Tweet

A Checklist for Franchising Your Business

Written by: Mary Tomzack

Article Overview: Franchising your business is a major undertaking. Here is an essential to-do list for the prospective franchisor.

A Checklist for Franchising Your Business

Companies have been franchising for more than 50 years now with varying degrees of success. Make no mistake, franchising a business is a major undertaking. There is a lot to think about-geographical and operational issues, potential competitors, financial investment, and much more. We thought it might be useful to break the process down into the essential to-do list for the prospective franchisor. It's not meant to be all-inclusive by any means, but it should give you an idea of what's ahead.

Legalities-Prepare a standard disclosure document. At minimum, the FTC requires every franchise to have a Uniform Franchise Offering Circular (UFOC) before offering franchises for sale in the U.S. Some states have additional registration requirements. Get ready to have literally hundreds of business issues spelled out in print.

Financials-Prepare audited financial statements. This is actually a required part of the UFOC so until your statements are audited, you won't be able to legally proceed with franchising. You'll need an accountant with experience in producing these audited statements.

Systems-This is the heart and soul of any successful franchise company. Every aspect of your business must be developed to the point where it is easily replicated. Then every detail must be documented.

Training-You will need a training program plus qualified people to provide the training. The better your training program, the more successful your new franchisees will be.

Marketing-Formalize your marketing plan. Remember, you will need two sales systems: one for your franchisees to follow that will drive customers into their units and one for you to use to recruit those new franchisees. Prepare marketing materials that can be easily duplicated.

Quality control-Create checklists, policies, procedures and tactics to ensure your systems are uniformly enforced.

Attitude-This is perhaps the most important item of all. You must be focused, positive, flexible, and dynamic-all at the same time.

Related Articles
  Are You Franchise Material?
  The Top 7 reasons why Franchising is Better than a Brand New Business
  Should You Franchise Your Business?
  I Want to Take My Business to the Next Level
  Newsworthy Trends in Franchising

Article Tags: accountant, attitude, business issues, disclosure document, financial investment, financial statements, franchise company, franchisees, franchises for sale, franchisor, ftc, heart and soul, marketing materials, marketing plan, operational issues, quality control, registration requirements, ufoc, undertaking, uniform franchise



Related Forum Posts
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: Hello EvanCarmichaelers, and Thanks! - "Carmichaelers" ..nice.. Over at the Young Entrepreneurs I'm going to start calling my readers "DSilvelers" - I like the sound of that! Welcome on board theFranchiseMarket. Do you run a Franchise Business or are involved in Franchising in anyway?
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Re: Top 50 Lists - Hi Evan, How about "Top 50": -Inventor Blogs To Watch -Franchising Blogs To Watch -Business Book Review Blogs -Women Entrepreneur Blogs -Young Entrepreneur Blogs
Franchising & Licensing Can Be The Same Thing - FTC Rule 436 defines franchising as anyone offering an Agreement that contains these 3 things: 1. Licensing a "Mark" - which can be a trade name, service mark, commercial symbol, slogan, etc. 2. In the body of the Agreement, there contains, significant controls and assistance. 3. The licensee is paying the licensor in excess of $500 within the first six months of the actual offering of the business. Licensing and Franchising can mean the same thing today. If you do not decide to franchise and comply with FTC Rule 436, you may be in violation of Business Opportunity Laws that exist in 24 individual States.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Steps For Starting A Small Business

Tips to Take Control of Credit Card Debt

Coaching Tip: Identify Your Core Values

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.