No more snap victims

Something I've heard before is that success leads to complacency, and complacency can kill your business. If you apply that here then back in 2008 and 2009 there were new snaps coming online each week. However, in that same time period you started to see the planet fitness clubs start to emerge. I think things were going so well at snap hq that they didn't care where you put your club, they just wanted to make arrangements for you to get it opened. Someone should have been looking at the industry trend and making sure that people had the right locations. This is where I think the complacency came in. You have to look more closely about potential for these types of clubs to open near you. Of course if you don't greenlight a location then that club doesn't open. It may be that it never opens in that area.You don't make as much money, but the franchisee doesn't lose their shirt. On the positive side it gives you a much better track record and instills confidence in potential franchisees.

I don't know if snap does a better job at this these days or not, and I'm not willing to find out.

One other thing you'd have to decide in 2009 is if the whole $10/month model would survive. I for one didn't. I thought they'd go bankrupt in 5 years. I still don't understand how they make money. One article said that because they offer pizza and bagels once a month then people feel they can get their money's worth just by going to pizza night and bagel day. The $10 price is so small that people just ignore it.

On the original point, I agree that we need to let potential franchisees know what they should expect from hq and be as honest and forthright as possible. If everyone is honest and doesn't stretch the truth they'll get the same picture from all current franchisees.