hunter, walking through the jungle, found a huge, dead dinosaur, with a pygmy standing beside it. Amazed, he asked, "Did you kill that?"

 

The pygmy said "Yes."

 

The hunter asked, "How could a little bloke like you kill a huge beast like that?"

 

The pygmy said, "I killed it with my club."

 

The astonished hunter asked, "How big is your club?"

 

The pygmy replied, "There are about 200 of us."

 

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Standard Story Disclaimer:

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I have been unable to source the author of this story, and no harm, malice, or intent is directed to height challenged persons, wealth challenged persons, persons with weapons of any nature, persons who harm animals in any way, and anybody else who might take offence at this delightful parable which highlights a point I would like to make this week. If you are already offended, delete this email forthwith, else relax, sip that fine Costa Rican blend, and read further.

 

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Big firms, and government, have huge resources at their disposal - hordes of attorneys covering every subject imaginable. And it is these attorneys that draft the rules that you and I must live by - especially in the commercial sense. I raise this because I currently have on my desk 5 franchise issues - from different franchisors - where my clients (the franchisees) are a little like dinosaurs. (They have been killed!)

 

 

And this is because they entered into large franchise transactions (in one case the 'investment' was more than R1million) without consulting a single, remotely decent commercial attorney to detail any of the pitfalls to them. (In fact, they didn't consult with attorneys at all - believing everything the franchise sales-guy told them. Hint: The sales-guy gets paid for sales, not for conscience, and does not have to live with long term consequences of your decision.)

 

And that's exactly what the problem is. In one of the documents the franchisee has 34 obligations laid out in excruciating detail over 4 pages, while the franchisor's obligations are in a single paragraph: "The franchisor makes no warranty that the system will work anywhere, let alone in the location chosen by the franchisee, and if anything bad happens, well that's the franchisees fault. As long as the franchisee keeps paying, the franchisor won't care." (I have translated that to help you understand the mind-numbing legalese.)

 

In investing lifetimes of savings (and in a couple of cases lifetimes of debt), our heroes have asked for no assistance to understand their rights - they simply bought into the "This is our standard contract" nonsense. Now that terminal financial diarrhea has struck, they're looking for a way to plug the hole. Eish, and there isn't one.

 

When you have a fortune to invest in the best legal advice going - you can draft wonderful (in legal terms that means "so close to the boundaries of morality as to make no difference") contracts that take everything, and give nothing in return. This is a solid description of your common or garden franchise contract.

 

As a franchisor, if you're lucky to find someone who assumes that because s/he can read, s/he doesn't need a lawyer - well, then, it's your lucky day. And if said literary genius chooses not to read anything after the first page - then the best place to hide the Cruela De Ville stuff is closer to the back in sections 34.1 to 34.34, for example.

 

Which brings me back to our height challenged hero. If you don't want to/can't afford to pay for legal advice - why not at least invest a pittance in a decent club? The Business Warriors community is available to you 24 hours/day, worldwide, and a few of us are even attorneys. But mostly we have a heck of a lot of real experience - and it's yours whenever you want it.

 

More than anything we'd really like you to take advantage of it when first you spot the dinosaur, rather than just after that T.Rex has eaten your left leg and is moving bowelwards. By which time it's going to be too late!

 

Peter Carruthers (pygmy in Ringwood, but with a large club)

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August 8th, 2006

 

PS One of the Warriors needs some help with a 9 question survey about measuring your BEE status. Can I humbly ask you to check it out here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=467342404274

 

PPS I wrote some words on the subject almost 2 years ago, here:

http://www.petesweekly.com/article.php?id=167