Risks of Using Franchise Consultants

Hi all - wanted to share a PSA on franchise consultants. While they could be helpful for initial research purposes, I would highly recommend reaching out to the franchise yourself afterwards. If the franchise consultant becomes the person to pass along your information to the franchisor, they automatically get assigned in their system as your “broker”. This means that if you eventually find a resale within the franchise, you will have to pay a significantly higher transfer fee because the franchise has to pay commission to the franchise consultant “broker”. In my case, it increased my transfer fee from $22k to $44k, even though the franchise consultant didn’t do anything other than make the introduction. These franchise consultants position their services as free, but it’s really false marketing, so sharing here so hopefully nobody else has to experience this. Happy searching!