Word: productions
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...longest-running product boycotts in recent memory finally drew to a heady close last week. In Washington, AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland crossed off the name of the Colorado-based Coors brewery from a list of sanctioned companies, ending a ten-year labor dispute. Reason for the peace declaration: Coors had agreed not to interfere with union-organizing efforts at its two plants...
...time-tested way to build a big company. First come up with a good product or service and give it a catchy name. Then recruit an army of entrepreneurs to carry that name into cities and towns all across the U.S., or even the world. The phenomenon is known as franchising, and it has created millionaires galore and made empires of McDonald's, Holiday Inn and Baskin- Robbins...
Often it is not the basic product or service that is appealing but the atmosphere in which it is provided. Phil Akin was working his way through Iowa State University in 1983 by installing coin-operated machines on campus when he decided to start his kind of launderette, a place where people could get a cold beer or play a hot game of eight ball while they waited for their clothes to dry. Akin opened the first Duds 'N Suds store, complete with pool table and bar, with a $120,000 loan from an Ames, Iowa, bank. Since then, Akin...
...return, the franchisees often get a slew of benefits. They may buy not only a product or a name but a whole image and way of doing business. Many companies help their franchisees with almost every aspect of the operation. Says Stanley Williams, assistant director of communications for the Washington-based International Franchise Association: "The typical person starting a small business may be a good mechanic, cook or barber, but he doesn't know how to pick a location, buy supplies, hire and train workers and do his taxes. Franchising supplies this expertise...
Sometimes franchisers launch a company simply by making an old product better. In 1982 Ted Rice, a Kansas City TV cameraman, brought home a cinnamon roll he had bought from a vendor and asked his wife Joyce, a schoolteacher, if she could make a tastier one. After she came up with a delicious specimen topped with streusel and a thin layer of vanilla icing, they tried selling her rolls at state fairs and arts-and-crafts shows. When long lines started to form, they knew they had a hit. The Rices opened their first T.J. Cinnamons shop in Kansas City...