What is Franchising? Franchising is one of three business strategies a company may use in capturing market share. The others are company owned units or a combination of company owned and franchised units. Franchising is a business strategy for getting and keeping customers. It is a marketing system for creating an image in the minds of current and future customers about how the company's products and services can help them. (8) . Franchising is a network of interdependent business relationships that allows a number of people to share: a brand identification, a successful method of doing business, a proven marketing and distribution system. In short, franchising is a strategic alliance between groups of people who have specific relationships and responsbilities with a common goal to dominate markets, i.e., to get and keep more customers than their competitors. Other franchisees and company operated units are not your competition. (9) .They and you share the task of establishing the brand as the dominant brand in all markets entered and reinforcing the customers' familiarity with and trust in the brand. (10) . Other franchisees share with you the responsibility for quality, consistency, convenience, and other factors that define your franchise and insure repeat business for everyone. Increasing the value of the brand name is a shared responsibility of the franchisor and franchisee. A company franchises because it wants to quickly and in great numbers replicate its successful company operations without significantly increasing its debt. (11) . In franchising, the operating system becomes identified with the brand or trade name that you license as a franchisee. Each franchise system uses precise methods to provide service and satisfy the customers. (12) .Because customers don't like surprises, this consistency in operations, unit to unit, builds customer loyalty to the brand. Franchising is successful because we are people of habit and are brand-driven when we purchase goods and services. We trust brands that we see everywhere, every day. We tend to be loyal to a product or servicedelivered to us the same way all the time.