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A Good Business Plan Is Necessary, Even With a Franchise

Written by: Michael Hemenway

Article Overview: A good business plan is necessary when you are starting a franchise. It will tell your bankers and other lenders you approach for loan about your reasons for pursuing a particular franchise opportunity. Your marketing, operational and financial plans for the franchise business you have bought are also discussed here.

A Good Business Plan Is Necessary, Even With a Franchise

Whether you are setting up your own business or starting a franchise, you need to make a killer business plan. A proper business plan will help the lenders know how much serious you are about the franchise opportunity. It will also make them aware that you have done your part of market-research, instead entirely depending on the interpretation of the market by the franchisor. Furthermore, your business plan will let others know what kind of vision you have for your franchise business. An ideal business plan has various sections and each section will inform about one aspect of your vision.

For starters, the first part or the executive summary will help the concerned persons know why you need the loan from them. By going through it, they will learn about your exact reasons for starting a franchise. The next section will be the company description and in the case of franchise business, it will be the details of the concept that has offered the franchise business for sale. The mere mention of the names of one of the best franchises in the business as your franchisor will definitely endorse your proposal for loan. Along with the details of the franchisor, you will have to mention what exactly will be your role in the establishment. You are also required to give a list of professionals who are associated with you. If you belong to any franchise association, you can also outline that in this section.

The third section comprises of the details about the marketplace you are targeting. It will be the essence of your marketing plan where the extensive research work you carried out while checking out the franchise opportunities in your chosen concept will come in handy. Certain things such as what the industries trends are, who the top franchises are and what will be the price-range of your product/service will be discussed in this section. It will also include where you are opening your store/office and how you are going to attract the customers.

The fourth part will talk about the mode of operation, which will include how you will run the store/office, how many people you are planning to hire and what will be their wages. The next will be the management structure. Whether you will run the business on your own or hire somebody and who will be your key advisers etc. will be included in this part. The last and the most important section is the financial plan for your franchise business. It will include estimation of cash flow, profit-loss projection as well as break-even analysis. There can also be an additional section where you will attach brochures and pamphlets of your franchisor and copies of lease-agreement and other contracts.

So, it’s quite evident that your business plan will be the bible of your business. Besides helping you to get investors, it will help you in your personal planning too. Your business plan will provide you a road-map to follow while you are starting a franchise. Top franchises generally help their franchisees in generating this business plan; so, ask your franchisor if it has any such program (it will be mentioned in the UFOC as well as in the franchise agreement). If not, you can take the help of professionals like a proficient franchise attorney or a skilled accountant. But whoever helps you, make sure that you are the prime creator of your business plan, so that you know everything well when you buy a franchise.

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Article Tags: business for sale, company description, exact reasons, executive summary, extensive research, franchise association, franchise business, franchise opportunities, franchise opportunity, franchisor, lenders, market research, marketing plan, marketplace, proper business plan, proposal, setting up your own business, starters, top franchises



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Business Innovation - Hi Simon If you can finish off the Business Plan and think about your strategic direction or how you are going to use your product to convince people it's a great idea, it will set the foundation for your programming project. You see, when you are looking for funding you will need a Business Plan and Strategic Plan that will convince companies to invest into your new idea. Has anyone achieved this idea before using another industry besides health and fitness that you know of? You should also design some mockups as a "preview" for your programming project. This will also help reduce your programming costs as everyone will know exactly what you want if you have detailed mockups already completed including any functionality you require. Starting mockups for websites and software applications on paper is the best way if you're not a guru in graphic editing software.
New Small Business Topic - Hello everyone, I'm on the lookout for new topics to add to my site. We just launched a Franchising section and are planning Human Resources section. Do you have any thoughts for a new section? Here's a list of what we currently have: Angel Investors Branding Bank Loans Business Coaching Business Plan Franchises (New) Insurance Legal Marketing Public Relations Sales Small Biz Loans Venture Capital
Re: Enticing Franchises - Top 9 List - All Franchise listed above are in millions of dollars. Do you have the list of Franchise in thousands
Re: Info for would be franchisers... - [quote="Sebastien":1d29sdv1]Like Franchise Times, Franchise Update is a very practical magazine. There is no blah blah, just straight facts that anyone in the franchise community can relate to. I just want to mention that all these magazines are NOT franchisee oriented. I mean these magazines are for franchise professionals. If you're looking to buy a franchise, you won't find much information in there. To answer your question, getting published in Franchise Times was fairly easy. I don't want to brag too much but I think I am known in the franchise industry. I was the marketing guy at Franchise.com for a few years before joining my new company, the World Franchising Network. So people know me and I have a very good relationship with Nancy Weingartner, the Managing Editor at Franchise Times. I was talking with her at the last Franchise Expo South in Miami and she mentioned she'd like me to be profiled. I was like "ok, sure!". I like this franchise executive profile thing in Franchise Times as it is rarely BS. People are usually really natural in there.[/quote:1d29sdv1] Thanks for the follow up Sebastien! And I can't say that I'm surprised that networking with the right people and managing your relationships with them properly are the keys to being published. I guess the old adage holds true of "it's not who you know, but who knows you" that's important.
2007 Goals - 1. Web site complete, fully operational 2. Revenue stream from both individual and corporate 3. Business Plan complete 4. Full marketing strategy complete and implemented


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