Are you interested in a franchise business and planning to start one? It must be embarrassing for you with many questions such as where and when to start, what are the basic steps, and whether you are on the right track or not. Franchising business is one of the most promising businesses there is no doubt about it. But you need to prepare yourself and your business to start a franchise business. Look for assistance to take guidance and ideas from expert and professionals like Xtend-Barre Franchise or anybody you know who is fit for you.
The US Small Business Administration (SBA) says that franchise plays a significant and important role in the national economy and is the fastest-growing sector in America. The SBA further reveals that every new franchise creates employment opportunities for a minimum of 8 to 14 people in the US.
Below are a few guidelines for you to prepare for your upcoming franchise business to help you stop worrying about how to proceed.
Determine Whether your Business is Fit for Franchise Business
Conduct an internal evaluation of your business and determine whether your business is fit and ready to start with a franchise business. Concretely examine the pros and cons of different sections of your business. If you find scopes to improve different systems and mechanisms then take war footsteps to develop them. The process may take a bit longer but it will ultimately help your business to grow.
Prepare Your Legal Documents and Other Operational Requirements
You will need a lot of legal documents to start your franchise business and interact with your franchisees. You will also need to regularly interact with law and enforcement agencies. Therefore, you need to necessarily prepare all legal documents and other operational requirements before you launch your franchise business. You can seek professional assistance from agencies like Xtend-Barre Franchise or engage an attorney to appropriately prepare your law and other operational documents and papers. The attorney can also help you in processing the legal matters and selling of franchises to the franchisees.
Build Your Human Resource and Train Them
Your franchisees will build their own locations and business and will use your logo, business strategies and systems, logo and other trademarks, etc. You are liable to extend all necessary assistance including building their capacity through training and orientation. Therefore, You need to build your own capacity in terms of human resource development especially to impart training and other assistance to the franchisees.
Fulfil the Legal Requirement and Other Formalities
You need to fulfil various legal requirements and other formalities before selling the franchisees. You can either do this by your own human resources or by an attorney. The best lawyers for this sector can be found in the state of New York, so it might be your best option to hire a trademark lawyer in New York, since they have the most specialized professionals as well as the most trademark cases in the US. Below are the legal requirements and formalities.
- FDD or Franchise Disclosure Document which must comply with the Franchise law
- Operations Manual that will be provided to each franchisee
- Registration of trademark
- Establishing a new franchise entity
- Filing of FDD and getting it registered
- Creating strategies for sales
- Setting up a budget
Prepare for Publishing and Advertising
Advertisement is essential to publish your franchise business to attract franchisees especially from the locations where you or your brand has a reputation. You can follow numerous ways to advertise your business such as posters and hoardings and other paid channels. You can also use social media platforms and other digital advertisement strategies and prepare for them.
Set Objectives and Goal for Your Franchise Business
Engage your human resource and sit for a series of brainstorming sessions to articulate your goal and short-term and long-term objectives with timelines. Your objectives should be based on a SMART basis i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reasonable, and Time-bound. You can set a goal up to 10 years but you must break the process into year-wise objectives.
Keep an Eye on Your Competitors and Learn from Them
Identify your competitors both in your and your franchisees’ locations and at the competitors’ locations. Study their performance and their success and failures. If you find something worthy to learn from their success and failure, take them as learning for you. Explore strategies on how you can perform differently.
Conclusion
Franchise businesses are not very old and started after the 2nd World War. But franchise business has grown into the most progressive and fast-growing sector across the world. Almost all sectors and services can be brought into the franchise business and almost all businesses beginning from MSME to multinationals can get into the intervention.