Since you have landed on this article, it’s quite obvious that you are inches away from buying a franchise business. We are sure, you have come across quite a lot of resource material, numerous hours of research about franchises, attending franchise events, and ticking down a checklist of to-dos, yet we would like to start from the beginning of the process. Right from learning about franchising and understanding the concept of franchising.
The franchise is a business concept that encompasses the following business model:
a. The business owner, typically known as the franchisor grants the licenses to entities called franchisees (franchise enthusiasts) to operate the business at a specified location.
- The minimum understanding of the franchise terms that will get you going is as follows:
- The Franchise Fee is the cost that the franchisor charges to grant the license.
- Minimum liquid capital is the minimum amount of liquid cash available to start and operate a business that will cover the majority of the charges and additional requirements
- Franchise Royalties are the fee that you, as a franchisee, will continue to pay to operate the business.
- Setup Costs- and ongoing costs are in reference to the expenses on the heads of owning a commercial space, staffing, maintenance, and business licenses apart from the franchise’s license.
b. The franchise realm offers a large bandwidth in regard to the choices of a particular industry to franchise in. It comes with built-in brand awareness and a customer base. The business basics, like mission, vision, branding, and supply chain are all set. However, franchising emerges with higher start-up costs and the roles of the franchisees are indicative and non-negotiable in most cases.
Steps to Buying a Franchise:
From picking up the right franchise, securing space, and owning licenses, you, a franchise enthusiast needs to follow a process to get there faster without many hurdles.
- Research
Franchises can come in various sectors. As the matter of fact, every sector has a distinguished franchise opportunity. International Franchise Association (IFA) is one of the organizations that provide metered information. The metrics that need to be considered are:
Franchise fees, liquid capital, financial aid, average revenue, royalty fees, marketing, and branding fees, as well as other fees.
The above metrics can be used to find the best franchise that aligns with your interests and principles as well as is economical and yields timely profits.
- Gauge opportunities and costs
Franchises are area-specific. Gauge the opportunities a particular franchise offers in a particular area. The revenue that the franchise offers and can be expected annually majorly becomes the deciding factor for choosing a franchise.
- Business plan and investors
Venturing on the maiden journey toward owning a franchise can be daunting when you experience a crunch in investments. Drafting a business plan is the best measure in that case. A business plan encloses all necessary information that an investor might want to perceive before agreeing to invest in the franchise. That investor can be an individual or even a financing entity.
- A business plan gives assurance to the investors that they will have their returns on the investment within a specific period.
- A business plan gives the investor/lenders to assess whether the principal involved, the strategy and the business will steadfast ruler in the market and how much they will be profitable when it does.
- A business plan gives the investor/lender a sense of calculated approach and helps entrust them with their valuable assets, money, and time, in you operating the franchise business.
- Get the Franchise Disclosure Document
Conventionally, with the guidelines from the IFA, the franchise owners are obligated to provide the FDD free of cost. This has the contract that provides minute details of the franchisor’s company. Section 19 provides the most valuable resource for the kind of partnership the franchise agreement is intending to.
- Form an LLC
LLC refers to a Limited Liability Company. Franchisors require different business entities based on their overall structure. Either way, these businesses mean you can start categorizing your business expenses.
- Plan on owning a business space
When the business operations are fixed, planning towards the business space to operate the business becomes inevitable. Owning a space might be according to the guidelines provided by the franchisor or with the assistance of the franchisor.
- Recruit to operate
Once the agreement and location are in place, you can start looking for employees to help you run the business. Recruiting a good lot of people in alignment with the work profile and the company requirements is the key to successful team building and smooth operations.
Liked what you read? Follow us on Linkedin.
Want your franchise news to be covered? Send your Press Release.