As a result, trade name franchises have been declining over the same period that franchising in general has been exploding at an unprecedented rate. It is the Business Format Franchise that has accounted for that growth. Because the Business Format Franchise is built on the belief that the true product of a business is not what it sells but how it sells it. The true product of a business is the business itself. What Ray Kroc understood at McDonald’s was that the hamburger wasn’t his product. McDonald’s was.
