Benefits of Franchising

After years in the corporate jungle, you realize that being an employee is not for you. Maybe you're dissatisfied with how your company has treated you, or you recognize that your labors have created wealth for others but not yourself. You've thought of owning your own business but heard all the horror stories about the failure rates of starting up businesses. Guess what? Franchising may be the answer for you.

A BUSINESS MODEL

While starting your own business means you will have to learn and form everything from scratch, franchising offers you a working business model for running a business. Franchising is a network of interdependent business relationships that allows several people to share a brand identification, a successful business method, and a strong marketing and distribution system.

SAFETY IN PROVEN SYSTEMS

For the franchisee, franchising is about risk reduction and safety. You trade in the freedom of being an "independent owner" for an opportunity to become part of a group of people committed to building a brand and dominating markets using a standard, tested operating system.

No more guesswork about the most effective way to build your business: The franchiser provides a proven method (the operating system), a brand or trademark recognized by customers, and technical support so you won't have to reinvent the wheel to be successful.

On the other hand, you provide the capital to expand the brand faster than the franchiser can by itself and the management talent to run the business and execute the operating system.

PREDICTABLE RESULTS

Being part of a franchise system should also provide group buying power to cut your operating expenses, faster growth due to tested marketing programs, predictable results based on your adherence to the operating system, and less risk of your invested capital. The trade-offs for you are the fees you pay the franchiser for the active license and the restrictions imposed by the franchiser on the business's method.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The bottom line is whether you would like to run your business your way or own a well-known branch while adhering to a working business model with rules set by someone else. Your answer to this question will tell you whether franchising is for you.