If You Are Still Considering Purchasing A Dream Dinners Store or Meal Assembly-

[JoyFilledYou.com]

Today I was out and about in my Home Town- Ran into a few friends that I have not seen in 5 years. Low and Behold, her sister that lives in CA. (visiting WA) said that she is thinking of purchasing an existing Dream Dinners Store. Remembering that I worked for the Company, She started to ask me several Questions. The Gracious & Kind person that I am just said five strong words- 'GO TO Meal Assembly Watch' what else could I say...well, I am Gracious & Kind, right? This post is for you my Dear Friend and Anyone who may STILL be thinking of wasting your hard earned money- Its a Great summary of the type of business Dream Dinners really is. (Money-Grubbin' EGO-Mantic Liars)

Here is a snippet of conversation I had with a Snappy Auction Owner. The Truth in all of this-All Franchise Systems, are about the same across the board. Visit Franchise Pick.com your eyes will open wider.

The new word for a ZOR is EGOnomics . This best  describes many Franchise  Business Models that drives the gears in the heads of these CEOs. The people behind the smoke and mirrors of these franchises, and others, are driven to succeed exclusively because of their hyper-egos. They are fueled by the thought of achieving greatness at any costs. (The only victim would be themselves, if
they failed.) At times their motive may appear as greed for
money; but, a closer look shows that they choose to ignore all
evidence that the concept doesn’t work, and they won’t get rich
via royalties. It’s the ego that says, “You’re too big, too important, and too Godly to admit failure.” Blame everyone else but yourself for the failure of Store Closings Keep changing things and people will think you are “perfecting the system.”  Lie, cheat, and steal are acceptable EGOnomic verbs.

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If they can’t make it work, maybe they can sell it off. It’s how they report the sale that strokes their self-esteem: The Originators of the Meal Assembly, Industry Leaders, ect. (Well, almost.)

EGOnomics is the path to bad franchising. It can happen in other areas, too.  All I can say is-Beware of yellow-brick roads.

[owns1]

Mindy,
While I agree with what you are saying regarding Dream Dinners, and while I understand that your intentions are good, I have to say that such a blanket statement as you posted may take away from your credibility.

"The Truth in all of this-All Franchise Systems, are about the same across the board. Visit Franchise Pick.com your eyes will open wider."

all  franchisors are not bad.  There are many franchise systems that work well, that are set up for the success of both their company and the franchisees.  For many people, the only path to small business ownership is through a franchise. 

I would hate for somebody to discard your message entirely because of one blanket statement.  Surely anybody looking at purchasing a business has been thinking about it for a while, and has done at least some research, and will have found examples of good franchisors to work with.

Clearly, a meal assembly franchise is not the way to go.  I hope that a reader looking to this board would not read your message and ignore it because it seems so false.

Your message is accurate...do not purchase a Dream Dinners (or other MAK) franchise at this time.

IMHO

[Kitty]

I came dangerously close to purchasing a re-sale DD Store.  I was told by the current owner that this can be a very profitable business, and she had a list of reasons why her store was not successful but with some minor changes I could make it profitable.  It ended up not happening for me.  It was very upsetting.....UNTIL a friend directed me to this site....and lo and behold there is her name on a lawsuit against DD...

[JoyFilledYou.com]

Owns1, Please tell me which Franchise Company you know that 'has it together?' I do agree it is a blanket statement & quite negative, however, the research available today; I would not buy another Franchise if my life depended on it.


Kitty, you brought up another topic- Should Owners Try to Re-sell a Failed Concept? The biggest challenge with the Meal Assembly Industry believes the next Owner will be able to bring it to the next level.  The first mentality is ‘I can do it better’ but reality is this business model is evolving on a daily basis and unless you are well capitalize and ready for those changes, in six months they will be facing the same situation as before or worse.

[Kaye]

Every since we announced that we are closing our store, I have had several people asking me questions such as am I selling my business, who I'm selling it to, how much as I asking for it, and so on.  I always reply the same way -- I could NOT in good conscious sell this to anyone for any amount -- unless they, of course, had full disclosure and were looking for a tax write-off.  But, then again, would that be legal? 

Anyway, my point is that I think we all have the responsibility to not do unto others as it has been done unto us!  If any of us that are suffering this fate try to sell our stores to another unsuspecting soul, then we are no better than the Zors everyone is blasting on here.  In fact, we would be worse in some ways.  I believe that at least most of the Zors believed in what they were doing at the beginning.  They had no intentions of screwing people over when they first started franchising.  I think they probably got caught up in the frenzy.  But, if we re-sell our stores, then we are doing the same thing as they are by continuing to sell franchises knowing what we all know now.  Just my opinion . . .

Kaye

[owns1]

some good larger franchisors would include panera, pizza hut, mcdonalds, etc.  Those may not always be viable options due to some of the rules of the franchisor, such as personal net worth, territory development agreements, etc.  And for some people, these franchisors would not be considered "good" because of all the rules regarding purchasing, decor, etc.  However, I would certainly consider them good.  Pizza Hut just put out a book that was put together by the franchise association in recognition of the 50th anniversary.  Certainly the first decade or two was not what we consider good franchising.  But they did it and many people have made a great living from their franchise system.

we worked with a smaller franchise (just 12 or 15 units), they were honest, had a good system, had good relationships with smallish wholesale food vendors.  while i did not like the controls they had over my life (hours required to be open, required secret shoppers, required muzak) they did do most of what I assumed they would do.  i could not have set up the system on my own, and it was very profitable for my family.

I understand Pak Mail is good.  I have heard both good and bad about gymboree.  i have heard both good and bad about quiznos, though i tend to believe quiznos is bad.  i have heard both good and bad about dairy queen, 31 flavors/dunkin donuts, subway, and maggie moos.  all of these "i have heards" are from people i know well enough to believe.

my original point was just that there are many people who will look favorably on the possibility of becoming a franchisee and will possibly discard your advice if you say all franchises are bad.  it would be a shame for people to come to this site looking for advice and information and determine that this is just a site full of people who have been burned and are now completely negative, and therefore not take some of the information to heart.

and, while not easy, owning a small business is a great option for many people, and sometimes a franchise is the only way to make it happen.

[Tuckerbox]

Mindy’s statement may be a blanket one, but that doesn’t mean it should be discounted. If you look at FranchisePick and FranchisePundit, you will find one example after another of bad franchise ideas. Sure there are stable ones, but for every one of those there seems to 10 fly-by-night ways to throw your money out the window.

McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and other million dollar ventures probably will give you a tidy return on your investment, but I have to admit, after all the things I’ve read, I can think of dozens of safer and more secure ways of spending a million dollars. Some franchises are sound investments, but I will never hand my money over to them again. Just as the Internet bubble of years past made people more leery of their investment choices, I think MA will make people much more cautious when it comes to franchises.

I don’t believe any franchise is a sound investment these days. A jaded opinion to be sure, but it extends just my personal experience, I have read plenty of articles about the “The big buys” to have my doubts about them too.

It is about due diligence and doing the right research, but as I have seen, with blogs and discussion forums and the willingness to use them, there is a lot more information to go through and even more scrutiny than ever before.

[dinnerzen]

How do most people do their small business start up "shopping"? Do they find an industry of interest, then research the players?  Do they look for success regardless of industry?  Do people jump on the next "hot pick" regardless of their background, economic status, etc?

Let me play the devil's advocate for a second...

In all honesty, how many of US saw meal assembly as the next "hot pick" and jumped in for that reason?  I made my decision knowing it was a gamble.  At the time I developed my business plan, signed my lease, etc...stores around the country were running with full sessions.  The one LD in this area was booking a month out as soon as their calendar opened up.  Most stores were doing great volume back then.  I visited stores across the country that for the most part were doing very well. 

New store owners (and zors to be fair) themselves were so busy figuring out the business themselves that they didn't really take the time to stop and realize that even at capacity, the margins weren't great.  In their minds, they had a proven concept that was successful.  A large number of folks jumped on the franchise bandwagon and started offering franchises before they had given the concept time, but it was either do that or risk losing out to someone who would move faster.  There was demand and someone was going to have to generate the supply or get left in the dust waiting.   

A key point, I don't think anyone could have predicted that customer's interest in the concept would be so short lived.  Or, that such a tiny percentage of first time visitors would convert to regular/ monthly customers.  How many times has someone come into your store to make meals, gotten all starry eyed, professing how this concept was going to change their lives...never to be seen again. Or sady, to be seen one last time the last few weeks you're open.  Many people bought in to the concept at the point that there were still enough wanna be starry eyed customers waiting in line to get in the door.

I'm not relinquising meal assembly franchisors from a long list of faults, it's not my place to do that.  The closest I got to understanding the trials and tribulations of franchises was purchasing and reading Franchising for Dummies-before I opted to go the independent route. 

I'll probably get shot for my concluding statement to the ramble above, but here goes:  at some point we all have to accept at least some responsibility for gambling ourselves (me included) into a big fat ass financial hole.

To the point of Mindy's original post...if someone goes into meal assembly at all right now they should do so with their eyes wide open.  It only takes a few minutes of online research to find this site, or the NYT or a host of other articles about the struggling industry.  Sadly, it doesn't surprise me to hear of someone who is about to sign on the dotted line without what most would deem due diligence.   

When it comes to starting up a business, selecting a franchise, etc...the story about franchise failure and risk doesn't seem all that new to me.  The articles were all there four years ago and they described a rich history of franchise and business failure.  The SBA, etc. have fairly unbiased resources that discuss and describe the risks- as well as the potential benefits if you happen to be one of the lucky few who strike gold.  When I go back and read that stuff now, it seems to take on a whole new meaning.  I nod my head in agreement when reading the list of "cons" to business start up.  Its my real life experience that has removed the "filter" that clouded reason when reading that stuff before.  I think what "modern" times have offered us via the internet, blogs, websites, etc is a ready means to put a face and a story with the failures and successes.  Though, $10 says that there are some who will read the stuff on this website and other places and still venture into the industry because they are lucky (?) enough to wear rose colored glasses.

Purchasing a Franchise in a New Franchise System: Know the Pros and Cons
http://www.franchisetrade.com/articles/new-franchise.htm

[Tuckerbox]

I doubt anyone would have predicted the meteoric rise of meal assembly followed by the colossal it took. And why did customers fall out of favor with the idea so quickly? I still think that can be tied to too many choices. Once a store showed a small amount of success, the vultures descended and the customer was hit with too many options too quickly. As they tried each store in turn not only did they take 3-4 months or more to get back to their original store, but they were stockpiling food faster than they could use it. Then they needed to take a break to use the surplus and like any “discipline” once off the treadmill it was hard to get started again.

There is a shared blame in that it all seemed too good to be true and since the idea was so new and exciting there seemed hardly any reason to think it wouldn’t work. True, I think we all suffered from the “but people have to eat” syndrome and considering there was so little information on this concept that we bought what the Zor was selling because it seemed “such a good deal”.

But to that point, we did take the risk and regrettably it didn’t work out. As I have said before that is nothing to be ashamed of. I dare say most of have learned things we would never be able to pick up any other way. A hard lesson, but a lesson none the less and skills that can be used in any facet of business. Are the owners free of blame? Certainly not. We jumped too soon. We didn’t look both ways. We didn’t keep a cool and leveled head. We didn’t put our passions and desires aside and think from a rational business sense.

Putting aside my personal feelings that we were sold a lame duck, it was the idea of owning our own business that made most of us jump. We jumped a little too soon and we paid the price.

Now that doesn’t excuse some of the less than honorable tactics used by the Zors to sell more store, but it’s certainly true that many of us jumped in at the early stages hoping to get in on the ground floor of something new.

However, with the information that’s out there now, there is no excuse for not being informed on the real factors that go into a meal assembly store. We can shrug and say we didn’t know better, but that isn’t the case anymore.

[independent owner]

"However, with the information that’s out there now, there is no excuse for not being informed on the real factors that go into a meal assembly store. We can shrug and say we didn’t know better, but that isn’t the case anymore."

So true.  In the past several months, I've seen several stores in one particular franchise be re-sold.  I used to feel sorry for those purchasing, but at this point, it's hard to feel sorry for them.  Especially when they purchase an operation that has already closed down once. They obviously aren't doing their due diligence.

[onthego]

I have to agree with Mindy, I've owned two franchises and both have been less than positive experiences, the first we only lost several thousand, this time we lost hundreds of thousands. It just makes you look differently at the whole process.
There needs to be some type of consumer protection (for the franchisees) BEFORE a franchisor can franchise and start selling franchises for questionable or even down-right fraudulent concepts, there needs to be some type of guidelines in place before the concept goes up for sale, standards for franchising a concept. For more examples of bad franchises go to www.franchisepick.com
The FTC needs to get on the ball and make some real changes in the way franchisors do business.
Just my opinion.
Honestly if I were an honest Franchisor-I would be pissed as hell at franchisors in the MA business giving the franchise business a bad name.

[Tuckerbox]

Did meal assembly spoil it for other franchises?

I have begun to ponder the long-term impact the meal assembly industry will have on other franchises. I have no doubt that MA will go down in history as a fad business that sold too quickly and crashed with disastrous results. The names Stephanie Allen, Judy Byrd and others will go down in infamy. The meal assembly industry and others (such as Ebay drop off stores) will be studied thoroughly by business students for years to come. But what impact will meal assembly have on other franchises?

Will it make those who seek self-fulfillment in self-employment more cautions? Will it make them more cynical? Will it give potential risk takers a moment of pause before they sign on the dotted line?

Will those who seek to leave Corporate America think twice about leaving “the grind” and the management to get locked into a system that thwarts change, reacts slowly, forces you to follow established rules even when those rules go against what customers want? Are you just trading one pair of shackles for another?

I think meal assembly is a prime example of an idea that looked good on paper, but had no checks and balances to keep it under control.
·   It’s the perfect example of a company that didn’t have a proven track record of profitability before becoming a franchise.
·   It’s the perfect example of what happens when inexperienced Franchisors allow dollar signs to be their only motivation.
·   It’s a prime example of management not hiring the right people for the job and thinking that their friends are cheap labor.
·   It shows what happens when you just copy an idea and then rest on your laurels waiting for the franchise checks to come in.
·   It’s an example of what happens when there is no forward thinking and no ability to handle the changing landscape of consumer wants.

And the list goes on and on…

I have read many articles of failed and hapless business schemes being compared to meal assembly and their crash and burn results as “just like the meal assembly industry”.

Will the mantra be, “Do your research and don’t buy into something like one of those meal assembly stores?”

Will the potential small business owner now be frightened off because of meal assembly and others?

Meal assembly isn’t the worst franchise out there and it isn’t the only folly people have bought into over the past couple of years. I think the Ebay drop off stores will vie for top honors amongst franchise blunders, but I think there is a tremendous amount that needs to be learned from meal assembly and things you need to look out for before you sign on the dotted line and reach for that checkbook. And if it causes people to think twice about some get rich quick scheme, or taking the advice of some association or making sure the business actually has a proven track record of profitability then that’s a good thing.

People keep saying a business takes 5 years to mature and show profitability; meal assembly will have come and gone within those same 5 years.

[allthingsculinary]

Tuckerbox, I agree-whole heartedly with what you said.
The 5 year reference for maturity-well it sure would have been nice had the MAK Franchisors used that as their rule of thumb before they started to Franchise this concept-although to be fair as you said they are not the only ones who have rushed a faulty concept into the franchising marketplace without doing their due diligence as to it's viability in more than just their market with it's unique conditions.
I will ask all of you to comment on something I asked Chef George-
Perspective tells me that owning your own busines IS NOT all it's cracked up to be-and Tuckerbox rightfully points out that working for Corp Am is not REALLY a bad thing.
You collect a dependable paycheck based on your performance, you get raises, paid vacations, sick days, and they take all the risks. For most of us we or our spouse came out of the Corporate world with the "promise" of ownership and all of its bennies and perks, unfortunately that didn't work out for us-and for a majority of you here. The business owned me-no matter how I struggled to stop it, the business became my task-master and boss. The business told me when to work, when not to work, how much I had to work..it was a cruel boss and task master.
I watch my sister and her husband struggle with her small business and realize how lucky I am to be FREE!
Right now my hubby is back doing exactly what he did BMAK, and guess what? He is happy as a clam-it's all perspective.
I will be happy to get a job in my new chosen profession and do what I love to do and am good at on the side as a hobby and joy builder-(develop recipes, write cookbooks and just write myself silly!) What a life! What a blessing!
I am so thankful for the experience and the new perspective it's given me!
Free at last, free at last, Thank God Almighty, FREE at last!
K

[independent owner]

I think working for corporate America isn't a bad thing.  Owning your own business can be a not-too-bad thing, either.  Although the first year we killed ourselves - and it was hard, hard work - once we hired and trained a good team, things got better. 

I have a very flexible schedule now. I go on my kids field trips, go on vacation when I want to, etc.  I work in the store while the kids are in school, and have others that cover the night and weekend shifts when my kids are home.  Yes, the business does *own* me in the sense that I don't leave it for more than a few weeks at a time and, even then, I make sure that I am reasonably within reach if one of our team needs me.  But, the same could be said for any job I've ever had.

We don't have a 401K or company sponsored health insurance - that is a definite downside.  Those are things we have to do on our own and, yes, I worry about things like catastrophic illness and what if our insurance is cancelled.  I realize that the future is always uncertain. But, it's uncertain in whatever you do - who hasn't been through a lay-off or know someone who has? 

There are trade-offs in everything.  One thing I've come to believe over the past few years is that owning a franchise really isn't owning your own business; you own the risk, but beyond that you're simply executing someone else's vision.  I didn't used to think that - I most definitely would have considered purchasing a franchise several years ago. 

The FTC needs to step in with stronger regulations.  Reading the franchise boards, there seems to be a lot of shady business going on - and a lot of innocent people are getting hurt. 

[Kaye]

I have worked in my aunt's grocery store, in a one-attorney law office, in one of the largest for-profit healthcare corporate offices in the US and in the 3rd largest investment bank in the world -- and now, I've owned my own store.  It all has been wonderful, and it all has sucked.  It just depends on what's going on at the time.  But, I can definitely say that I have thoroughly enjoyed the ride thus far and am looking forward to whatever happens next.  As I am ticking down my last few days as a store-owner, I am beyond the despair of closing the store.  Yes, I'm sad, and yes, I'm going to miss coming here every day and seeing those that I've come to consider my friends.  But, I'm holding on to the promise of the future.

One thing I've come to believe over the past few years is that owning a franchise really isn't owning your own business; you own the risk, but beyond that you're simply executing someone else's vision.

Hmm, I had never thought of it this way before. At this point in the game, I believe this is dead-on.  We chose a franchise because we knew that as first-time business owners, we needed extra help.  For us, that meant a franchise.  Those of you who did everything on your own . . . well, I admire you.  You certainly took on monumental tasks, and whether you're still trucking along or if you've closed up shop makes no difference.  We all should be proud of what we've done.  I know I am.

Kaye