Business franchise templates are great tools for businesses that are creating franchise documents but they also can help hopeful franchisees get ready for their new adventures.

Business franchise templates have been developed for a specific crowd to use.  They are a good tool for a business that wants to get into franchising to jump start the process of developing their franchise documents. But there is a little trick that people who are interested in buying a franchise can use to tap the franchise information that is buried away in those business franchise templates.

It isn’t a very difficult trick to master.  By downloading some very basic business franchise templates and doing a little research and snooping around, you can get the lay of the land about what lies ahead in your grand quest to land a franchise. By simply looking over these samples of the kinds of franchising documents that you will see come your way once you are up to your ears in the franchising process, you can get your franchising sea legs in a hurry.

While any franchising documents that you get once you have started the ball rolling to buy a franchise will be customized to the specific business, there are a lot of common elements that you can pick up on by looking at business franchise templates.  If you are just starting the process of picking a franchise or two to open talks with or filling out franchise applications, you can get access to quality business franchise templates online that will help you learn more about the process. These information rich documents can serve as your crash course in franchising 101.  By studying them, you become a smarter franchise applicant and you can chase away the butterflies out of your stomach too.

You can be ahead of the game getting your information gathered by learning from business franchise templates.

When a business and a potential franchise owner start that delicate process of feeling each other out, a lot of information has to come to the table. Its all about that one word – accountability. You want to know that the franchising company knows what they are doing and that the franchise you spend your life savings to buy will be a massive financial success. But look through their horned rimmed glasses for a minute. The franchising company wants to know that you are for real too.

You can be ahead of the game by knowing what kinds of documentation you should have ready when you start actually having that back and forth dialog to buy a franchise.  By looking at business franchise templates, you can get a good idea what will be expected of you on that fateful day when you sign that franchise agreement to get the party started.  You can also know what you have to be able to demonstrate to show to the franchising company that you are a management guru and will own one of the most profitable outlets in their franchising chain.

A simple step of taking a day to review the various business franchise templates can become that crash course in franchising. It can school you in the terminology, the time frames and the responsibilities that lay ahead in your quest to own your own franchise.  That education alone is worth the effort to review a few business franchise templates just to get the lay of the land.

The franchise documents phase of forming a new franchise relationship can be tricky so do all you can to make your franchise documents understandable.

When you prepare the various franchise documents that must be used to bring a new franchise owner onto your team, step back for a minute. It is easy to get caught up in the challenge of preparing those many franchise documents when you are franchising a business. Creating workable franchise agreements, disclosure statements and the other types of documents take time, thought and some amount of consultation from your team of overpaid franchise lawyers.

It is easy to get in a hurry to wrap up the preparation phase of putting together your franchise documents because once you have them in the can, you can move on to the more interesting and fun steps of actually selling franchises and getting your empire growing.  There is a good reason, however, to take that step back before wrapping up the preparation of franchise documents.  These important legal documents live a double life.

The secret life of franchise documents is that they can make or break the delicate relationship that you are nurturing with your prospective franchise owners. Keep in mind that until that franchise agreement is signed, delivered and set in stone, the act of selling that franchise to that potential franchise owner is still a priority.

If you think you were intimated by the massive franchise documents you prepared and all of the legalize that was in them, think of how easily those complicated contracts and disclosure statements can scare the life out of potential franchise investor. So before you call your franchise documents done, go back and think of how they come across to the reader.  That review may lead to some revisions to put a human touch on those scary franchise documents.

Put some of the love into your franchise documents.

There are two important ways you can put a human face on those scary franchise documents.   Part of how you can make them less prone to send the franchise investors you are romancing running to the hills is simply to organize them well.  A good example is the franchise disclosure document.  There are as many as 23 different types of disclosure that can fill up that document and turn it into quite a monster for a franchise investor to read.

By organizing a franchise document like that with a simple 3 page overview and the dirty details laid out in appendices, you take the fear and loathing out of a tough franchise document.  If the franchise document is delivered both digitally and as a paper document, links to the longer dialogs can make it easy for a future franchise owner to navigate that big document and be able to come back to it and pick up where they left off.

The second but just as important tip for putting a human face on your franchise document is to write them like people write.  It is true that the franchise documents have to bow down to franchise law but that doesn’t mean they have to read like a lawyers brief. Write with some personality and remember that you are still building that relationship with that franchise owner.

It is entirely possible for franchise documents to scare off a franchise investor and that is what you want to avoid.  While you cannot make your franchise documents marketing brochures, there is a lot you can do to make them much less scary and to put a human face on those franchise documents as well.

Using the master franchising concept, you can take great franchise owners and turn them into master franchisers and expand their success and yours along the way.

It is hard to say if master franchising benefits the franchising company or the franchisee more. The concept is an elegant one to be sure.  Instead of developing a small army of franchise owners, each of which operates one franchise per owner, you take the real winners in from your franchisee elite and let them operate many franchises by offering sub-franchisees that they train and run based on their vast experience and expertise. In exchange, you fork over a little bigger piece of the pie from the profits of those sub-franchises and with that exchange, you pass to the master franchising candidate a boat load of headaches, costs and risks.

The changes to the franchise agreement can be handled by your legal eagles who know the in and outs of franchise law.  It is all very legitimate and it is a beautiful way to kick your franchising program into the next level. You can continue to grow your empire through franchising but the results in terms of reduced effort, overhead and risk to the franchising company plummet even as your profits sour.

The control of risks alone should make master franchising a very sweet deal to the big bosses in your company. As much as we put a sweet spin on the business maneuver of franchising, there is always a risk.  When you sell a franchise to a new partner, you do all you can to snoop around and make sure that he or she has the right stuff to make it big running one of your operations. By try as you might, some people can’t cut it. When a franchise fails, that is terrible for the franchisee and you lose a bundle too.

Master franchising turns over the risk of opening new franchise to the master franchising guru.  You know that the partner you are signing a master franchising agreement knows his stuff because there is a track record of stunning growth and profits that you already get from that franchisee. So why not mine that huge experience and let him or her make you even big piles of money through master franchising.

Master franchising means everybody shares in a bigger pot of money.

When you bring in that candidate for master franchising to negotiate a deal with, it isn’t hard to dangle some sweet profits out there to wet his appetite.  Along with taking over the recruitment, the training, the management and the risks of handling sub-franchise, you will be able to put a nice increase in profits into that master franchising agreement.  You get to still keep raking in the big profits from the anchor franchise your master franchising candidate runs because that isn’t going away.

The change is that all of that seasoned knowledge about how to turn a franchise into a cash cow is now gets spread to man sub-franchises. Not only can that master franchising guru train his or her charges to run serious profitable outlets of your business, he or she can jump in there and fix things when they break and fine tune each sub-franchise until it is a money generating machine too.

The result is the master franchising guru gets to use his or her hard fought experience to get very rich indeed. The sub-franchise managers begin to get a taste for serious money that they can enjoy working in a tightly run franchise and you see the cash flow from the chain of operations run under the master franchising agreement explode making you huge amounts of money.  That is a win-win-win situation.

The franchise application is not too early to start to sell yourself to the franchising company as someone they want on their team.

The franchise application step is the first significant document you will fill out on your quest to buy a franchise from a popular business. In the last few years, buying a franchise has become one of the Cadillac ways to strike it rich when starting your own business.  If you can land one of the primo franchises that everybody wants, all that stands between you and tremendous success is a bunch of investment capital and even more hard work.  The name recognition, explosive customer base and amazing corporate good will all comes with that franchise name that you are buying into will do all the rest.

The downside of that much potential wealth just laying out there is there is a lot of competition for the good franchise opportunities. Whether you want to buy a franchise in Starbucks, Wendy’s or some other very successful business, you can bet that when you submit your franchise application, it is competing with hundreds of other money hungry entrepreneurs who want that franchise just as much as you do.

The key is to know the tricks for how to get your franchise application picked so you move on toward the franchise agreement that you want. One thing that a franchising company looks for is that you are a person who loves to deal with the public and that you have a lot of success doing so.  Look for ways to brag about the success of your current business and putting a big and bright spotlight on how well you have done making customers love you. That is what will set your franchise application apart from the rest.

Look on the franchise application as a type of job interview and be who they want you to be.

When you start to fill out your franchise application, it is not too early to think about getting your ducks in a row financially.  When you state boldly that you are floating in the capital and credit that you need to afford the franchise fees, royalties and start up costs, be sure you really are that financially healthy. Be honest on the franchise application because overstating your financial health will only come back to haunt you later.  There is no getting around it that when you turn in that franchise application and you make the cut as a franchise owner they want on their team, they are going to check your credit rating. So make sure it is four star before you even start filling out a franchise application.

When a franchise company is ready to franchise a small business and set you up for great success, they want to know that you know exactly how to take the ball and run with it. That means you know how to be a team player and create a franchise the bosses back at the mother ship will be proud of. But it also means you can run your own ship as an independent business person and solve problems and come out the other end smelling like a rose.

Your success in running your own business before you started the franchise application should scream out that you are just the guy or gal they are looking for.  Make sure your franchise application shouts those qualities of sound judgment, good business savvy, the ability to get on board with the bosses and still make it big as a small business franchise owner all wrapped up in one neat package. If that is the song your franchise application sings, you can bet your paperwork will cause you to get the call that they want you to take the controls of their next successful franchise outlet.

The franchise contracts that legally define the roles of franchisee and franchisor are not above questioning.

When you sit down to sign franchise contracts with a company that is selling the franchise, be sure you have already reviewed every concept in that document so your expectations line up with what they really will do for you.  Because many of the franchise documents such as the franchise disclosure document are very involved, complicated and large, it is easy to think that buying a franchise is all about franchise contracts. It is also easy to get intimated by the fact that the franchising company has a small squadron of lawyers who put together those scary looking franchise contracts.

Don’t let them hustle you with slick marketing, lawyers in expensive suits and glossy looking franchise contracts and promotional literature. A franchise relationship is all about two businesses negotiating a deal.  Negotiation is a two way street and even though you are “the little guy”, you still have the right to say yes or no to franchise contracts right up to when you click that pen and put your autograph on the dotted line.

The company selling you that franchise has just as much on the line as you do.  Those franchise contracts must line up with the promises both made and implied when they sold you the idea of buying a franchise from them. Those words “sold” and “buying” are important.  The franchising company is selling you a product. You are not a new employee of theirs. You are a customer so you can expect every promise that was used to “sell” you that franchise to show up in slick lawyer language in the franchise contract.

Know what you are obligated for when you sign those franchise agreements.

Next to holding the franchising company accountable for what is in the franchise contracts, be sure you know what you are promising when you take out your pen and sign that franchise agreement.  When that franchise contract is signed, you will be in a legally binding relationship that comes with obligations that are spelled out in detail in the various franchise contract documents.

There are financial obligations that come due the moment the franchise contracts are signed. So you should understand down to the last dime, nickel and penny what you are paying and what that buys you.  You may be responsible to subscribe to the franchising company’s advertising and to pay a share of other costs of running your franchise.

So before you stand up from the table after signing those franchise contracts, get a firm understanding of who pays for what, when and how much. If you need to get your own swat team of high priced lawyers and accountants in on the act, do it.  Far better to go overboard before signing those franchise contracts than to regret it after when nothing can be done to change those contracts in your favor.

Asking “Can I franchise my business?” is just the first step to buying a franchise and getting on the road to success and owning your own business.

When a small business person asks, “Can I franchise my business?”, that question alone means a lot.  It means that you have the ability to dream big and you have the backbone to dare to think that there is a way to blow past the limitations of your current situation to become even more profitable.  It means that you understand that franchising a business is a huge opportunity but that it will come with plenty of challenges as well.

But you never passed out in front of a challenge.  So if you have the question in your mind, “Can I franchise my business?”, hold onto it.  Just starting to wonder about the potential could be that first big step toward owning a franchise of your own.  The best reason to start researching the huge opportunities that may lie in buying a franchise is that you are ready be launch out on a new business adventure because you have conquered all of the current challenges before you.

“Can I franchise my business?”  The first step, of course is to learn all you can.  The great news is there is so much franchise information out there that you will have no trouble getting the low down on how to start on your quest to success and huge money in franchising.  The second great news that you will be happy to hear is that businesses who sell franchises hand over fist are eager to talk to you and they can help you understand everything that is involved when you sign a franchise agreement with them.

There is very little cost and no risk to just asking the question, “Can I franchise my business?” As you dig deeper, you will find out the financial resources you will need and the amount of work that goes into becoming a franchise owner and running a very profitable franchise of a large national chain. There is no sense sugar coating it that when you stick your hand out to shake hands with a company that is selling you a franchise, it is going to mean a big investment of cash and hard work.

If you ask yourself, “Can I franchise my business?”, you owe it to yourself to find out the answer.

It is impossible not to notice that more and more successful small business people are taking the plunge and asking themselves, “Can I franchise my business?”  The potential profits that can be made when you take your considerable business and management savvy and sink it into a growing franchise opportunity are huge.

On top of the wealth that is waiting for you, there is a lot of pride and prestige that goes with being an owner of a successful franchise of a well known company.  You still are a small business owner because you bought that franchise. You do not work for the franchising company. You work with them to make both of you very rich. At the same time, the sign on your building is one that everybody knows and it alone will bring customers rushing to use your products or services.  It is the best of both worlds because you have all the clout of a big business and all the freedom and pride of owning a small business.  So if that question, “Can I franchise my business?”, flits across your mind, don’t let it go out the other ear. It may be stage one of a new and exciting and very profitable new world for you.

 

 

 

Creating franchise disclosure documents is required by franchise law but the focus of your work in writing them is to turn good franchise managers into great ones.

Franchise disclosure documents are required to be sent to any potential franchise owner well in advance of when the franchise agreement is signed.  That is not just a friendly reminder from your neighborhood franchise lawyer.  That is the franchise law and to not do it would bring your franchise program to a grinding halt. It is easy to see this requirement that you give to your future business partners such an in-depth and detailed amount of franchise information as an imposition and a burden.

These franchise disclosure documents will be one of the biggest challenges that will face you as you prepare to put your business into a new level of expansion through franchising.  Many disclosure documents become very large and there is no getting around the fact that you, the business owner, must be involved intimately with every page of those documents.

There is no passing this task off to a low level clerk or a ghost writer.  Franchise disclosure documents become part of the legal paper trail of your franchising effort.  To put it bluntly, what you hand over to future franchise owners in franchise disclosure documents becomes legally binding. So it is crucial that you approve and edit every page, every paragraph, and every line.  The best case scenario is that you write every word of the franchise disclosure document or at least that every thought in that massive documentation project are your thoughts.

Look at franchise disclosure documents as an opportunity rather than a problem.

There are two reasons to fight off the urge to look on the preparation of franchise disclosure documents as a nuisance and a burden that the government has come in and heaped on your already too darn busy schedule.  For one thing, if you resent having to prepare your FDD franchise disclosure document, you will probably do a shoddy job of creating this crucial document. That is not a good idea both because it is lazy and because of the negative impact it will have on your hopes and dreams for great success in franchising.

The second reason to put some tender loving care into creating franchise disclosure documents is because the franchise buyer is required to know inside and out what you put in there. That makes franchise disclosure documents valuable training tools.  Here in this one piece of required reading, you can put each and every new franchise owner through a virtual basic training in what it takes to be a great representative of your business.

The old, worn out saying that it is an opportunity instead of a problem applies truthfully to writing your franchise disclosure documents.  There may be no step in the process that is so full of potential to convert raw recruit franchising hopefuls into highly trained franchising experts ready to get out there and make big money for you. That is reason enough to work hard making franchise disclosure documents that you can be proud of.

 

 

Don’t spend time resenting time spent preparing each franchise document because the experience can become vital preparation time as well.

Each franchise document that has to be prepared serves an important purpose in the preparation that you and those who would buy your franchises must go through. As the company who will offer franchises to eager investors, it is up to you to prepare each and every franchise document well before you get out there and start selling those franchises aggressively.  It is easy to want to put together the marketing campaign to the many excited future franchise owners all of whom are clutching big handfuls of money to sink into buying a franchise from you.

Resist that urge to rush to the recruitment stage to quickly. That will be the exciting part but use that future excitement as incentive to take your time and put together rock solid franchise documents that will serve you well when the time comes to get active in your quest to franchise your business.  The good news is that with few exceptions, you will only have to prepare each franchise document once. From then on out, you can use that vault full of great franchise documents to bring on hundreds of productive franchise owners to help you expand your business rapidly.

When the space program gets astronauts ready for space travel, they use flight simulators so they can imagine what it will be like out there.  In a way, preparing each franchise document can serve as a form of flight simulation to get ready for you to launch into the stratosphere of franchising.  When you prepare the franchise disclosure document, you have to brainstorm every possible thing that must be disclosed to a future franchise owner so they will come to the table ready and equipped to sign the franchise documents and hit the ground running making their new franchise a profit generating machine.

In other ways, preparation of the franchise agreement and even the franchise operating manual all force you to think about every detail of how it will be for the franchise owner to be part of your organization and what that new partner will need to be a massive success out there and send massive franchise royalties back to you.

Creating a franchise document qualifies as “on the job training” time for going live as a growing franchise business.

The good thing about working through a franchise document is that it forces you to slow down and think into the future about how your relationship with your franchise owners will work. It is impossible to get in a hurry and do a good job of putting together quality franchise documents that will stand up when you get into the fray of creating a new franchise chain from the ground up.  Each franchise document is a significant undertaking that will require good advice and research. You will be called upon to do some serious business planning on how your franchise will operate, what you want to happen in every one of your many franchises and what should never happen as well.

Don’t try to create each franchise document by yourself.  Calling in the Calvary is not only allowed, it is advised. You have a business full of experts in every aspect of how to be a success.  It is that team that has brought you this far. Depend on them to give you insights on what should go into each franchise document to take your success to the next level.

Don’t be afraid to tap the wisdom of great minds of franchising. Be aggressive in learning what very successful franchise gurus know about each franchise document.  The internet can help a great deal with that quest but don’t overlook your network of business associates.  Buried in that network may be some real franchising experts who can give you insights that should go right into those franchise documents.

If you put this kind of tender loving care into the franchise documents, the end result will be that you will go into this adventure of starting a franchise fully prepared.  Your franchise documents will look great and you will feel confident in them.  That feeling that you are prepared and confident will ooze out of you as you stand up in front of that first meeting of excited future franchise owners and get the ball rolling recruiting your army of franchisors to turn your business into the next big franchising success story.

Franchise law is a big part of what you must navigate as you prepare to make big money in franchising but it is worth the effort.

When you get ready to offer franchises of your prosperous business, it pays to be aware of franchise law issues that must be handled just right. When it gets right down to brass tacks, that franchise agreement that you sign with each and every bright eyed new franchise owner is a legal document.  The new franchise owner is committing to get in there and roll up his or her sleeves and make that franchise work.  That commitment includes a long term time frame where nobody cuts and runs, lots of hard work and big piles of money as well. And when money is involved in a business relationship, there are contracts.

There is no getting around that the government big shots have their noses in the middle of the franchising process in a big way. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Since the FTC has become more active in managing franchise law, the business phenomenon of franchising has taken off like a rocket ship. So clearly, for once the politicians are helping more than they are hurting.

That said, you should be on top of what is required by franchise law as you start to roll out your franchising business.  That advice is especially true when it comes to franchise documents such as the franchise disclosure statement. The all important franchise agreement is what makes everything legal and puts you and the new franchise owner in a legally binding relationship that some have suggested is even harder to get out of than a marriage license.

Finding the right franchise lawyer.

It makes sense that early in your discussions about launching into the world of franchising, you should get a good franchise lawyer involved.  Now you may think you have enough lawyers working with your company to recreate the OJ trial but think twice about simply calling in your general corporate attorneys to handle the complicated issues of franchise law and how to properly prepare franchising documents to strike the right kind of deal with future franchise partners.

Franchise law is a very specific area of government regulation. A lot of money is on the line when those franchise agreements kick in.  Not only do you call for some serious cash from the franchise owner in franchise fees, but when the big profits start to roll in, franchise royalties can fill up everybody’s’ bank accounts. To make sure that every franchise document you present to that future franchise owner is absolutely kosher, look for a franchise lawyer who specializes in this area of business legal representation.

The details of franchise law get even more complicated when you factor in franchise law for the state where the franchise buyer resides and does business. This can get pretty complicated if you begin to sell franchises in many states. The anti gets upped even more when you take your franchise empire international. You want a franchise lawyer who knows how to deal with the many layers of franchise law each step of the way. If you get that kind of help and you do all you can to understand franchise law in your daily dealings with your vast army of franchise owners, the results can be very rewarding indeed.

 

 

The franchise offering circular is required by law to be sent to your franchise applicants because it discloses everything they need to know before buying a franchise in your business.

The franchise offering circular is one of two or three franchise documents that make up the foundation of any great franchise relationship you will build.  When a potential franchise owner begins to poke around and sends up signals that he or she might be ready to buy into your business, the most important thing that can happen is to bring them up to speed with who you are, how they should get jump through the right hoops of buying a franchise and what life will be like when they are a full fledged member of your franchising community.

The franchise offering circular has gone through a lot of evolution in the last few years.  It is a standardized format because it is a document that you are required to send to a new franchise owner within the last few weeks before the deal is done. It is also a document that can get quite bulky because there are 23 different areas of disclosure that you have to cover when organizing a franchise offering circular to send it out to your future partners in money making.

That evolution has been so dramatic that the name of the franchise offering circular has gone through change as well. These days it is most commonly referred to as the franchise disclosure document or FDD for short.  The name change is worth tucking away in your memory banks because when the FTC begins to ask questions about your FDD so they can give you the nod to keep your franchise momentum going, it is good to know what they are talking about.

The name change from franchise offering circular to franchise discloser document puts the emphasis on an important word – disclosure.

For once, the government pencil pushers came up with a pretty good name change for the franchise offering circular.  For one thing, this disclosure document is far from a circular.  When we think of a circular, we think of that 5 page advertisement that you get from the grocery store that lists the specials of the week each Wednesday.  The franchise offering circular, or the FDD as we call it in these modern times will commonly get to a very impressive size.  Some complicated versions of the franchise offering circular have gotten as big as 500 pages long.

If you think putting together the franchise offering circular is a chore for you, think about the future franchise owner getting that encyclopedia of franchising in the mail.  As a disclosure document, they are expected to be aware of everything you are disclosing to them in the franchise offering circular. When they sit down to sign that franchise agreement and make this new partnership a formal affair, there is no saying they were not informed. So you make sure you pour your heart out in that franchise offering circular so if there are any questions or disputes once the franchise is open and money is being made, you can always point to that disclosure document and say, “Hey it is all right there in black and white for anyone to see.”

 

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