A quote from Nathan Conyers

The distribution system they came up with was a beautiful idea. The manufacturer started making cars and then figured out that it had to have a vehicle to sell them. They could either create their own dealerships that they bought and paid for, or they could go outside and create a system of individual entrepreneurs selling their product under a franchise system. The idea worked.

The weakness in the system from the very beginning was that manufacturers wanted to call it a partnership - that the manufacturer and the dealer were partners in this process of distribution.

That wasn't true then, and it isn't true now. This is not a partnership. This is a franchise system. There's a franchisor and a franchisee. The franchisor sets the rules, and the franchisee follows them.

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