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The Franchise Business Plan

Written by: Nick Strong

Article Overview: What to consider when raising funding to buy your chosen franchise.

The Franchise Business Plan

A Business Plan is one of the most important documents for a franchisee. It provides a guide to whether your franchise business is going well or under achieving. It is essential that once written reference is made to it from time to time, to ensure any falling trends are adjusted as soon as possible and with the assistance of the franchisor. The franchisor should be interested in the performance compared to plan, as their income should depend on the success of your business.

So, do not just look at your business plan purely as a passive speculative or historic document. Don’t forget about cash flow. If you run a franchise in the business to business sector it can take up to 90 days. This means that a good billing month will take about two to three months for you to experience the cash benefit. This is very important to understand when planning when to spend money or when you might need to utilise an over draught facility.
Before the Bank is willing to lend, a business plan will be required and should include the following:

• Details about the franchise
• The sector it operates in
• The competition, both locally, regionally and nationally
• Your marketing plan
• The costs
• Projected financial information.
• Your CV
• Your assets and liabilities

One of the most important sections of the plan is the detail about the franchisee. This is because the success of the franchise will be determined, in most cases, by the franchisee and the effort they put in to the business. However a Bank Manager will also assess this during a face to face meeting. Understanding of the market, franchise and your enthusiasm and belief in the franchise system are therefore vital.

If you are buying an existing franchise business the bank would like to see the past financial performance; the last 3 years accounts would be helpful.

Many franchisors will assist in completing a business plan, however the bank will expect you to know and understand the various statements and financial figures it contains. There will undoubtedly be questions about parts of your plan. The financial information, particularly the forecasts, will help you to assess the performance of the franchise in the early months.
The main lending banks such as Nat west and HSBC have a Start-Up Planner, which can assist in completing a plan, should a template from the franchisor not exist.

www.selectyourfranchise.com offers the franchise seeker a wide range of franchise options to research. From over 140 UK franchise opportunities you may us the quick search options available to narrow down opportunities that meet your requirements before taking further investigative steps.

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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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