I spent over a dozen years and invested well into six figures while operating a chem dry franchise. I walked away completely empty handed, as did many other franchisees I encountered. Many of those who stayed on, have little value in their franchises (even after 20 years), while Chem Dry regularly sold new franchises or repossed ones at low prices with seemingly attractive terms to keep their revenues flowing uninterupted, but made it hard for franchisees to compete when trying to sell theirs.
Franchise areas were often oversold and saturated. There were price wars among franchises. They changed the terms of the franchise agreement at their will, usually to enrich themselves. They used heavy handed legal tactics to intimidate franchisees.
The bottom line is they are basically an unregulated entity who used that "self regulated" environment for their own benefit, much like the financial industry did. A legalized sort of "ponzi" where the deck is stacked against against the franchisee. It was basically like renting a job, except the financial obligation was substantial and I found the returns to be minimal.
Do yourself a favor and stay as far away from them as possible. If you want to go into this business, there are plently of good industry bulletin boards where a wealth of information is available, so you can do it on your own.
0 comments