You cannot demonstrate leadership by pointing in the direction you want to go and telling people to go there. Leaders go to that place. They show the way. People will follow their leader. We must instill passion in the workplace and let people know it is a mistake to believe they are merely working for the company.

Always strive for employees to work with you and not for you, just as franchisees work for themselves, in their units, but not by themselves. For franchising in 2009, it’s seeing what other people don’t see and pursing that vision first.

In the new-fangled economy, successful franchise executives prove that what counts is not what you get for your life’s work, but rather what you become by doing it. The enrichment of other lives defines franchising accomplishment.

The best franchise executives know their ideas today can turn to dust or weave magic. It all depends on the talent that rubs against them, and their franchisees. People always support what they help to create.

The business environment is changing as fast as the tides of the oceans around the world. Therefore, franchisors will be looking for franchisees from every conceivable source to contract into their system.

With a franchise contract, you never really sell anything and you don’t close the deal with a check. You simply start the relationship process with that confirmation agreement. Every month, franchisors must earn another check-- the royalty. It’s the franchisor’s responsibility to keep the business profitable and persistently build the bottom line with new products and services. This is what franchisees are buying into and what validates the franchise system year after year.

First-rate franchisors will try to surround themselves with strong, driven, ever-inquiring franchisees. The second-rate franchisors will surround themselves with mediocre franchisees that will question the system and bend the rules to their perceived needs. The third-rate franchisors will surround themselves with anyone who can pay the franchisee fee and who really doesn’t care to remember the rules, work hard, or plan to be in one place for long.

In today’s economy, we all need to listen and, on occasion, put ourselves in the other person’s billet. Do we really understand what someone said, what he or she wants to accomplish, the essence of his or her position? Have we tried to accommodate their requests? Is it possible to do more than expected, yet keep the deal in place while providing for a fair, just, and equitable long-term relationship? Let us all work toward that goal.

I learned a maxim from some of the best hagglers in the world on Capitol Hill, my beat you could say for a decade. We have all met rascals who, in a fifty-fifty proposition, insist on getting the hyphen too. Successful, collaborative negotiations lie in finding out what the other side really wants. Then show them the way to get it while you also get what you want or need to run your organization. Work with potential franchisees and adjust your program to fit the shrinking business economy.

As with all binding accords of legal consequences, it is important to remember that the big print giveth and the small print taketh away. Franchisees should read the contract in full—-every word - and understand it.

Knowledge is what one gets from reading the small print in a contract and experience is what one achieves from not reading the agreement. Franchisors must spend time on this process; take out as much small print, backup rules, can’t do’s, and make the agreement more transparent. This will bring on board a new group of investor operators in 2009.

Revamping, rehabilitating, and reengineering old branded systems will engender customer returns and loyalty. The doom loop cycles are shocking a number of franchisors into reality. Once a company is in the loop, turnaround becomes harder to achieve.

We have seen goliath brands with gray beards forced back to their core business as they address poor marketing plans, reevaluate their products and services, rehab tired units, retrain from top to bottom, stress customer service with every breath, while structuring a new business plan. The brands that do not make these changes will have windows full of closed signs posted about through this frigid economy.

Veteran operators tell me that they have learned to be circumspect with their customers’ on/off again behavior and infatuation with new things. There are two American public mindsets: one that drives short-term fads and the other that shapes long-term behavioral trends. The test for franchising is to spot and separate the nonmarket drivers from those of real change.

Franchisors clearly indicate that there is a consciousness of conviction emerging, overriding their business fears for 2009, which exhibits their firm grit to succeed. They are determined to show the way, an attitude that is tough to beat during financial challenge.

They state with confidence that the economy will pick up in 2010. People, their buying instincts, huge budget-motivated modifications, will have altered the retail global geography enduringly.

Consumer spending will have shrunk, retail habits altered, service been enhanced, products better made, and our society a healthier environment in which to grow and develop new business.

The high level of interest in franchising today is from uniquely qualified prospects, looking for investment return in their life journeys. Capitalized individuals with strong management experience, dependable work ethics and discipline can achieve and thrive within the franchisor’s system.

Two primary forces in the economy drive franchise sales. First is unemployment. Every time there is a one tenth of a percent increase in the unemployment rate, nearly 150,000 potential franchisees hit the marketplace, according to Mark Siebert at the iFranchise Group, a global franchise consulting organization. The other factor, he says, is credit. With the credit crisis, many franchisors are experiencing difficulty in selling franchises even to qualified buyers.

I anticipate that will change before the year is through. The SBA has announced modification of the 7A loan program, the traditional backbone of franchise finance activities. The adjustment will allow banks to peg their interest rate to LIBOR (the bank’s actual cost of funds) instead of the prime rates.

Franchising remains a tremendous locomotive for employment and a huge slice of the American pie. The business of franchising is literally the yellow brick road -a global Main street of business for all to use.

Over the years a common thread has wound its way into the business of franchising, weaving the tapestry of global business with a free spirit and successful stride through the constant ebb and flow of enterprise. Franchise management is individuals with conviction and courage to blaze new trails and confidence to assume the necessary risks up front. They have faith in themselves in 2009, in their methods of doing business, and an uncanny willingness to share their concept with others.

The secret of franchising in 2009 is in the consistency of franchisors to pursue new and improved products and a concerted effort for higher quality personal services. From this stage, their franchisees attain steady and stable bottom-line enhancements.

In other words, my success is your success, from which many around the world will benefit. In franchising, our actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream, to learn more, to do more, and to be more.