A critical part of the due diligence process for prospective franchisees is trying to discern (to the extent reasonably possible) whether the franchisor will be around for the long haul. After all, much of what you pay for in a franchise opportunity is the right to be associated with the franchisor’s brand and system, the right to use the franchisor’s proprietary materials, and in some cases, the right to an exclusive territory. If the franchisor goes out of business, all of these rights go up in the air (if not out the window), and you may well be left in a worse position than if you had just gone into business on your own in the first place.

Moneyball is a film about baseball, but on a deeper level, it’s about how to succeed in life through a series of broader principles, which can be applied to many areas, including business. Here are five such principles that business owners can utilize.

Whether you’re purchasing a whopper from Burger King or joining the Burger King franchise system, the old mantra holds true: there’s no such thing as a free lunch. When you first get started running a franchise you need to pay a fee to allow you to enter into that franchise. These fees are the largest fees that you will normally pay a franchisor and typically range between $5,000 and $1,000,000 depending on the franchise. The franchisor charges this fee as a way to recoup the costs of expanding the franchise and to continue to grow. From a franchisee perspective, this is a major outlay and can take a long time to make back, but is a necessary step. Aspiring business owners must understand how much capital is available to them so they can ascertain how much they can afford. The cash you have at your disposal is known as liquidity, and there are numerous ways to increase your liquidity above the balance in your bank account. As a result, many people don’t realize how much capital they actually can use for investments, like launching a franchise branch. We’ll run through some of those methods below.