The Entrepreneur’s Guide To Business Franchising

If you consider yourself to be an entrepreneur, you’ve probably already started and sold a few companies in your time, which means you should have at least a basic understanding of how this whole concept goes down. However, if you’ve never been involved with franchise firms before, then you might well need some extra advice and information about how to identify the most lucrative opportunities and how to ensure the company you invest in are going to support and guide you through the first few months.Most of this info can be obtained through asking a series of basic questions that I will list in a moment, so you’d do well to make a note of them. At the end of the day, so long as you select a franchise that can produce acceptable and encouraging answers to these questions, you should have no trouble making a profit and seeing a healthy return on your investment. As with anything else in this world, you only get out what you put in.

Here are Some Questions you Definitely need to Ask Franchise Sellers:

• How Successful were your First 3 Unit Openings?

  Their answer to this question should tell you a lot about how much support they offer to their franchisors and whether there might be any issues you’ve not yet thought of.

• How Do Your Marketing Campaigns Perform?

  Their answer to this question should give you some idea about how well they understand their own clientele and the business world as a whole. All advertising should be profitable, and if theirs isn’t, alarm bells should start ringing.

• How Much Money Can I Make?

  Regardless of how genuine the seller might seem, they’ll probably overestimate your earnings by a considerable amount – that’s just how they operate. So, you can probably presume you’ll be able to earn about ? of the amount they quote you without killing yourself.

• Why Did You Start Selling Franchises?

  This is a rather open question, but it could give you more information than you might realise. Some less than reputable firms might start selling franchises because their own HQ isn’t doing very well. Others might do if for completely the opposite reason, but either way you’ll gain a better understanding of the people you’re purchasing from.

So, presuming you’ve managed to get satisfactory answers to all those questions, and there’s nothing else about the opportunity that seems negative, my advice would be to plough ahead and take them up on the offer. There is always going to be an element of risk involved when dealing with franchise purchases, but as some of the best franchise opportunities in the UK get overlooked by people who are being too choosy, I really wouldn’t spend too much time hesitating.

As long as you can see that other people are achieving the level of sales and profit they expected, and you’re going to have professional ongoing support throughout the entire endeavor, you probably don’t have too much to lose.

Good luck, whatever you decide to do!