Time spent on effective Preparation to franchise your business will pay dividends once you get started - and make sure your franchisees have every chance of success.

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In a long list, a few things to consider include; 

This is the foundation of franchising. It offers protection to both parties but allows you to control your Brand and ensure compliance with your business model.

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There are no short cuts and, no way around it, a good franchise agreement is expensive.  But the cost of getting it wrong could jeopardise your business.

A concept for mapping and territory allocation is essential to understand and be able to demonstrate where and with what geographical opportunity and limits the franchisee can operate. For ease of management you must know how this can be systemised, measured fairly and controlled.

Ancillary to the Franchise Agreement, the Operations Manual codifies and outlines your business's operating model and sets out help, guidance, statutory information as well as parameters and boundaries for your franchisees. It is a lengthy and key document to draft.

How much will it cost to set up a new franchise and how does this relate to the price you offer the franchise for? This is a key part of your franchise proposition to the market and is determined by careful consideration, including competitor analysis for comparisons, culminating in illustrations to use during the sales and finance application processes.

A Prospectus, to include aspects of the launch budget and financial illustrations, will be needed as well as supporting material such as profile adverts, presentation folders, documentary inserts and sales literature. Also to consider will be an affordable but effective advertising plan to generate applicants / sales leads. 

Following on from your advertising and lead generation plan, sales funnel management is needed to develop leads into sales conversations.  How to conduct resulting meetings and Discovery Days, as well as onward sales progression, is pivotal as well as the experience to confidently close sales for what are by now expensive, and valuable, relationships with prospect franchisees.

Franchisees will want to build a business plan, tailored to their needs and circumstances. This will also be needed to apply for finance where required (in most cases). Banks and lenders will want to see a formal franchise pack which, for example, should be submitted by the Brand for lending pre-approval subject to a prospect's status. 

A Training programme will be needed together with a project plan for how to take a new franchisee from the recruitment phase through to a secure launch. This will include finance applications, unit finding where required and legal processes. There is always a lot of detail to attend to before a new business can start to operate and evidence of Brand competence will give prospects confidence to sign with you.

Franchisees often commit life savings to join your franchise and will expect you to support them with an effective franchise launch, all necessary resources and marketing (as well as ongoing marketing) to make their investment a success. Recruiting franchisees is only a fraction of the process of operating a thriving franchise network and setting franchisees up to fail because there is inadequate planning will quickly cost you dearly and tarnish your Brand.

It is of pivotal importance that the franchise benefits all parties ongoing. You must have an effective operational plan to support your franchisees so that they can maximise their returns. But equally you must have a control mechanism in place to ensure compliance with the Franchise Agreement, both for Brand and your income protection. Reinvestment in the Brand, which underpins network support, is possible only through secure royalties.