5 Tips for Finding the Right Franchise
Contributed by Guidant Financial Group.
So you’ve decided that a franchise is the right path for you? Now comes the exciting part—choosing among hundreds of franchise opportunities. Here are questions to ask yourself to help narrow the field:
1. What captures your interest?
If you’ve always been a gear head, maybe a Jiffy- Lube or Snap-on Tools franchise would be right for you. If you love to travel, it may thrill you to help others with a cruise planning franchise or similar travel-based brand. On the flip side, no matter how great the ROI is, if fast-food makes you queasy, you probably won’t be happy being a burger-and-fries franchisee.
2. Do you want to run a business from home?
Home-based franchises have relatively low start-up costs. Some of the most successful are in the commercial cleaning category (Jan- Pro, System4, and Vanguard are Entrepreneur magazine’s top three home-based franchises for 2013). Tools, lawn care, and travel planning are also great opportunities.
3. Does this product or service have staying power?
Franchises that are hot right now may not be in a decade. Check into recession-proof services (pipes will burst, cars will break down, and people will spend money on their kids and pets no matter what) and franchises that target growing population sectors such as seniors and Latinos.
4. How much do you want to invest?
There are franchise opportunities in nearly every price range from a big- ticket McDonald’s ($1.03M) to home-based, low-startup cost franchises that you can get into for under $10K such as CruiseOne or Jazzercise. Getting a business loan is an option, as is rolling over a retirement account to purchase a franchise. The latter is complex if you want to avoid taxes so it’s best to obtain professional help.
5. Is the franchise a good fit?
When you’ve got your options narrowed to one or two, you’ll want to do some serious homework on the franchisors including talking to current and former franchisees, carefully reading over the Franchise Disclosure Document looking for red flags, hidden fees, and any history of litigation. It may also be prudent to seek the help of a franchise consultant—their services are typically free and they know the industry well.
Once you’ve done your soul-searching about the kind of business you want, narrowed the field, done due diligence on all the details and finally made your decision, take a deep breath and step into your future with confidence.
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Steps to Select and Protect a Valuable Trademark
The first thing to keep in mind when selecting a trademark is that not all words and names are capable of being protected as trademarks. No one business owner can claim exclusive rights in generic terms and logos, because all business owners need to be able to use these in order to identify their goods or services. Thus, a residential painting franchise likely could not claim exclusive rights in the name “Painting Pros”, because this is simply a generic description of the services that the business offers.
12 Questions You Must Ask When You Interview Existing Franchisees
Even the most honest and forthcoming franchisor can’t tell you what it’s like to be a franchisee. You should take the time to call existing franchisees and get some candid answers to your questions. Be careful that you don’t get a limited list of hand-picked contacts. It would be a waste of time to talk only to the most successful operators or those who are coached to give the “right” answers. Calling franchisees at random will give you the clearest picture of what you’re getting into. Here are some questions you should ask.
DOs and DON’Ts for Prospective Franchisees
Of course, new concepts and geographically-focused concepts may have no or only a limited number of franchisees. These opportunities should not simply be avoided wholesale; however, in these cases it will be particularly important to have candid and open discussions with the franchisor’s owners and representatives.
