Essential Tips For New Franchise Owners

Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Many business owners have entered the franchising arena. This arena comes with different rules and norms than other business types. The following contributed post is entitled, Essential Tips For New Franchise Owners.

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Lots of people want to start their own business. Franchising, which is when a brand provides licenses and agreements to entrepreneurs to run a business using their name, products, and services, is a business model that is getting more popular.

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You have a better chance of succeeding as an entrepreneur if you have the brand recognition of a known company behind you.

If you buy into a franchise, you will have access to a known product or service that customers are already familiar with. This makes going to you less of a risk, as they know what the brand provides. Starting with a franchise does have some risks, however.

Know Your Market

You don’t need to have years of experience in business to take advantage of the best franchise opportunities, but you should have some knowledge of the market you’re going into. This might be time spent working at a lower level in the same industry. If you don’t have this knowledge, talk to other franchise owners to start learning the industry. Being aware of the market you’re entering is essential if your business is going to be a success.

Choose The Right Location

The right location is important to any franchise. Think about what part of town would work best for the location of your business. If you own a franchise restaurant, for example, an area popular with tourists is a good idea to help you get a high footfall. The business district can work well for the same reason. Perhaps you have your eye on a space at a local shopping mall. The franchisor might be able to help you choose the best location for your business to help it thrive.

Get A Good Team

The team you have around you is very important. If you decide to start a franchise that will need more than just one person, you will need to go about the hiring process carefully. As a franchisee, your franchisor might have help available to you to train your new team, which should be covered in your franchise fee. A big benefit of having a team of strong employees in your franchise is that different people will bring in different skills to your business. You can utilise these skills to reach your business goals.

Choose Where You Get Your Finance From

It can be tough to secure finance for a franchise. Every franchise opportunity will come with a franchise fee. The amount that this fee will cost you can vary a lot. Sometimes your franchisor will ask you to pay the whole amount upfront at the start of the process, whereas others will let you pay some of the cost upfront, and spread the rest of the cost across a longer time period. Some banks do offer finance for franchising but make sure you read the terms of the finance very carefully. You can use your own money, make a deal with the franchisor, get funding from the bank. Whichever you choose, make sure understand the payment terms.

Considering Investing in a Franchise? Here’s Everything You Need to Know!

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. If you’re interested in going into business or yourself, you can either grow and nurture your own idea, or you can buy into a franchise-model. What are some considerations for this? The following contributed post is entitled, Considering Investing in a Franchise? Here’s Everything You Need to Know!

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The majority of people fall into one of two categories when it comes to making money – they tend to either be an employee working for someone else’s company, or they take matters into their own hands and create their own business from scratch. There are, of course, benefits that come hand in hand with each of these options. When you are employed, you benefit from contracted working hours, sick pay, annual leave, parental leave, and you are likely to get a redundancy package if your job falls through. If you run your own business, you get to keep a much larger share of the profit that you are actually earning. But it’s important to remember that these aren’t the only options out there. There are alternatives. One alternative is to take control of a franchise. Here’s everything you need to know on the topic if this is something that you could potentially be interested in!

What Is a Franchise?

Let’s start out by establishing what a franchise actually is. Put simply, franchising is a form of licencing relationship. When a business takes off, the business owner controlling it might recognise that there is demand for more branches of the company to open up, but they may not want to have to control the extra branches themselves – after all, this would be a lot of responsibility. So, these business owners may then decide to open new branches, but relinquish the majority of control over these branches to someone who is willing to buy the franchise from them (a franchisee). If you become a franchisee, you will generally have to follow rules and guidelines set out by the original business owner. You may have to keep their branding, operate under their brand name, and provide particular products or services that their brand is known for. But you do gain the control of running the business yourself and profiting from the business. There are seemingly endless types of franchises out there – you can find anything from fast food outlets to a tick control franchise for sale. So, there’s likely to be a franchise out there that genuinely interests you and that you would enjoy running.

Sticking to Terms and Conditions

If you do decide to go ahead and invest in a franchise, it is absolutely essential that you stick to the terms and conditions laid out by the original business owner. So, make sure to read through them and ensure that you are happy to abide by them before investing. The main terms and conditions tend to revolve around maintain the franchiser’s brand. This, of course, can be relatively frustrating if you want to make changes or alterations to the products and services that your franchise is offering and you are denied permission. However, remember that the brand is what is going to make you a lot of money with little input from yourself in the long run. When you invest a franchise, the business owner has already put a whole lot of hard work, time, effort, and financial investment into establishing the brand. People are already going to know what your franchise offers and there are likely to be loyal customers already in the area, who will be happy that a franchise has opened near them. This will save you the time and effort of carving a space for yourself in the market, and you can start making sales and generating profit a lot faster.

Expanding

If you do want to make changes along the line, make sure to open up a line of communication with the business owner. There’s always a chance that they will take your ideas and suggestions on board and you never know – they might grant permission for your plans to go ahead. It’s always worth at least asking.

Moving Forward

If, over time, you do find that franchising isn’t allowing you the creativity and control that you want over a business, you can always sell your franchise and move forward. But remember that engaging with a franchise is a great way to ease yourself into running a business and to familiarise yourself with how businesses work. You can then use this knowledge and experience moving forward to establish your own small business that you will have complete control over!

As you can see, franchising could prove to be a great business opportunity for anyone considering taking a little more control over their own careers. Whether you intend to stick with franchising or use this as great experience in running a business with lowered responsibility to start out, it’s worth looking into and getting involved with!