Franchise Documents: Drawing Up a Great Franchise Application

The franchise application is one of many franchise documents that must be thought through carefully. It influences the franchisor in selecting the best franchisees from what is often a wide pool of applicants. Hence, it is important for the application to elicit as much relevant information as is possible from each applicant.

One way to get a good sense of what a franchise application should look like is to buy a franchise package online. This will include a wide variety of franchise documents’ templates, along with suggestions for modifying them or personalizing them. Another way to get a glimpse at franchise applications is to simply perform a Google search for “franchise application.” The results will include actual franchise documents of this type as they appear on the websites of the corresponding franchise companies.

You should print out copies of those franchise applications associated with well-known and highly successful franchise companies. These are likely to have been drawn up by established professionals. Hence, they are bound to be top-notch documents. You should also print out the ones associated with the franchise companies that are most similar to the one you intend to form. If you want to franchise your coffee shop, then look up the franchise applications of cafes like Gimme! Coffee. Looking at other franchise companies’ franchise applications in this way will give you a sense of the different possibilities out there and get you thinking about why one variation of an application question might be more effective than another. This is a useful way of preparing to draw up your own franchise documents.

 

Basing Franchise Documents on Your Vision of the Ideal Franchisee

 

As you prepare franchise applications and other franchise documents for your prospective franchisees, it is important for you to envision the type of applicant that would make the most ideal franchisee for your franchise company. Your first instinct might be that a franchisee very much like you in character and behavior would be perfect. But this is highly unlikely to be true. Remember that the qualities that enabled you to found and run a successful business included innovation, creativity, the readiness to adapt to different circumstances and the willingness to think outside the box. These are not necessarily the qualities that would make a good franchisee. Keep in mind that franchisees must be good at following the plans and instructions that you have formulated for the franchise. Hence, you would do well to search for prospective franchisees who were good at sticking to established plans, but capable of working autonomously.

Franchise templates are easy to tap into so you can educate yourself in what it takes to buy your own franchise long before you start making deals with the franchising company.

Using franchise templates as part of preparing yourself for the adventure that is just ahead of you of buying your own franchise is just smart business. When you walk in to that room to sign those franchise agreements  and you are smart, aware and you know there will be no surprises, that is a great feeling.  It is also a great feeling to know that you are on top of this project to start your own business through franchising and that you can talk the lingo with the big dogs because you took the time to study different franchise templates well in advance.

Taking it upon yourself to find and examine the franchise templates of the major franchising documents you will see flood your mailbox is like going to the gym before the big game.  You are giving yourself the edge so that when you are faced with the real deal, it will be simply a matter of ready aim fire for you to move quickly toward sealing that big fat franchising purchase that you want.  Great athletes know the value of training and so do military people. So why not take advantage of their strategies so you are armed and dangerous when you start to dicker with the franchising company for the best deal you can get.

Taking the fear and trembling out of franchise documents.

When you set out to buy a franchise from a large company, you are in a whole new world that comes with its own little language.  By hunting down some reliable franchise templates, you can put yourself through lingo school so that you will be able to babble like a native of franchising and know what you are talking about to boot. It is true that the franchising company is required to write their major franchising documents in language that is not completely peculiar to regular human beings. It is still smart to tap into the resources of franchise templates because you will get feel for the layouts and what each document is telling you about the big transaction that is ahead of you when you actually purchase that new franchise small business.

There are certain significant documents that will be heading your way once you complete the franchise application to get the ball rolling.  One of the first documents you will see will be a huge publication called the franchise disclosure document.   Be sure you know what to look for in this huge stack of papers because it is pure gold in terms of putting you in the driver’s seat when it comes to the franchise purchase you are working on.

Along with the franchise disclosure document, you can find franchise templates of the franchise agreement and the franchise operations manual and each of them will be a huge benefit to your learning curve that will result in you transforming into a true franchising expert. That is a good transformation to complete quickly and tapping into franchise templates is just one way to put the pedal to the metal to make you a franchise guru sooner rather than later.

 

The format of franchise agreement will take some getting used to but by understanding it advance, you will fly through the process of buying your own franchise small business

When you are new to the process, the format of franchise agreement will seem very odd to you. The franchise agreement is a unique animal that will not read like the newspaper or even a business memo that you ever saw in your life.  That is why it is smart to take some time to understand the format of franchise agreement before the moment of truth arrives and you are ready to click your pen and sign your life away investing in a new franchise opportunity.

You should remind yourself that the franchising company does not mean to make the franchising documents cryptic or hard to understand.  Much about the format of franchise agreement is simply the nature of the beast and it is you who is getting used to this new way to conducting a business discussion.  There will be new terminology that makes up the format of franchise agreement and you will be expected to have already become a native in the world of franchising long before the final franchising documents are signed and it is time to roll up your sleeve and get to work building a world class franchise outlet for the company whose name is now outside your building.

One way to get that feeling of disorientation that could happen when you start to look at the format of franchise agreement for the first time is to look at it well in advance of any formal steps that will happen when you and the franchise get serous about working together. There are plenty of ways to get that orientation on the fly.  You can download templates that will show you the format of franchise agreement as well as the contents and how you should go about slicing and dicing that tricky document when the next one you see has your name on it.

Don’t let the legal language that is part of the format of franchise agreement throw you.

One reason that the format of franchise agreement is awkward to the average Joe or Jane is that the franchising company has to let the lawyers in the room when the franchise documents are prepared.  The entire franchising process is heavily regulated from the handshake to the final agreement process and even past that too.  Before we scream conspiracy theory about the evil interference of government, keep in mind that most of that oversight is for the benefit of the franchise buyer and that the franchising industry has exploded since the feds got their fingers in the middle of it with so much franchise law.  So having that much regulation may not be such a bad thing.

But all that regulation makes for some very strange language in the franchising documents which makes the format of franchise agreement very weird to the regular person. It might be smart to get your own set of franchise legal wizards in on the act when you start looking at the format of franchise agreement for the document that will become your marriage license in this new love affair with the franchising company.

You will be able to see the actual format of franchise agreement for the paperwork that you will sign at least a week before the date of the big step to take ownership over your own franchise comes along.  Jump all over the sample format of franchise agreement that they send to you and have your overpaid franchise lawyers jump all over it too.  If you do that, you will be able to waltz into the meeting to sign on as a new franchise owner knowing that you did your part to make sure you know what is what and that this is a sweet deal for you and for the franchising company.  If you did your homework well in reviewing the format of franchise agreement, you may be in for a very profitable new franchise experience indeed.

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.

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.

Writing your own franchise agreement document can be intimidating so don’t be afraid to get some help from the experts.

Creating a solid franchise agreement document is one of the big steps any business has to get past to launch a major franchising effort.  It is not hard to get excited about how franchising your company can put your expansion plans into high gear. But it can be intimidating if not downright scary to think about how to draft a workable franchise agreement document because the franchise agreement is a legally binding contract between you and those who invest in your franchises.

You do not want to make a mess of this document. At the same time, do not fall into the trap of stalling out in the process of creating a franchise agreement document.  The drafting of the significant franchising documents should be done early on in your plans to start selling franchises of your business because without them in place, you really cannot move forward.  So make a plan and carry it out with courage. It may not be a difficult as it seems.

Creating a great franchise agreement document is best done as a three step process.

There is an old saying that goes, “Don’t try to eat the whole elephant.” It is a goofy image but the meaning of the saying is to take on a big challenge by breaking it down into little challenges. So we can apply the elephant eating idea to writing a franchise agreement document.  The best approach is to separate the process into three steps.

Step one is to find some reliable franchise agreement templates to study.  These templates will lay out exactly what kind of information you need to cover in the typical franchise agreement document. You can even take this step to the next level and hunt up franchise agreement examples from similar companies as you so you can see what industry specific types of topics that must be covered.  After all, a franchise agreement document for a hardware store chain is going to differ significantly from a franchise agreement document for a fast food chain. So try to narrow in on what you need.

Step two is to “brain storm” your own franchise agreement document.  Now that you schooled yourself in the basics of what goes into a franchise agreement document, tap into that industry expert that lives inside of you.  Create a draft of the franchise agreement document that reflects in words your vision of how your vast network of franchises will work.  The key to what makes this step work is to not worry a bit about if that draft is legal or correct.  Just get your ideas out of your brain and then organize them into a rough format of a franchise agreement document that you learned from step one.

Step three is to get some help.  If you ever wondered if you will need a franchise lawyer or other experts in this peculiar business step, the answer is yes! So spring for a good franchise lawyer and don’t just take the first name in the yellow pages. Your franchise agreement document gurus can fine tune your brain storming from step two into a great franchise agreement document that lives up to every detail of franchise law and that covers your back nicely.

Be sure that franchise lawyer has a resume of success in setting up franchise operations and that he or she knows your industry niche well. By doing that, if you are franchising a fast food chain, you won’t end up with a franchise agreement document for a hardware store.

By utilizing franchise templates, you already have the format and needed content for many of the franchise documents that will make your success possible.

The use of franchise templates is not cheating when you want to get the momentum going fast on franchising your business. The decision to launch out into unknown territory and explore the potential of franchising takes some guts on your part. It would be easy to sit on your duff and be satisfied that your business is thriving and that your business model seems to be making a real dent in your market niche.

To take that innovative business model and kick it to the next level does take the courage that risk takers have. Some risk takers make it big and become very wealthy and others crash and burn. By mining all the help you can get, such as franchise templates, you are tipping the scales of success in your favor.

When you finally cross that line and make that mental jump to “go for it” and put together franchises of your successful business, one of the first steps can also be the one that stops you in your tracks.  Franchising is a legal step that involves the development of a number of documents to be exchanged with potential franchise buyers.

Here is where franchise templates can get you over the hump and help you prepare those documents. Using a franchise template is not cutting corners. It is simply tapping the skills and hard work of others to capture the format and potential content areas of your franchise documents in those franchise templates. Then your experience and wisdom kicks in to turn those franchise templates into unique documents that will make your franchising effort a tremendous success.

A few tips on what to cover in your franchise documents can get you moving quickly on finding franchise partners to invest in your business.

Among the various franchise documents that franchise templates will help you develop are franchise disclosure documents, franchise agreements and your franchise operations manual. Just knowing how others have laid out those documents is a huge help. So along with franchise templates, take a look at a few example franchise agreements that successful franchises have used. Learn what areas of disclosure to cover so that you do not leave anything out.

Your potential franchise buyers need to know what they can expect when they are a full fledged and productive member of your business family. They should understand from your franchise documents the details of the franchise arrangement like the term of the franchise and the financial commitments they must make both up front and on an ongoing month to month. If you can help your future franchise buyers to understand the kind of financing they will need to invest in your franchise and to set up shop to run a money making operation, that alone is worth the help of franchise templates to turn your new franchise owners into money making machines fast.

Along with the financial future this new world of franchising will bring, your future franchisers need to know the rules of how your business operates. They want to know what they must do to be in line with franchise laws and with the operating procedures expected by the organization so they can salute the flag and make their franchise look, smell and act like every other franchise in the chain.

There is great news for you in this area of franchise templates.  There are a number of resources where you can download example franchise templates to get you moving quickly. Don’t hesitate to download various kinds and mix and match what works for you. The only rule you should live by when using franchise templates is that you should see them as a jumping off place to take the baton and run with it.  Make them your own and customize them to your industry, your markets, your customer base and how you do business. If you do that, franchise templates can be just what it takes to help you go for zero to 60 in short order in getting your franchising business on the fast track to lots of success.

Franchise agreement forms must be signed when you begin your franchise relationship or renew it and each time it pays to review what is in those important documents.

Franchise agreement forms can be intimidating. When you set out to realize your dream of franchising a business , that vision is not of filling out a bunch of complicated legal forms. Whether you are new to the franchising game or coming back for renewal, you may greet the arrival of those franchise agreement forms with a massive groan.  But let that groan out and get it out of your system and then get a cup of coffee and read those franchise documents carefully. You will wind up in a stronger relationship with your franchisee if you do that.

There is always the impulse to get in a big hurry in your haste to want to get that franchise open fast.  Taking your time to work through your franchise agreement forms should not be seen as a nuisance.  One way to find the motivation to read every paragraph and line of those franchise agreement forms is to look for the areas of responsibility.  First of all, discover in what ways you must salute the flag of the franchisee company. Franchising a company is about much more than just hanging their sign outside the building and wearing the corporate logo on your uniform shirt.

But of greater interest to you is where the franchisee will earn their money you pay to buy the franchise and to keep paying those franchise royalties each month. There are ton of benefits to the franchisor that you get by getting into bed, so to speak, with a successful business as a franchisor. Those benefits will include training, products and advertising as well as the deep wells of wisdom the franchisee brings to the table to help you become a big success.

All of that is buried in the franchise agreement forms. Dig deep when you read through the franchise agreement forms and read them several times.  When you can virtually quote those documents chapter and verse, you will open the doors of your new franchise business with much greater confidence.

Renewal franchise agreement forms need love too.

Franchise agreement forms are not lifelong contracts.  Every so often, a time comes where both parties have a chance to step back and consider if this experiment in getting rich is working.  When those renewal franchise agreement forms show up in the mail, it is not a reason to panic.

 

The arrival of renewal franchise agreement forms is a chance to look at the time you have owned that business to make a decision about whether it is all living up to the grand dreams you had before you sign another set of franchising agreements to take on another tour of duty. It is a chance for you to give an honest assessment of whether the franchisee is giving you the support and service you need to be a success.

It is also a chance to take a good honest look at whether this is the franchise for you. If you decide your money making efforts would be better used elsewhere, you can always let the franchise expire and sign up with a different franchisee and put your years of hard fought experience to good use.

 

 

Using a franchise agreement PDF template allows you to take advantage of the experience of experts in how to launch your own franchising empire.

Creating franchise documents takes work which is why a franchise agreement PDF template will put you hours if not days ahead on the work you need to put in to start franchising fast.  Nobody ever said that going from a single location business to a vast empire of franchises was going to be easy. That transition is going to take a lot of work and study to learn the nitty-gritty of how to set up new franchises and how to keep it all working well within the context of franchise law.

One big advantage of downloading a good franchise agreement PDF is that you will have in that template a virtual “Franchising 101” education in what you need to cover when offering franchises for sale.  The last thing you need is to come up flat footed in some area of how to set up your franchise once you have real customers on the line who want to buy into your business. When you start negotiations with potential franchisors, you want to come off like a genuine expert in the area of franchise documents and procedures. This is not to say that just studying a franchise agreement PDF will make you a PHD in franchising. But it is a great start on becoming the guru of franchising that you want to be.

You may find that the sheer size of the franchise agreement PDF is intimidating and that it doesn’t seem to fit your particular business niche.  That is expected and that does not mean you hit the delete button on a very valuable document to your franchising effort.  The franchise agreement PDF is a template which means you are expected to customize it, tweak it and have your team of franchising consultants and lawyers make sure every paragraph is in line with franchise regulations at the state and federal level.  The franchise agreement PDF is just a starting place.

Why wear yourself out reinventing the wheel over your franchise documents when a franchise agreement PDF does all the hard work for you?

Creating the franchise agreement for your business is a huge step forward in your ambitions to become a successful and wealthy franchise. So take your time when you download that franchise agreement PDF to review every section.  The process of turning a generic franchise agreement PDF into a franchise document that is a work of art for your partners and future franchisors is going to take some time.

The variety of areas of franchising that you will discover in the franchise agreement PDF will be pretty amazing once you start working your way through the document. You will find sections that will cover all of the legal and financial issues that must be handled when you shake hands with that new franchise owner and become business partners.  That franchise agreement PDF will help you complete sections of the document that deal with the obligations your franchisors must live up to as well as what you are responsible for to make the franchises or your business a big success.

You cannot go wrong taking a look at some example franchise agreement PDF templates to see if they can help you begin to get an idea of how you want the agreements you offer to your franchisors to look like. You are not locked into the format or contents of the franchise agreement PDF except that you must make sure your franchise agreement satisfies the details of what the government needs your franchise to look like.  So take that franchise agreement PDF and make it your own.  When you are done, you will have a better document because you started with a good guideline and made it better.

The legal requirement that franchising documents must be understandable to the average person impacts franchisee and franchisor in different ways.

Franchising documents must be understandable to the average person.  That is more than just a cute idea.  It is part of franchise law.  Since franchising documents originate with the franchisee, you take the kick off on making those documents complete and accurate but also so any average person can read them and get what you are saying.

This can be tricky.  Franchising documents are, after all, legal documents that will eventually become signed and binding agreements between you and every small business person who buys a franchise from you. So cannot just lock the doors and not let the lawyers take a crack at making sure the franchising documents are right.

What you can do is to have your franchising documents reviewed by “average people” that you have hanging around your offices to make sure they can be understood by a potential franchisor. Obviously, you have to assume that the concept of the average person means you are writing your franchising documents to be understood by adults with sufficient education to run a business and be successful dealing with the many financial and legal issues that all grown ups deal with.

The idea here is to cut down on the legal mumbo jumbo.  Have your “testers” jump all over any legal terms that show up in those franchising documents.  Let them ask questions about terminology such as, “What does this mean?”  If some legal terminology pops up in your franchising documents that confuse your testers, some rewrites are in order.

A franchise lawyer or no franchise lawyer? That is the question.

For those who are launching out on the adventure of buying a franchise, brace yourselves.  You are going to be seeing a number of franchising documents show up and it is important you read them and understand them. The understanding part is the important thing because what is written in those franchising documents well, in essence, be the story of your life when you own that franchise and you are an active partner with this strange creature called a franchisee.

You can expect those franchising documents to be understandable by you without the aid of a lawyer. If they are not, you should not be afraid to let the franchisee know that you are having trouble because you have the law on your side that the documents should not be a jumble of legal terms.

You may wonder if you should retain the services of a franchise lawyer as well before you sign those franchising documents.  The answer is yes but not necessarily right away. You should be able to read them and grasp the ideas there without the help of a high priced legal team. But since the step of signing those franchise agreements is a legally binding  step, it pays to have your own franchise gurus look over what is there to make sure the documents line up with state and federal franchise law and that there is nothing missing that you need in there to cover your back.

It is just a smart idea to have your own legal eagles on board to watch out for your interests.  Signing those franchising documents is the start of your new life as a small business owner running a very prosperous franchise operation.  Make sure you start it out right by handling those franchising documents with care.

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