Abstract: At least one embodiment of the invention pertains to a business method for efficiently allocating and operating franchises based on customer assignment rather than the traditional geographical assignment. A franchisor allocates customers to a particular franchise based on the franchisee's ability to service such customers. A franchisor can control the growth of a franchisee by (1) assigning specific prospects to the franchisee, (2) tracking the franchisee's initial surveys of the assigned prospects, (3) assign the surveyed prospects to the franchisee as customers, and (4) only assigning additional customers to the franchisee upon satisfactory servicing of its currently assigned customers. The franchisor also provides centralized sales, marketing, distribution, and accounting support to the franchisees.