Frequently Asked Questions About Franchising

Franprise Advisors is your go-to source for all the important questions you may have when considering buying a franchise. Our goal is to provide you with the answers you need to make the best decision for your business. We’ll cover the frequently asked questions about buying a franchise.

Owning your own business puts you in control of your own future. But it’s also difficult to do by yourself. There are many advantages to buying a franchise. When you buy a franchise, the Franchise itself offers support, proven systems, experience, and knowledge to all aspects of the business. They have been there so they know what challenges will arise and the best way to overcome them.

The Franchisor provides you all the tools to be successful. They will train you prior to your opening. They give you advertising and marketing support that helps build your business. Most importantly, they reduce your risk because the system has already been proven to work. The training and support is designed to help you overcome potential obstacles and run the business most efficiently using the systems in place. With some franchise concepts, that proven system can help you develop an organization that can be run by a professional manager, leaving you more time to develop additional units or pursue other business or personal goals. And if selling your business is part of your long-term strategy to build wealth, that brand name and added support can be a tremendous value-add for your potential buyer.

Franchising offers the opportunity to be in business for yourself, but not by yourself.

When working with a Franprise Advisor, he/she will work with you to find the right Franchise concept, industry, product/service that best fits your lifestyle, skills, and passion. This allows a Franchise Advisor to be unbiased and present you with multiple Franchise concepts that fit your needs.

If you go directly to the Franchise, the Franchise Salesperson can’t help but be biased toward their concept as they work directly for the Franchisor and get paid to sell that particular Franchise.

According to franchise industry experts, many people who don’t work with an advisor become interested in a franchise concept because they are attracted to the product or service it provides. That’s not a bad place to start, but it’s not enough. You also need to evaluate what the day-to-day life of the owner would be like and whether that business would suit you and meet your needs. Once we go through that process, we find that many of our clients end up purchasing a different concept than the one they initially thought they were interested in due to the extensive franchise selection process and assessment that we work with the client on.

There is no cost to you to work with a Franprise Advisor. You pay the published price of any franchise, just as if you had gone directly to the Franchisor. Franchisors typically prefer selling a franchise to a client that is working with a Franprise Advisor because they know they will coach and work closely with the client to explain to them how the franchise system works. This truly becomes a win-win-win situation because you get the support you need to decrease your risk and make the best decision; the Franchisor gets a Franchisee that is more prepared to succeed and I get to do what I love best – support people in achieving their dreams!

By working with a Franprise Advisor, we work closely with you to assess your readiness to become an entrepreneur and to identify issues that may impede your potential success. This is done through our complimentary, no obligation assessment.

Once we complete the assessment, we will be able to do the following:

Help you maneuver through the confusion and information overload and provide a systematic method to make an informed, educated decision.
Help you to clarify your lifestyle, financial and business goals to help match you to the franchise concept that aligns best with your overall goals.
Find you funding opportunities based on your current financial situation.
Locate franchise concepts that you may never have found on your own as we have access to a database of thousands of franchise concepts, including what territories are available for each franchise concept.
Reduce your time and aggravation researching franchises that are not a good fit. There are thousands of opportunities available, we narrow down the best options and present those to you.

Absolutely not. In fact, most franchisors prefer that you have no experience in the industry prior to owning the franchise. Franchisors want people that can use their transferable business skills to motivate employees, close sales, and manage efficient operations. They do not want their owners doing the labor, they want their franchisees to focus on the business. Typically, in this equation, the franchisee is the manager not the labor.

We work with you to help you find the right industry based on your skills, personality, lifestyle and business skills that you can apply to grow the business. A lot of us finding the right franchise industry that works with you is done through the SpotOn! Assessment tool that we offer complimentary to all of our clients.

Buying a franchise resale simply means buying an existing franchise operation. It can be a great opportunity, especially since you should be able to get a clear picture of how the business has performed. Typically, an existing franchise operation will go up for sale because people retire, relocate, change their focus, etc. Whatever the reason, though, it's still beneficial to have an expert franchise consultant, such as a Franprise Advisor, to help investigate the situation.

There are two types of existing franchise businesses up for sale: the type that makes money and the type that's barely breaking even or losing money. Franprise Advisors will help you determine which type you're dealing with, before you buy the franchise resale.

There are several advantages to buying a franchise resale:

Instant cash flow.
Existing customers.
The local market is already familiar with the brand.
The location, staff, and inventory are already established.
There is hard date and history to help develop a solid business plan.
Existing business data makes it easier to get a finance solution.

When buying a franchise resale, you will find yourself asking many questions. Questions like what should I look for when buying a franchise resale? How can I make sure the business is not a money pit? Is there something wrong with this business, such that the owner is selling it?

Each of these questions is completely plausible, and our Franprise Advisors team knows which questions to ask. We're happy to help you verify information and form an honest view of the potential in the business.

Information – The current owner of the franchise will be able to provide you with a very detailed overview of the business history. Franchisors also make buying a franchise resale less risky than buying an independent business, because they will verify a lot of vital information. Franchisors tend to be very honest, because they don’t want to start things with a new owner under false pretenses. It’s important to have an accountant look at the overview before you go through with buying a franchise resale. It’s also important to have an expert ask questions and look for facts that may not be covered in the overview. Franprise Advisors can help you avoid common mistakes and find details people commonly miss on their own, thanks to our background in accounting.

Valuation – The asking price of the business should be in line with the amount of money the business takes in. It's important to find out how the seller came up with asking price. It’s equally important to know whether the seller had their accountant, franchisor, or an independent franchise expert determine the asking price. Sellers who utilize independent franchise experts to appraise their business tend to be closer in asking price to what a buyer’s accountant will come up with. This means the gap to overcome through negotiation will be smaller.

Negotiation – This is where the experience of our Franprise Advisors team will pay off the most. The negotiation is usually the most frustrating part of the whole process for both the buyer and the seller because both have very different goals. The buyer needs to believe they can improve the performance of the business and make enough money to profit. We have extensive experience negotiating franchise resales, enough to know that "hardball" doesn’t work. We've perfected our negotiation techniques and approach every situation with finesse and respect for both buyer and seller.