Many franchisors in modern franchising today believe that they should have a certain percentage of women and minorities in their franchises and always make sure to recruit new franchise candidates in that ratio. This is extremely bad policy; sure equal opportunity is a good idea, but equal opportunity has come to mean ratios. That is wrong.

As far as believing in equal opportunity, I guess no I don't believe in that. I believe the best man wins, and many times that is a woman. I pick the very best franchisee team members I can. I have to. We have come too far, and worked too hard to settle for anything less. The most dedicated and spirited individual is the one we pick provided that they can afford to buy the franchise. We try to help them with financing or anything we can.

As far as off color comments, yes I'm not politically correct, never have been and since I own 100% of the company, no one can fire me. So I tend to comment on those things I see with an open mind. And I am also open to free discussion and willing to learn new views. What is unfortunate is the world is changing and the political correctness in the franchising industry is preventing truth from being said and actually hurting the best candidates sometimes, not always, due to quotas.

We need so many Cubans, So many American Indians, so many Jewish people and so many Hispanic franchisees. Rather than saying, lets just pick the best person, make them compete and the best person male, female, black or white, Catholic or Hindu wins. That is the way it should be really. So, be thinking on this in 2006.