_Whilst it is great to preach this sermon, how many franchise systems actually perform in this way?

I joined a major oil company in the late ‘70’s – (showing my age) and in my planned 5 months of training I had to undertake a course called Caltex Marketing Communications – 5 days, and another course called Key to Salesmanship – 5 days. One of the messages drummed into us was how do we plan and communicate with our dealers (franchisees) and distributors in a proper manner.

In the days of letters, snail mail and STD phone calls, ...

I reported in September 2011 that the vacancy rates in Bridge Rd, Richmond were at around 16 %. I asked, then, “What is this going to do to rentals? Are we finally reaching a point where rentals will be reduced by market forces?”

In June 2013, I repeated the exercise along the same stretch of road (Bridge Rd), from Church St to Punt Rd. At that time it showed me we had 205 what I describe as retail outlets, as well as 44 vacant shops, meaning the strip had a vacancy rate of 21.5%.