Franchising puts small business owners squarely between hard-line corporate requirements and low-paid employees.  With a brighter financial history in mind, a husband and wife invested a half-million dollars in a sandwich chain franchise in the late 1990s. She quit her job to boost the hoped-for bottom line at a quicker rate. They began their careers as small-business restaurateurs trusting their parent corporation but wound up learning franchising, in many instances, is not the way to turn a fast profit, but instead a way to lose a lot of money.