The decision to franchise your company always starts with a question about what to do first so developing that project plan is a perfect way to get the process moving quickly.

If you have kicked around ideas about how to franchise your company, that means you have seen success in your current corporate structure and you are ready for some rapid expansion. The concept of franchising a business is an exciting one because once you have that franchising structure in place, you can see your business begin to grow by leaps and bounds as you bring on more franchise owners who will open new outlets of your business all over the place.

One of the big steps that will accelerate you toward making that transition to franchise your company is the simple act of laying out a plan of action.  This is not a shocker because anything good you do in your business starts with a well crafted project plan.

Two big parts of that plan are how you will protect your brand and trade secrets and revising your business plan to take into account your new plan to franchise the company. When your start selling franchises, your corporate brand, image and logo as well as the trade secrets of your products will go into the hands of franchise owners.  So take the time before you launch your program to franchise your company to protect anything that is proprietary or might be considered “intellectual property” so it doesn’t get away from you.

Once you feel that you have covered the value of your secret stuff, think about how you will go about rolling out your franchises in a step by step way. Just as you had a business plan for how you grew from an idea to the successful business force you are today, make a plan for how you will from one franchise to thousands.  Here is where buying a cup of coffee or a beer for a successful business associate who is an old hat at franchising could be the best investment you will make.  That plan for how you will franchise the company will grow and evolve of course as reality teaches you a lesson or two but at least have a jumping off place to get the show on the road.

Documents and tests

With those two steps nicely done, you should take a few days or weeks to draft some of the critical documents that will become the backbone of your quest to franchise your company.  A good place to start to have a firm foundation to franchise your company will be your franchise operating manual which will become the bible for your franchise holders on every detail of how to make their new businesses work.  That operations manual should grow naturally out of your business plan that you just put on ice. From there move on to the franchise agreement and any other documents you wish to provide to your future franchise owners to help them along their path to greatness in your company.

Once you have what looks like a pretty terrific plan to franchise your company, you can set up a test franchise in a corporate owned branch to step through the process.  Select some courageous manager to be your guinea pig franchise owner but make sure he or she will be empowered and have the backbone to tell you what is great about your plan to franchise the company and what doesn’t work at all.

With all of that preparation under your belt, your hopes and dreams to franchise your company are close to becoming reality.  Put together a knock-your-socks-off marketing plan and a few killer presentations that will have future franchise owners eating out of the palm of your hand and you will have your program ready for opening night. Just stay loose and flexible and ready to make changes as you roll out your plan to franchise your company.  Reality has a way of reshaping great plans like yours.  But if you know how to roll with the punches, reality will only make your program to franchise your company even better.