10 Steps to buying a Franchise Business, Step 3 – Researching

Honeybees’ basic strategy is to maximise return over a broad geographic area and extended time horizon. Bees have to assess their environment at all times and be prepared to adapt depending on the weather conditions, the time of the year, the type of flowers and the competition for nectar with birds and other insects. Bees are heavily invested in research and development, constantly on the lookout for the next best thing while taking in revenues from the current sources. Scout bees monitor the number of sites at any given time to ensure they will be the most profitable.

Companies need, just like bees, to invest in developing their employees, understanding their customers’ needs, and continually innovate to keep up with today’s market demand. Whatever type of business you are looking at running whether you are launching a new product launch or opening a new branch you need to do some in-depth research, this will save you so much time and money in the long term.

Because the business environment is constantly changing, businesses need to develop a marketing audit and this should be used as a reference tool, with constant updates reflecting changes in the external environment and your own internal business experiences. It would enable you to assess the past and present performance as well as to provide the basis for evaluating possible future courses of action. The market environment is a marketing term and refers to factors and forces that affect a company’s ability to build and maintain successful relationships with customers.

Now are you are looking for franchise opportunities you need to look at which industry you may be suited for. Focus on industry groups appears to meet the desired criteria you identified in Step 1 Evaluate yourself. Once you have identified the industry ask yourself:

• in a bigger picture would this business continue to do well regardless of the state of the economy?
• what would this industry be like in 5 years, 10 years’ time?
• will people still want your products or services?
• what would your competition be like?

Once you are happy with the sector, look at individual companies and try to select companies that will have territories available in your desired area. Again refer to your criteria’s and select a short of Franchises that seem most interesting and attractive.

OK, now you should have a list of about 10 Franchises which tick your boxes in terms of industry, location and what you would really like to do. You need to research every single one of them. Secondary research is a good way to start:

• check out their website,
• what their customers say about them,
• how is their brand, are they on social media,
• how do you feel when you look at what they do?

If you feel excited and can imagine yourself being part of that brand, then shortlist them and bring it down to about 3.

Wow, congratulation, you have done it and it’s exciting, you have now shortlisted 3 of your favorite Franchise… next step is… check out Step 4 – Request Franchise Plan next week…

You can also read this article on The Busy Beehives Blog Page.

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