Agreed. There's a lot of merit to what you're saying. As far as the 'franchise' comparison I made, I was referring to national franchises I've owned in the past. While there are greater legal protections for the franchisee, should there ever be a major dispute, the verbiage and structural characteristics are very similar. The agreements are always written to favor the issuer and to stack the deck completely in their favor. Basically, the house always wins. The only difference between FedEx 'contracts' and other major franchise agreements, is the legal risks and liabilities, but you only encounter these when there's a major dispute. Otherwise, the intent is that if you're heavily invested, you try to find the best way to operate 'within' the existing structure and to make the most profit and leverage the most benefit possible. I agree it's a terrible contract that only benefits X, but the only alternatives are to sell, never go into business with them in the first place, or find the most efficient way to operate within the confines of a bad contract. We happen to be the latter. Believe me, I'll go toe to toe with anyone who wants to debate the hypocrisy and one-sidedness of the Corporate-Contractor 'relationship', as it relates to fairness. There isn't any! But X's position is basically "...then don't sign our contract, we'll find another sucker". I don't see them changing this position either, because it works for them. I've come to the mindset that if we as a company remain in this business, we have to be satisfied with 23% to 25% profitability (and that's if we really manage our service and expenses closely). Before buying routes, I dabbled in route brokering, along with my franchise businesses. What I realized was that, on average, wherever you go in the country, the FedEx model works out to 23-25% profitability. It's eerily accurate. So, despite the crappy contracts, we're strategically planning, projecting and budgeting for a 25% net margin and using that figure as our long term anticipated ROI (pending the annual renewal of our contracts). We invest the cash, and when that investment has broken even, we plan to reinvest in additional routes and grow slow and steady. We hope to find the best way to manage that growth in the most efficient and clever way possible, within the lines of the contracts, so we can become more effective as we grow and be structured smartly, to maximize our profitability. We're still in an IC area, but ISP is an eventuality here. We're also considering the pros and cons of Line Haul.
I really appreciate the views and discussions, it's a great way to vent and share ideas at the same time.