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If you could condense the American dream into a single idea, I would say it’s the desire to create your own life, no matter what the social circumstances you born into. The ability to work for yourself is closely linked to this idea, and the hope of growing wealthy from self-employment continues to attract foreigners to our shores.

For foreigners who want to purchase franchises, there are a few roadblocks that must be overcome before self-employment can be attained, as this article explains. Firstly, there are visa issues to be overcome, and then international investors must meet a select criteria in running their business.

QSRonline tells the story of Kay Kirby, who runs a Sobix Subs franchise in Florida. Kirby, who is English, has worked in the restaurant business his whole life and wanted to open a food franchise in the US. Kirby has availed of the E-2 visa, which provides temporary residency, but Kirby admits that being foreign creates many challenges.

“It’s so hard, you’ve got to renew the visa … every two years,” Kirby says. “You have to pay so much taxes, [and] you have to employ Americans only.”

On the franchisor’s end, a certain amount of discretion is required. Some franchisees in the past have used franchising simply as a pathway into America, and others don’t really understand the realities of franchising.

Jim Parker of Worldvest Properties Inc. in Florida advises franchisors, especially in the QSR sector, to look for franchisees “who understand the risk of the fast food business and have the capital to undertake such a venture.”

All in all, there are a lot of decent, highly-eligible foreign entrepreneurs just waiting for the change to open their own franchise in America. Hopefully, they’ll find the right one.

We love keeping you up-to-date on the latest social media trends and its usefulness to franchises, and we’ve just learned about Groupon, which seems to be a game-changing marketing tool.

Every day on Groupon, subscribers are offered special low-cost discounts that can be of great value to customers. As QSRweb reports, Groupon has just launched sites in three more cities, meaning it active is cities in 150 cities worldwide. Franchises like Dairy Queen have already used the website to drive customers to their stores. If you spend enough time on the site, you can see the value of the site to consumers. There are huge and exclusive savings on offer here.

“The value to a QSR is they obviously have a lot of competitors, so it reminds people that they’re there. It’s a nudge to do something they wouldn’t necessarily do,” Julie Mossler, consumer marketing manager for Groupon, told the website.

She adds that there is added value for food franchises as their products tend to be cheaper, and thus more eye-catching in the midst of other high-end products.

When you see on the bottom of the website that the site has already saved users $338 million via the sale of nearly 8 million coupons, you can sense the genuine interest in the site.

But, as the article mentions, working with the site isn’t without its own interactive challenges. Offering a discount on Groupon means dealing directly with the commentary of the site’s users. If consumers think a deal isn’t great value or if they have any problems with the service at large, they won’t hesitate to let you know. But handling such commentary is an essential give-and-take in this brand new marketing world, and you’d have to say the pro’s of partnering with Groupon outweigh the con’s.

For the right franchise (and you don’t have to sell food), Groupon is fascinating tool for the future.

Obesity is one of the great health challenges in the Western world. So it is perhaps not too shocking that people who overeat and don’t exercise tend to overfeed their dogs and don’t give them enough exercise.

Sad news coming out of the UK today says that half of British dogs will die of obesity. That’s a claim made by The People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals and while there are no similar stats available for America right now, we can only assume that there is some correlation. Sadly, like people, dogs are getting fatter.

Now, franchising is helping to pioneer one solution to the epidemic of dog obesity: the dog fitness center. It may come at a cost, but across the country, franchises like Zoom Room and The Dog Room have popped up to offer an opportunity to re-invent the dog walk. As a former dog owner myself, my first instinct was to cringe at the popularity of such places. I find there are few things better than experiencing the quietude of nature with man’s best friend. That said, these days, people don’t have the time to spend in parks, especially after a hard day of work, and a dog fitness centre is the ideal compromise. It gets exercise for the dog while the owner can chat with a few other dog owners.

Will these dog fitness franchises cure the problem of dog obesity? Maybe so, maybe not. But the spread of these businesses shows the scale of the problem of the country. We know how much people will spend on their pets. Hopefully news stories like this will make those who overfeed their pets realize that, in line with dietary changes, dogs need to be walked. For those who don’t like to walk through their local neighborhood, dog fitness franchises offer a great exercise alternative.

The bad news from Detroit was once constant. But thanks to Washington’s help, it seems that the US automotive industry will at worst keep its head above water, and most likely, grow.

It’s still a good time to be investing in the automotive franchise market, as our automotive franchise report spelled out. It’s also interesting to see what some franchises are doing to attract a wider market. US Today recently profiled Rent-A-Wreck’s brand restructuring. Once the go-to destination for Americans looking for cheap cars to rent, the company is trying to put some polish on its image, and consumers can now rent some of the best cars in the country there.

Rent-A-Wreck, which is now trying to compete with the likes of Avis and Hertz, has shifted its advertising targets away from the phonebook and towards the internet. After some reluctance from franchisees, the plan seems to making some headway.

Larry Kirmsee, a Rent-A-Wreck franchisee since 1979 and a self-described “car guy,” says he thought he knew about everything he needed to know about the rental business, and that included avoiding the Web.
“Our business has always been about the phone book,” he says. “If you were at the front page of the phone book, you were getting most of the calls.”
Now he’s embraced the Web.
“I actually think we could do more,” he says.

One interesting debate the franchise faces regards its name. Should a car rental franchise that no longer rents wrecks be called Rent-A-Wreck?

Everyone seems to think so. This franchise may be targeting a wealthier clientele and a more diverse market, but there’s nothing like a clever name.

At first glance, the ongoing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico caused by the explosion of Deepwater Horizon seems to have nothing to do with franchising. But any franchise trying to bill themselves as a ‘green business’ can learn a lot from PR disaster that BP have created for themselves by flaunting their green credentials.

I remember when BP first tried their green marketing approach a few years ago. I was living in New Jersey, where having a car is essential. When I saw a gas station marketing themselves as the eco-friendly option, I was a bit surprised. Surely, there is nothing eco-friendly driving an automobile 50 miles a day, as I did in those days. I wasn’t completely fooled, but I know I went to BP stations a few times with the thought in mind that it might be a better option than their competitors.

The shocking scale of the disaster in the Gulf has forever contradicted BP’s image as an ‘eco-friendly’ brand. Entrepreneur has penned an insightful piece for their August issue that tells it straight to other businesses: the landscape for green businesses has changed. To claim to be a green business requires more than using 40 watt light-bulbs or keeping the lights off in your business overnight. Being a green business means being a business that looks at the environmentally-friendly option in every possible place.

That creates a lots of challenges for entrepreneurs.

“Being green in and of itself isn’t a differentiator except with a small group of consumers,” says Joel Makower, executive editor of GreenBiz.com and author of Strategies for the Green Economy, told the magazine. “Green succeeds only to the extent that it means better–it’s cheaper to buy, it operates better, it lasts longer, it’s cooler for my image. People do want to do the right thing, but they don’t want to go out of their way to do that. They love ‘change’ when it’s a noun; they hate it when it’s a verb.”

The story does mention the Pedals To Property franchise which we had blogged about earlier this year. That’s a green franchise that’s true to its word.

If anything, the BP spill is firming the idea in many consumers’ minds that green is the way to go. Some cynics are amused that it is the ‘eco-friendly’ gas giant that is responsible for one of the largest oil spills ever. BP, and all businesses and franchises, should now know that if you’re claiming to be a green business, you better mean it.