Tips for starting your own franchise

Starting a franchise can be a really profitable venture and a decision you will be glad you made. However, starting a franchise can be disastrous as well if you do not know exactly what you are getting into beforehand. So, if you want to start a franchise then do some research to find out all of the plus and minuses of franchises as well as the specific one you are interested in. It will be worth the time and effort to find out all of the information before you invest your many thousands of dollars. There are, however, several things you will want to now upfront. These include the different franchise opportunities currently available, market saturation, and the like. Once a particular franchise is determined on, or several are, then you will need to compare more specific information.

First, do some research to find out what companies franchise. Once you know all of the franchise options, you will be able to pick out the ones you like best and are most interested in. After that, you can narrow those down based on your investment ability and the demand for this particular franchise in your proposed market. The best thing to do is find a market that had a high demand for a particular franchise and then buy that one. All franchises will be more successful in a market with a high demand for the product.

Also, when considering a franchise you need to consider the market significantly. What franchises currently exist, what demand is there for your proposed franchise, are there plans for other similar franchise in the works by competitors, and the like. Evaluate the market as best as possible this is called market analysis. By doing this you educate yourself on the market which means you will be able to match a franchise to the needs of the market. That is really important.

Finally, when you have narrowed down the franchises available that meet the demands of a particular market, then you can compare the statistics of the various franchises to find the one that best fits your management style, investment ability, projected profits and loss, advertising, and market. You will also need to ensure that the franchiser supports the franchise significantly, especially at first in order to ensure a successful start and continued business. If the franchiser is not interested in helping the franchise get started, then you probably want to look for one that does.

Once you have decided on a particular franchise, then it will be after considerable research. Because of this, you will pick the best franchise for you and the market, which means you have a better chance at being successful and enjoying your business.



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What to have in mind when choosing a franchise

For some people owning a franchise is equivalent to financial independence, and an opportunity of being their own boss. On the other hand for others a franchise means risking your own money and agreeing to run their business by someone else's rules and guidelines.

Both Sides

Somewhere in between those extremes is the reality of being a franchise owner. No one who knows the franchise business can honestly say there is not a tremendous amount of work involved, and that the success or failure of an individual franchise operation will depend on how willing the franchisee is to do that work.

On the other hand, because most prospective franchisees are pre-qualified before being accepted, and because they will have a good amount of their own finances tied up in the franchise, they are more highly motivated to make the business work than they might have been when working for somebody else.

And, because buying a franchise means they will be entering the business world with a proven product or service, which is already familiar to a large number of people, they will not be faced with trying to find and keep a customer base. As long as they have a good location for their franchise--and many franchisers offer assistance in getting their franchisees located--and provide customer service up to the franchiser's standards, new franchise owners have an opportunity for early success.

Many Opportunities From Which To Choose

The wide variety of franchise opportunities now available means that franchising is now an option for more people than ever before. Franchising has grown well beyond the fast-food arena and now includes businesses like fitness centers, dollar stores, cellular phone stores, doughnut shops, and apparel stores. So people from many different business backgrounds are starting their own franchises.

Owning a franchise, of course, means that you'll have to run it according to the training and Operations Manual which your franchiser provides, and that you will very possibly be required





to pay your franchiser a portion of you monthly sales in fees. You may also have to make time for periodic company workshops, which can mean traveling long distances.

If there are other of your company's franchisees in the area, however, you all might be able to split your local advertising costs. And because you're all selling a branded product, your advertising budget should not be too high. Travel expenses can be written off.

If you are willing to work hard and within the guidelines set by someone else, a franchise could be your ticket out of the nine-to-five world!

However on the other hand, you have no control over the other people who happen to own the same franchise as you in a different part of town. All it can take is one single bad franchisee to bring the good reputation of your business down, causing you to lose sales and have to close the doors of your business franchise once and for all. When all is said and done though, if you want the responsibility of opening your own business but you have no idea where to begin, then a business franchise is totally the way to go.

A Company story part 2 "The Life Cycle of a company"

Organizations grow from an entrepreneurial start to eventually become bureaucracies. There is a fixed pattern to this growth with a clear definition between stages that can be observed, described, and modified if necessary. Every organization has a life cycle. That is a truth you cannot avoid. However, you can eliminate some of the dysfunctional behaviors that are found at certain points in your company’s climb to growth and success. The complete cycle of an organization can be described in many ways with many labels.
For planning purposes and understanding your company story, you can do fine with a simple model that I call a growth line. In this model you must be able to fit yourself into a category and then understand what story you are telling, look for congruence in your story, and be willing to change your story if necessary.
Organizations can be generally characterized as falling into one of three categories or into a transition stage. Those three stages are entrepreneurial, professionally managed, and bureaucratic, and each has a corresponding story.
No matter how long you have been in operation, you will fall somewhere on this hypothetical growth line. A key to understanding the growth line and how it connects to the idea of telling a company story is knowing that each stage has a distinctly different story to tell. Your approach to planning is influenced by where you are on the growth line. Organizations risk death as they grow through three stages. Eventually all organizations attempt to return to their entrepreneurial roots.

Stage 1: Matching the Stage and the Story

Your position on the growth line is reflected in your story. I can listen to your story and place you with great accuracy on the line. Two significant pieces of management knowledge can be found by knowing where you are on the growth line and how you tell the corresponding story. The first lesson is the story and stage match. Are you entrepreneurial but acting like a bureaucracy? If you are at the professionally managed stage but your story is entrepreneurial, inconsistency occurs. If the story doesn’t match the stage of your company development, mixed messages are sent to employees. The results are a story that breeds distrust and disbelief.

Stage 2: Growing Your Story

The second lesson is that of a transition. As you move from one stage to the next, your story





will change out of necessity. A professionally managed company has a different story from the other two stages of organizational development. A bureaucracy certainly operates on the opposite extreme from an entrepreneurial company. This leads us to the belief that you must change your story depending on where you are on the growth line. There is one exception to the match situation. If you are a bureaucracy, you don’t want to encourage a story of bureaucracy. Although you may accomplish the consistency of being in the bureaucracy stage and telling a bureaucracy story, unfortunately, it would be the wrong story. In this instance you want to change both your story and your operating behavior. Failure to change your story is a serious foundation for failure and explains why so many rapid-growth companies get into trouble. Management doesn’t adjust its story as the business grows from entrepreneurial to professionally managed. As a company reaches a stagnant state the story gets institutionalized to the point that it is dysfunctional to your business process. In these cases your story automatically becomes unauthentic, incongruent, and unbelievable. The story befitting an entrepreneurial company is usually one filled with hopes, dreams, and hard work. It is about sweat equity and the promise of big rewards in the future. A charismatic leader who holds people in sway tells the story with passion generated from the depth of his or her personal convictions. People are sucked into the vortex.
The story and its passion generation are what attract people to a start-up company. In the second stage the company has grown to a professionally managed system. Managers realize the need to put systems in place to get organized. People with special skills such as human resources, logistics, or computer technology are hired to professionally manage each of the special functions. This is an effective method to pull the business process together. It is important for the congruence of your story. The story often found in a professionally managed company centers around performance. Words such as high performance, teamwork, and best of breed are commonly bantered about.
The story is replete with examples of heroism in getting the job done under adverse conditions. It attracts people who seek challenge, want a well-run machine, and are professional in word and deed. This professionally managed stage also creates passion within employees. In this case the passion stems not from the vision, as in the entrepreneurial stage, but rather from the challenge to accomplish great deeds. To create passion, build your story around educated, skillful people doing the right thing for the customer. Portray a company that puts professional competence in the limelight. In the words of Tom Peters, “Hire for talent, train for whatever.”

Stage 3: Accepting Stagnation of Your Story

If you are in the third stage your story will be very different. It will be one of stagnation, featuring all the ills associated with a bureaucracy. In the bureaucratic stage a company has perfected the lethargic model. Its management uses the textbook ploys to delay decision making, resist change, and fight progress. Your story in this stage will be filled with despair, failure, and hopelessness. Employees live out the story with sad faces. They are long past caring. Their model of work is to just make it through the day.

A Company story

THE COMPANY STORY: THE “SINGLE MOST POWERFUL WEAPON” IN PREPARING A BUSINESS PLAN

Your story is not something you must acquire. Fortunately or unfortunately for you it already exists. You may or may not like what you hear but you must listen carefully to the signals that tell your story. Not all is lost if your story is less than desirable. You can shape it into anything you wish. You may decide to be creative or allow it to be dull and boring. It may be developed around purpose and passion, or it may evolve from a core of despair. You can be a powerful culture with people who believe in your story. Remember the key to a successful story is that it must be authentic, congruent, and believable. Basically, employees want to believe in their management. They want to come to work every day to excel. People need a cause to believe in and work toward. Leaders in history have known this need and have played it to both good and bad returns for humankind. Hitler understood the need for people to believe in something. As evil as it was he gave them a story. Churchill also had a story, which led his nation out of its darkest hour.

THE THREE REASONS COMPANY STORIES FALL SHORT OF EXPECTATIONS

The company story is a composite of how you represent yourself to employees, customers, and the general public. It is tied closely to your reputation, reinforced by your integrity, and defined by your behavior. Your story is the essence of who you are, what you believe in, and how you act out your character in a business play. Think of your story as if it were presented in a theater. Your story can be a comedy, a tragedy, or a musical. There will be a cast of characters, some good, others not so good, each telling their own version of the story. Most organizations are in trouble because their main characters in the play, the managers, tell stories that don’t hang together. Three problems are associated with their composite company story. First, the story is badly told; second, it is not acted out in a coherent manner; and third, it doesn’t ring true. The sales department is living one story while operations follows a different theme. Finance has its own world while market analysis occupies still another cloud. Is it any wonder employees are confused? They seem to be working for different companies simultaneously, they need to understand the principle of profit. When the Story Pieces Don’t Add Up Failure to virtually link the elements into a coherent plan also contributes to an incomplete story. Because the parts and pieces are not interconnected there is no coordinated, disciplined implementation. It is possible to actually have the elements working against each other. For example, values may






contradict the philosophy. The vision and mission could be disconnected. Principles could be developed that cancel each other. These disconnected behaviors cause customers and employees to hold the company management suspect. They sense something is not right or it is just not working. When the Story Isn’t Believable Another equally fatal flaw in telling a story is to be incongruent. For example, you claim to love customers then treat them badly. You claim to value employees yet they become targets of opportunity for reengineering or downsizing, even in good times. You profess to provide the best products in your industry yet they don’t work as advertised. People are astute and getting smarter. They pick up on the fact you don’t live your own company hype. Your story simply isn’t believable. Consider public awareness of a company’s environmental protection position. Let one incident occur then watch the media have a field day with the inconsistencies. Politicians suffer the same fate when they make public promises they cannot keep. They become inconsistent with their story, telling each special interest group what the group needs to hear.

10 Steps to Creating a Business Online


Every business owner, salesperson, or professional has to ask himself one of the two questions "Am I using e-commerce correctly?" or "How do I effectively get involved in e-commerce?"


You can pay thousands of dollars on consulting fees, e-books, reports and not answer the first question.
To answer to the second question just follow these 10 steps.

Step 1 - Buy a domain name (your own DOT com). Go to Dotster and domain research names. Can a customer easily spell and remember it?

Step 2 - Write down your online goals and prepare a time and money budget. Know your products, know what you are selling.

What will i sell?

Who will i sell it to?

How soon do you want your e-commerce site up and running?

How much will you spend?

How many hours will you devote to the site and when?

Know your products, know what you are selling.

Step 3 - Surf the web to find other sites you like and dislike. Learn from others’ successes and mistakes by taking the best of what their sites offer and adapting it for your own use. This is called competition analysis or competitive analysis.
The best way to stand out on the internet is to know your competition so you can be better.

Step 4 - Design your site on paper. Define elements, look, feel, colors etc.
Then find a professional to design and code the site for you.

Step 5 - Maintain, change, and update your site at least once a month. (The one exception to this rule are those one- page, sales letter websites. Once you have one of those that performs well and makes sales, don't change it!!)





Step 6 - Promote your site at every opportunity. Tell people about it. Put your web address on your business cards and in all your ads. Some companies even advertise their web address when they put you on hold on the telephone.

Step 7 - Give people a self-serving reason to visit your site. Coupon savings, discounts, special incentives, free information, free stuff, and free newsletters represent excellent enticements for attracting visitors to your site.

Step 8 - Concentrate on obtaining an email address from every customer and potential customer.

Obtain permission to send periodic, value added emails to your database (this is called newsletter).

Use a list server to organize and maintain your mailing list.
Google "aweber" or "newsletter software" to find one of these list servers.

Step 9 - Always look for and use the simplest solution or option.

Whether adding a shopping cart, database or other option to your e-commerce operation, seek out and use the simplest answer for your needs. Google it!

Step 10 - Become educated and stay current in the world of e-commerce.

Learn the marketing and sales techniques of the online world.

Google is your best friend. Your next best friend is my blog. :D