How To Franchise Your Business

Thinking of expanding your business, could franchising be the model to use?

The essential element to franchising your business effectively is to have a proven, successful concept that is working well as a business already and comprehensive franchise manuals detailing step-by-step operations of how the business works.

You need to collect all the knowledge and experience you and your team have and collate them in a set of franchise documents, this is the business itself, and if you are going to train other people to operate it, you need to know what to tell them. You’ll be surprised at how much that seems obvious to you, however it is a must to have it documented well for others to understand. This comprehensive information will form the basis of your franchise business.

This is the franchise blueprint for a franchisee to run their business. It needs to be comprehensive, setting out everything a franchisee and their staff needs to know to run the business. It may also need to be regularly updated to give franchisees the best chance of success, and maintain the value of your brand.

Technology is helping to streamline this process; there are many low cost solutions available online, simple to use, low cost franchise templates that have most of the structure outlined, guiding business owners through the path of designing suitable comprehensive operation manuals.

The Franchise Agreements governs the relationship between you and your franchisee’s and is an important source of protection for your business. It will contain potentially hundreds of clauses including the length of the agreement, rights of renewal, obligations of the franchisee and franchisor, termination provisions and what happens in the event of the death, illness or incapacity of the franchisee.

There are a number of companies offering Franchise Documents online and Franchise templates including comprehensive Franchise Agreements, manuals and franchise business plans and are available for a low cost high-end result solution.

You need to think about the type of franchisee (persons) you want to be working with. These may be existing businesses that are looking at new opportunities or private individuals who are setting up in business for the first time, but looking for a proven formula to help them get started.

Finally, the selection of franchisees is critical, particularly in the early stages of the franchise system, as the initial franchisees will form the backbone of your system. Decide what skills you need them to have and develop a profile based on this.