1. How long have you been with the Franchise?

2. What made you choose the (INSERT NAME) franchise?

3. What is your current monthly revenue?

4. How long did it take you to make a profit or when are you forecasted to?

5. What was your forecasted break even point and what is it in reality?

6. Are you paying a monthly management fee or commission? If so How much?

7. Did the training course meet or exceed your expectations? 

8. Was there anything you thought was missing from the training?

9. Did you feel that the training course provided you with tools that were not in the public domain - i.e standard  books e.t.c    

10. Did you have the legal contract checked out? If so what were the comments?    

11. Did you have any changes to the contract made?   

12. Did you pay the full list price for your licence and training? 

13. How do you feel about the franchise business?

14. How is your relationship with the management staff at the franchise?

15. Are you aware of any disputes within the franchise? If so can you give details.

16. Are you satisfied with the marketing the franchisor provides?

17. Have you ever gained clients/customers as a result of the franchisors marketing efforts?

18. Knowing what you know now, would you buy the franchise again?

With a recognised brand name often put forward as being one of the important most valuable parts of a franchise I have given you a few questions to think about when looking at a potential franchisor.

 Did you ever hear of the franchise you are considering before you investigated franchises?

 Has anyone you know ever heard of them?

 Have any of your potential clients/customers ever heard of them? A good bit of due diligence around this one question alone can prove invaluable.

 Have any industry commentators i.e trade press, specialists, forums e.t.c ever heard of them?

 For the type of business you are going to be in is a national brand really needed?

 If a national brand is beneficial is there any way of putting a financial value to it? How much are you prepared to pay someone just to access the brand name.

 What plans does the franchisor have to develop and grow the brand?

 What does the brand mean and stand for? Any good well developed brand will convey planned images, associations and meaning to a customer. Ask the franchisor what their brand stands for and judge their response. If they can’t tell you then is it worth paying a premium for?

Who am I to give advice on buying a franchise?

Firstly, let me introduce myself. My name is Peter and I lost over $100,000 on a franchise.     Expecting me to be a bitter and twisted franchise hater?

Let me tell you that I am not.

Do you know who I blame? ————— No One!

If I was a blame type person - which I am not, I would blame myself and no one else.  But I’m not. Don’t get me wrong. Two years ago, I would have given you a different answer. I was bitter. I was consumed with anger, resentment, and feelings of revenge.

Let me tell you that it took an immense amount of time, inner soul searching and personal development to get to the stage where I could say that.

About 3 Years ago I returned home from travelling around the world (another story!) and decided that the employee life was no longer for me. I had had a relatively successful career in Sales and Consulting (and had completed an MBA) for small businesses and Corporates but did not want to return to being a wage slave.

I new I didn’t want a job (just over broke?) but had no real idea what I wanted to do. I had a vague understanding of franchises from their presence in the retail business. I thought I knew that they were a way of buying into a tried and trusted business that went a long way to kick starting you off on the road to successful business ownership.

I did a lot of research on the internet and interviewed a number of franchises. I researched many of the franchise opportunities for sale. I thought I had done a huge amount of investigation (a process known as due diligence) into the risks and rewards. I thought I did!! I now know better. In my later blog posts I will show you the back ground research that I did and more importantly……….

…… the research you should be doing now.

To cut my story short. I bought into a franchise that I think was oversold. Very few people wanted the product/service, the franchise was completely lacking in any ideas as to help. I had ‘invested’ over $70,0000 in the franchise direct, had set up a business with all the costs that come with that, and had very little income for 6 months.

I was in to the tune of well over $100,000 and facing one of the most difficult decisions of my life

Do you want to know what happened?

Well - read my blog post tomorrow………

The last few years have seen a major surge in peoples desire to find a way out of the rat race and set up a business. Often franchising is seen as the holy grail. After all, is it not a proven way of buying a business ‘off the shelf’ with guaranteed profits?

Unfortunately it is not all-ways the case. Business Franchise Opportunities are every where and realistically it does not take a huge amount to set one up. This is a fast growing market place and new companies and ideas are fighting for their piece of the action.

My goal with this blog is to provide you with some hard hitting facts, figures and a process of evaluating potential franchises so that if this is the route you decide to go down then it will be absolutely the right choice for you. If you ask the questions I will give you to ask, do your due diligence and work out exactly what it is you want to achieve from your business, then you wont go wrong.

This blog will update daily - so mark it in your favourites and come back for more.

You can survive in the franchise world — but make sure you avoid the sharks!!