The Truth About Franchising

There's a dirty little secret in the franchise world you may have never heard.?

What is it? One of the ways a good franchise determines if a candidate can follow a process, is by seeing if the candidate can follow the franchisor's discovery process. The franchise will clearly outline a multi-step process for each franchise candidate to follow as they research the franchise.?

Beep, Beep, Beep…THIS IS A TEST…To pass the test, you need to show evidence that you’re able to follow that process and not go rogue.

The Importance of Following the Process

Essentially the franchise will have certain steps that are lined out for you and they want to make sure you can follow that. It's a test within a test. The franchise is not just selling you a franchise, and you're not just a buyer in this journey. It's a two-way street.?

The franchise must approve you and they want to make sure you can follow a system. Of course, if you do follow their process you’ll be able to gather the information you need to make a wise decision to “yes” buy the franchise if the territory is awarded to you. Or “no”, decide upon another brand or to go back to what you were doing. Both answers are totally acceptable.

Understanding the Limits Within a Franchise System

Sometimes people who own their own independent business, can find it harder to follow a system than others. Why? Because they’re used to calling their own shots. I had one business owner who wanted to change the color of the franchise’s logo, that's simply not going to happen. She ended up being fine with the color, she just wouldn’t have chosen it herself.

You have to know going into it, that there are going to be processes and systems and things that are already set up that you can't change. Knowing all the systems and processes are set up is another reason why business owners love the idea of a franchise. They know how much work it is to set up the processes and systems, because they did it themselves with their business.

But you will find some franchises, especially those that are more established and some types of franchises, that don't provide a franchise owner with as much wiggle room as other types of franchises and newer franchise systems.

For the most part, fast food franchises are usually very dialed in and don’t give you much wiggle room. There's not much you can do to change it. In fact, I have talked to a McDonald's owner? years ago who wanted to make McDonald's healthier. She bought her McDonalds franchise, which is a hard thing to even have the opportunity to do, but she ended up selling it. She realized she couldn’t impact a change. I’m not sure why she thought she’d be able to do this going into the franchise agreement.

Are You a Good Fit?

On the other end of the spectrum, you have a consulting type franchise like FranNet, where there's a little more wiggle room to do things within the brand.? While our processes are lined out, I do get a lot of flexibility when it comes to marketing my services. For example, doing these videos is one of the things that can be done within that wiggle room.

Keep in mind that as a franchise owner you need to be able to follow that process and that system. But don’t automatically assume that you’ll have no flexibility. You owe it to yourself to do the research to find out if you’re a good fit for a franchise business.

If you're interested in finding out more about franchise ownership, come to my next Question and Answer session. I can help you find the franchise that’s right for the amount of structure you desire.??

You can scan over the QR code or go to www.bizbuyown.com and sign up for my Question & Answer session. And keep in mind that all my services are always free of cost to you. There's a dirty little secret in the franchise world you may have never heard.?