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Get Started in Franchising: What is a franchise?

By Kurt Illetschko

A business format franchise is a blueprint to business success with permanent back-up thrown in for good measure. Initially, the franchisor – the grantor of the franchise – offers individuals a ‘business in a box’. This ‘box’ contains a tried and tested blueprint for the establishment and ongoing operation of the business that enables the franchisee – the person who makes the investment – to operate the business successfully.
Because franchises operate in many different industry sectors, support varies; serious franchisors provide at least some of the services listed below.

 

Initially:

● Careful selection of applicants;
● The right to trade under the franchisor’s brand name;
● Assistance with site selection and lease negotiations;
● Introduction to preferential sources of supply;
● Help with the fitting-out, equipping and stocking-up of the new business;
● Extensive initial training for the franchisee in all facets of operating and managing the business;
● Help with staff selection and training;
● Grand opening followed by a short period of intensive operational support.

On an ongoing basis:
● Product development and marketing support;
● Experienced trouble shooter on tap;
● Periodic support visits to bring the franchisee up to date with developments in the sector, review performance and offer motivation and training;
● Access to bulk deals in product sourcing and advertising;
● National and regional meetings and training events.


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Get Started in Franchising: Teach Yourself

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Get to Grips With Book Keeping: Types of small business There are three main categories of business; sole trader, partnership and limited liability companies. Any of these three categories can however, be a small business.
Get to Grips With Book Keeping: Book-keeping principles In making book-keeping entries, we need to consider how each transaction has affected the business. In doing so, you may find it useful to think in terms of its sources and uses of funds
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Get to Grips With Book Keeping: Cash flow Cash flow is often described as the blood of business, due to its importance in ensuring commercial survival.
Get to Grips With Book Keeping: Book-keeping history From approximately 4000 BC , the growth of trade led to a need for record keeping in the Mesopotamian river valleys. Findings dating from about 3300 BC indicate that Sumerian temple officials used wet clay tablets to record stocks and transactions. For example, landowners would record the number of livestock placed under the care of farmers with special clay symbols.
Close More Sales: Keep price breakdown information to yourself In a selling situation, a professional buyer will ALWAYS push you for price breakdown information, and the more you give them, the more they’ll use it against you! That’s why you should always keep price breakdown information to yourself.
Get to Grips With Book Keeping: Ask for a referral with every customer you meet After every sales visit, regardless of the outcome, if you can acquire the habit of asking a simple question just before you leave, you will be able to maintain a constant flow of high quality sales leads.
Close More Sales: Confirm every sales appointment with a PS letter or email Have you ever gone to an appointment that you had originally made by telephone, only to find that when you get there, the prospect is unavailable because they had forgotten about it? If so, then you’ll already know how frustrating it is - not to mention a complete waste of your valuable time! That’s why it’s always a good idea to make a point of confirming every sales appointment by letter or email, straight away.
Close More Sales: Make good use of the customer’s name People enjoy hearing the sound of their own name because it is distinctly personal. Indeed, in an increasingly impersonal world, perhaps it’s true to say that, in business these days, using someone’s name, remembering it and getting it right is more important than ever before.
Close More Sales: Use the ‘try before you buy’ close In a face-to-face selling situation, it usually proves to be an irresistible offer to let your prospects ‘try before they buy’ and enjoy the benefits of your product during a free trial period. Providing your product lends itself to his idea, it’s a great way to reduce sales resistance, and give your product the chance to sell itself.
Close More Sales: Exercise your expertise power As an experienced professional salesperson, the chances are you know more about your industry, your market, your competitors and your products and services than just about any other person alive – and don’t forget, that includes your buyers! The fact is, you are an expert, and let’s make no mistake about it, during the course of a sale that expertise is a powerful persuasive force.
Close More Sales: Harness print power The fact that something is printed tends to enhance its believability. It has a kind of built-in authority that the spoken word or handwritten materials just cannot match.
Close More Sales: Pay unexpected attentions Giving ‘unexpected attentions’ is the simple idea of delighting your customers by sending them a little something from time to time – something that’s totally unexpected.
Close More Sales: Use pre-printed telephone inquiry pads There are a number of benefits to using telephone inquiry pads. Quite apart from ensuring that you always come across as highly professional whenever answering the telephone to a new prospective customer, over time it provides a source of information that is crucial to your ability to evaluate the effectiveness of your promotional activities.
Close More Sales: Explore the buyer’s personal interests Always go beyond just finding out what buyers need and want and try to uncover any underlying personal motivations too. In effect, the personal interests of the buyer often represent a ‘hidden agenda’ which is potentially the most powerful of all information for the salesperson.
Get Started in Franchising: Legal aspects of franchising Franchising is a complex arrangement and the franchise agreement needs to reflect that. Many prospective franchisees are shocked to find that it runs into 70 pages or more but this is necessary. Unlike most other agreements, the franchise agreement covers a myriad of different transactions that are closely interlinked.
Get Started in Franchising: Financing a franchise Investing in a franchise is probably the largest financial transaction you will ever undertake, and you will have to borrow money. In most instances, this money will come from a commercial bank but other sources of funding exist. Let’s look at these first.
Get Started in Franchising: Who owns what in a franchise? Questions asked frequently at franchise seminars indicate that this topic is surrounded by confusion. It’s quite simple: The franchisor owns the intellectual property while the franchisee owns the business infrastructure. What does this mean?
Get Started in Franchising: What is the best franchise? People ask me this question all the time but unfortunately, I don’t have the answer. The best I can hope to do is to tell you how it works in practice.
There is no such thing as ‘the best franchise’. If it would exist, everyone would invest in it, the market would become oversaturated and it wouldn’t stay the best franchise for very long. The human factor comes into play as well.
Get Started in Franchising: International franchises People go on holiday, see some exciting concept and want to take a franchise back home. Unfortunately, it’s not quite as straightforward as that. Franchisees are entitled to receive a business package that has been tried, tested and proven to work – in their market! Unless the foreign company has representation in your home country, granting you a franchise would be outright irresponsible.
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