Changes at The BizOp News
Over the next couple of months, we are going to change the BizOp News, and diversify into three distinct areas.First, the BizOp News will continue to follow those business opportunities which are governed by the FTC Business Opportunity Rule.
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Traditionally, these business opportunities were vending, payphones, and other buy a job opportunities.
The FTC describes the problem with many business opportunities as follows:
Fraudulent business opportunity promoters use the classifieds and the Internet to tout all kinds of offers, from pay phone and vending machine routes to work-at-home businesses like medical billing and envelope stuffing.
Too often, these ads make promises - about earnings, locations, merchandise, or marketability - that sound great, but aren't truthful.
The result: consumers are getting ripped off, losing money instead of making it.
The big growth area in business opportunities, or the buy yourself a job market, is in affiliate marketing courses. None of the affiliate marketing courses I have reviewed are in compliance with local state business opportunity laws or the federal law. This is not a knock on their content, which varies wildly, but it is observation about compliance.
Once the FTC's business opportunity rule is in force, a number of these affiliate marketers will be shocked when the state turns up at their doors asking for significant money in fines.
Individuals selling a "buy yourself a job" are regulated as to what they can say or do, and the regulation is far more significant than regulations about testimonials.
The BizOp News will be following news in this market, as well as the traditional business opportunity frauds.
The second blog, the Franchise News, is going to be following the traditional business format franchises, commenting on legal trends, and particular lawsuits. We want to educate more people before they purchase a franchise about what to look for, but we also want to highlight some of the innovative thinking and actions that the Independent Franchisee Associations are engaged in.
We will also be focusing on dispelling some of the big myths about franchising, which are individuals unwittingly swallow.
Expect to find more use of the actual data from the Franchise Disclosure Documents which are available online or for purchase.
Finally, How Would You Play This?, will contain an eclectic mixture of game theory, negotiation, business strategy for franchise systems, and reflections on human rationality. While following the mainstream news about alternative dispute resolutions, How Would Play This will contain negotiation and strategic thinking puzzles.