100 Franchisers Will Sell Themselves During 2-Day Expo at Disneyland Hotel

It’s hard to think of something these days that some franchise, somewhere, doesn’t sell.

There are franchises that will dye your carpets, rent you a gown, or rustproof your car. A Vacaville outfit franchises Wooz, an amusement park in the form of a gigantic maze that people pay to enter so that they can find their way out.

Many of the nation’s 2,500 franchise companies will be represented today and Sunday at the Worlds of Franchising Expo at Anaheim’s Disneyland Hotel.

For two days, more than 100 franchise firms--a record number for the show--will be hawking business opportunities and ideas to the 8,000 to 10,000 people expected to attend.

For the companies--which represent about 20% of the nation’s franchise firms--the expo is a chance to find potential investors and business people who might become franchisees.

For the public, it’s a chance to find out how to become a franchisee--those entrepreneurial, small-business people who want to own their own businesses but who also crave the security of a bigger entity’s tested and true way of making a business work.

And these days, franchises are hotter than a Big Mac.

Projections are that franchises will account for about half of all retail sales by the year 2000--up from the one-third estimated now, according to the International Franchise Assn., the Washington-based association that is putting on the expo. In fact, the association estimates that a new franchise outlet opens about every 17 minutes.

That’s a lot of sales. And the trend shows no signs of slowing, according to industry officials.

Franchises are particularly popular in California--home for 20% of all of the franchise companies in the United States.

“It’s where the action is,” explained John Reynolds, marketing director of the IFA. “California is known as the land of promise, so it attracts many entrepreneurs who start companies here.

So it’s no surprise that many of the exhibitors at this weekend’s expo are based in Orange County. The roster includes two private postal services--A.I.M. Mail Centers of Mission Viejo and Mail Serv of Irvine; El Toro’s Children’s Orchard, which specializes in inexpensive clothing for youngsters, and Huntington Beach’s Money Mailer, an advertising and direct-marketing franchise firm.