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.

 

 

A franchise contract template serves a valuable function of moving you into the document preparation phase and the rest is up to you.

The franchise contract template is sometimes referred to as a franchise kit. The preparation of franchise contracts and documents is often one of the baffling phases that you must get through when franchising your company. But get through it you must to get to the fun part which is recruiting new franchise owners, getting them up and running and, of course, collecting those fat franchise fees.

Three questions often come up when a business is faced with putting together their franchise documents. Should you use a franchise contract template?  Should you prepare the contract documents yourself? Should you have franchise lawyers involved in the process as well.  The answer to all three questions is, yes. Each of these elements has a roll to play in preparing your important franchise documents.  But none of them are sufficient as the only way to accomplish the goal of having an arsenal of franchise contracts ready to roll out to your prospective franchise owners.

There are some that claim that a franchise contract template should not be part of the process because it is not specific to your business or even to your specific area of business.  It is true that franchise agreements and the other contracts will be very unique depending on your line of business.  A franchise disclosure document for a dry cleaning company will be drastically different than the same document for a grocery store franchise chain.

Nonetheless, you could use the exact same franchise contract template for both of these industry specific franchise efforts.  That is because the franchise contract template is not the end of the process, it is the beginning.  If you use the franchise contract template to give you a general structure that you then take and customize and make your own, then you are using the tool correctly.  If that same franchise contract template gets you off of your hands and overcomes that “stalled out” place many people hit when they try to create franchise documents, then that franchise contract template is doing you a tremendous service and that is how it fits in the cycle of developing a new franchise campaign.

The franchise agreement is a legally binding document so let there be lawyers.

The franchise contract template is no substitute for your involvement in creating those franchise documents.  It is your business and how well those franchises run reflect on your good name and affect how quick the franchising boom will cause your bank account to overflow. Neither the franchise contract template nor the lawyers who help you will write any of the franchise contract or operations manual documents.  You simply are going to have to roll up your sleeves and do it yourself or it will never get done right.

But you also should not think about saving a few bucks and leaving the lawyers out of the process.  When that franchise agreement is signed, it is a legally binding document.  Franchise law is nothing to sneeze at so be sure you have a crack team of franchise lawyers that understand franchise law inside and out and who understand every nook and cranny of your business and market as well.

Letting the lawyers give their final blessing on the franchise documents is the last step after you start with a franchise contract template and after you do all the hard work of writing those documents yourself.  But when everybody does their job well, you will have a vault full of outstanding franchise contract documents you will be proud of and that will support your attack on the franchising world in grand style.

Using franchise agreement services during the critical time when you are negotiating terms of the franchise relationship is just good business.

You should not think that you are calling in a “ringer” when you engage franchise agreement services so help you sort out the tricky documents that you must understand before launching your franchise empire. Franchising a business is grown-up work. There is serious money involved. The documents that start out as your way of learning the ropes of the franchising game quickly turn into legally binding contracts with some serious commitments of time, resources, work and money.

By engaging good franchise agreement services, you will have an experienced guide in the great safari into the wilderness of franchising.  This is not to say that getting a franchise to start your own business is dangerous or uncharted territory because many have walked these pathways before and come out big winners. But, like a jungle expedition, you will do much better on your hunt to land the big game of a lucrative franchise business if you go into the adventure with an experienced guide by your side.

Part of the work to be done by franchise agreement services is knowing the timing of the various documents that will come your way and how to make those documents your own in preparation for greater challenges to come.  Before you can even think about taking that final franchise agreement out of the envelope, you will have some time to review another document called the franchise disclosure document.

The key word that tips you off about what that document is for is “disclosure”. This is an important piece of literature that the company offering that franchise for sale will send to you to set the stage for striking a deal.  It is in your benefit to read and then read again the franchise disclosure document and make sure you understand every line of it. Your franchise agreement services can be of help if there are parts of the FDD that baffle you.

Franchise law dictates that the franchising company reveal to you all of their secrets in the FDD so it will be packed with all kinds of juicy tidbits of crucial information about how your franchise relationship will work and how the franchising company ticks inside and out. So bond with the FDD like nobody’s business because if you do, you will be prepared when you show up at the door of your franchise agreement services offices with your franchise agreement in your hand ready to make the leap into owning your own franchise.

The franchise agreement is the story of your life for many years to come.

The real value that franchise agreement services will deliver comes when that actual document arrives. A good franchise consultant or franchise lawyer will make sure you get a franchise agreement sample well in advance so they have plenty of time to help you work through it to be certain your interests are represented well in that document.

The franchise agreement is the real guts of the relationship because it is the singular document that binds you and the company selling the franchise together as partners. More than one smart consultant from franchise agreement services has observed that the franchise agreement is more binding than a marriage license. That is something to think about to be sure.

Within the franchise agreement, you will agree to the terms of how the franchise will work, what your operating territory will be, who will be responsible for advertising and how much you can get away with in your own promotions.  Most importantly, every aspect of the money issues that make a franchise a grown-up document are spelled out in the franchise document.  When you put your autograph on that dotted line, you are saying that you are 100% on board with that document.  Your franchise agreement services gurus can make sure that you really do mean that.

There are a huge number of franchise regulations on the books but most of them are there to protect the franchisor.

Franchise regulations are an important part of what you must go through to buy a franchise and achieve your dream of great wealth as a small business person. It is easy to look at the huge volume of franchise law and think that, once again, the government is sticking their nose in somewhere that they do not belong. In reality, however, most franchise regulations are put in place not to protect the franchisee but to protect you as you work through the process of buying a franchise and getting that dream business that you have always wanted.

As you work interact with the company offering you a franchise, you will see what seems like volcano flow of franchise documents come your way.  Many of those documents are filling up your mailbox because franchise regulations require that a lot of disclosure happens before you fork over your hard earned money to buy a franchise and set up shop.

Disclosure is a seventy five cent word that simply means that the franchisee must inform you about everything that will happen as the franchising process takes place. Disclosure is also part of franchise regulations because they are required that you know about any and all requirements that you will have to live up to as a franchise owner.  You also have a right to know about what you can expect and demand of the franchising company so they hold up their end of the bargain too.

Understanding the distinctions between state and federal franchise regulations is important.

If things were not messy enough, there are different levels of franchise regulations to be aware of. Before you sign any franchise agreements, it pays to know where state level franchise regulations are in place and where the federal government steps in to add their two cents worth.

One reason to be alert about the different levels of franchise regulations is that if you run into a problem down the road and the franchisee is in another state. If that happens, there could be confusion on how responsible that company is to regulations that pertain to the state where you live. So it is smart to be aware of these distinctions and look for how they might impact the franchise agreements and other documents that you are reviewing as you prepare to buy a franchise and get moving on your exciting new business.

You should not hesitate to get some help form a qualified franchise lawyer or franchise consultant to sort the various franchise regulations out for you.  By engaging someone local, they will be well aware of the state franchise laws.  Your franchise gurus can also interact with the franchise legal brains at the franchising company to make sure they lay out the details of who is responsible for what. Then you can feel confident that you are going into this deal with someone watching your back.

 

 

The franchise documents you have to deal with are complicated and confusing but the effort you put into conquering them will more than pay off.

One might think that in a perfect world, complicated franchise documents would not be a part of what it takes to own your own franchise small business.  If you just got your first big bundle of complicated franchise documents from the franchising company in preparation for going into business with them, you are not the first one to think you are going to drown in paperwork.  From the franchise agreements to the other documents that you are expected to know like the back of your hand, the whole process can get a little overwhelming.

Before you throw the whole stack of franchise documents in the drawer and give up and go to the movies, think twice. There are good reasons why those franchise documents are so long and detailed. In most cases, it is for your own protection. That is because of a little thing called disclosure.

Franchise disclosure documents are a big part of the purpose of so many franchise documents start filling up your mailbox. The franchising process has been refined over many years and many problems have been flushed out of the brush that can cause good franchise relationships to go bad.  And one of the big reasons things go south for a franchisee is when you do not know up front what will happen when the legal documents are all signed, huge sums of cash exchanged and you are ready to fire up your franchise.  So franchise documents are there to give you a peek into the future so there will be no surprises.

Franchise documents are long for good reasons.

The franchise industry has found it necessary to make franchise documents as long and complex for good reasons. They are not trying to impress you with how much paper they can send your way or snow you with a mountain of legal mumbo jumbo.  When a company sets out to create franchises, the franchise laws they have to cope with are nothing short of phenomenal. So a lot of the franchise document creation that goes on is to jump through the hoops of so many franchise laws that are in existence that gum up the system considerably.

One top of franchise laws coming out of their ears, franchisors have to think about the possibility of lawsuits that can come out of a botched franchise relationship. There is a lot of dough that trades hands as you get moving on buying a franchise and when that much money is involved and there are lawyers anywhere near, there are going to be some lawsuits when things go wrong.

The good thing is that there are some franchise document laws that stipulate that the franchise documents you have to read and sign must be written in language you can understand. Even at that, it pays to get some help from a good franchise lawyer and/or a franchise consultant to make sure there isn’t anything buried in those franchise documents that can come back to haunt you later. But if you take your time and read those franchise documents and make sure you understand every paragraph you find there, you will be prepared in every way when the time comes to launch your franchise and start raking in the big bucks.

Asking “Can I franchise my business?” shows that you have the good sense to look first and know what you are getting into before starting out in franchising

It seems that just about any business that can get some level of success in what they do may have that moment when they ask, “Can I franchise my business?” Franchising is the hot thing these days. This is not to say that is isn’t a fair question.  Franchising a business can be a huge step toward much greater profitability and a way to make your business take off faster than you could otherwise.

That question, “Can I franchise my business?” starts with where your business is in its growth plan. Obviously, if you are still working on reaching a level of profitability and stability in running the operation you have, that is no time to take on the big challenges of franchising the business.  So if you ask yourself, “Can I franchise my business?” because you have a dynamite business idea and a growing customer base, it might be best to wait until you have your “base” well established and the need to expand is pressing.

The very fact that you are nervous enough to ask “Can I franchise my business?” rather than just launching out shows that you have your head together. To ask the tough questions and bring some skepticism into the evaluation will pay you big time because before you spend a dime to franchise your operation, you will make sure you will be a winner in the franchising game and not one of the casualties.

Diving into franchising your business and succeeding may be a matter of who you know.

In reality that question, “Can I franchise my business?” could use with some review. Instead it might be smart to ask, “Should I franchise my business?”  An even more on target question might be, “Do I know enough to franchise my business?”  That doesn’t mean you are a dummy. It just means that those who go blindly charging into franchising and loose their shirts do so because they did not take the time to learn the ropes of the franchising adventure.

There are a few pitfalls, sand traps and a few cliffs you can fall off of and you need some help knowing where they are.  That is why the question, “Can I franchise my business?” might also be revised to, “Do I know people who can help me franchise my business?”  The last thing you should do is to launch out into the deep water of franchising without some skilled sailors on your boat, so to speak.

Fortunately, the skilled labor needed to make you a success in franchising are ready to help you out, for a fee.  But paying for a well established and experienced franchise lawyer and a solid franchise consultant may be just what it takes to put you in a place where the answer to that question, “Can I franchise my business?” is yes.

Be smart and check out that the franchise experts that you bring onto your team are honest and qualified people.  You are a savvy business person so you know how to check references.  Once you have a team of smart franchising gurus, set out to become a franchising guru yourself.  Look at every example franchise agreement and review knowledgeable literature on the “dos and don’ts” of the franchising game. When you do that, you will become one of the smart ones going into franchising your business and the outcome will be great success for you and your partners.