Now listen to part of a talk in a business class.

listen to part of a talk in a business class. Okay, so one popular business model is called franchising. With franchising, as you may know, what happens is a company can allow a person to open a new branch of its business, and then that individual runs it independently, following the company's guidelines, multiple locations or branches of the same company share the larger company's name and are overseen by that company, but different branch owners are in charge of the day to day running of their branch. Now, franchise participation can be an easy way for an individual to start a business. However, it also has some drawbacks or problems. One problem branch owners encounter is that their creativity is limited. They have to follow the larger company's rules, and this can limit their independence. It might prevent them from using ideas that could be successful. So for example, if it's a restaurant franchise, the larger company may require that all of its restaurants have the same menu, a menu that's the same in each of its branches, and say, one branch owner has a great apple pie recipe, well, they wouldn't be able to sell it in their restaurant because it's not on the larger company's menu. Now another problem is that the reputation of each branch is linked with a reputation of the larger company's other branches, which means that if one branch makes a mistake and people find out about it, it may negatively affect all the branches in the area. So back to our restaurant, example, if one branch of the restaurant is really dirty with food on the floor and tables that don't get cleaned well, that could negatively affect the other branches in the area, since customers who eat there may tell their friends about it, and people may start avoiding all the branches of that restaurant.