Your small business operations manual can keep you on the right side of the rules and regulations of running your small business.

A small business operations manual is perhaps even more important to a new franchise owner than to someone running an autonomous small business.  There is a trade off that you get when you land that big deal to open a franchise of a very popular brand name. The trade off that benefits you because when you sign that franchise agreement, you have the rights to hang that highly recognizable franchise name on your building and inherit the massive crowds of customers that will come to you because of that name.

This is not to say that you are going it alone because among the other massive documents that will flood your mailbox will be a small business operations manual that will help you understand exactly how to look, act and smell like every other franchise in the chain. That franchise operating manual  is your bible for how to make your franchise take off like a rocket to huge sales and profits.  It contains the assembled wisdom of an army of gurus who are locked in little rooms back at the franchising company headquarters cranking out documents like your small business operations manual to make you a success.

You are not expected to have been born knowing how to make that franchise a stunning success. But you are expected to read and know well every rule, regulation, guideline and suggestion in the small business operations manual that the mother ship gives you.  Don’t see this as a tedious imposition by the bosses. Instead see it as a lifesaver for your franchise because the people who know very well how to make big piles of cash are passing those insider secrets to you in exchange for your franchise fees.  That is an excellent swap.

Look to your small business operations manual to keep the legal hounds off of your back.

If all the small business operations manual will do is make you rich beyond your wildest dreams because you learned to run a hugely profitable franchise outlet, that would be plenty. But just as important are the legal tips that pop up in your small business operations manual on how to keep your franchise running squeaky clean with the law. Those legal sand traps that your small business operations manual can keep you out of include tax requirements that the city, state and federal government are very interested in seeing you live up to.  They include other quirks of the law like how to run a safe store or how to treat your employees in a way that avoids lawsuits.

These guidelines in your small business operations manual can keep the lawyers and other legal trouble makers away from your door so you can focus on the big job you have of making big money running your franchise outline. Toss in there that there are a rats nest of franchise laws that you have to live with because you signed that franchise agreement.  The franchise relationship is a legally binding marriage so the last thing you need is to have some quirk of the franchise law jump up and bite you on the toe because you did not know about it.  Know about it by making your small business operations manual your best friend in the world.