Franchise development teams need to move candidates forward while staying within clear legal and compliance boundaries. This session looks at the points in the recruitment process where risk can arise, from marketing and early candidate conversations through disclosure, financial representations and the decision to award a franchise. The focus is on practical situations development teams encounter and how to recognize when to proceed, when to pause and when to involve legal.

Learning objectives

1. Identify common compliance risks in franchise marketing and candidate conversations.

2. Understand where disclosure, financial representations and third-party communications can create problems.

3. Recognize when a development issue should be escalated to legal rather than handled informally.

Workbook Activity: Safe, Risky or Call Legal?

Participants work through short franchise development scenarios involving marketing claims, earnings questions, disclosure timing, candidate communications, brokers and AI-generated content.

For each scenario, participants capture:

• What creates the risk?

• What could the development team do differently?

• What should be documented?

• At what point should legal be involved?

Workbook takeaway: One compliance gap or development practice to review with their team..