Franchisee resource center

Most prospective franchisees are drawn to the business by previous frustrating experiences in their past employments. This could have been caused due to lack of control over one’s work environment, being bound to report to superiors and insufficient room to exercise one’s authority at their work place. The micro- managing bosses, unresponsive organizational structures, or lack of voice in the organizations process are a few of the reasons why many people decide on investing in franchises as their new career. By investing in this business they take control over their own life with a little risk as compared to starting their own business from scratch.

Even the most honest and forthcoming franchisor can’t tell you what it’s like to be a franchisee. You should take the time to call existing franchisees and get some candid answers to your questions. Be careful that you don’t get a limited list of hand-picked contacts. It would be a waste of time to talk only to the most successful operators or those who are coached to give the “right” answers. Calling franchisees at random will give you the clearest picture of what you’re getting into. Here are some questions you should ask.

Most of the franchises offering Product oriented goods have very stringent rules. Since their brand is associated with a tangible good they must guarantee the desired quality from the consumer’s expectation. Franchisees must purchase the goods from a designated supplier and must keep items in their inventory as suggested by the franchisor. This can be company regulated policies or simply to help the franchisor launch some of their new products.

No matter what's going on, people still get sick and injured. Some studies have also shown that healthcare needs increase during recession due to the associated stress.

But, once the original operating system is established, it must be refined and tweaked as changes take place in its industry and within the company. An ongoing challenge for every business, not only franchise companies, is how to improve their operating systems in order to better manage results.

Jesse: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the FranchiseHelp, Inc. Understanding the FDD for Franchisors Conference Call. During the participation, all participants will be in a listen only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question and answer session. If you have a question, please press the 1 followed by the 4 on your telephone. Your line will be briefly accessed from the conference to obtain the information. If at any time during the conference you need to reach an operator, please press star zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded Wednesday, May 7th, 2008.

The first impression that the franchisee gets from reading the franchise agreement is total incomprehension, unless they are well versed in legal terminologies and phrasing. The FDD is required to be in plain English but the franchise agreement has no such requirement. Typically, the franchisor’s legal department works extremely hard to secure the franchisor’s position through the Agreement and makes it impenetrable for someone who is not a lawyer to understand. The uniform nature of the agreement for all franchisees makes it assumed that the franchisee must sign the agreement so that all the franchisees follow the same terms. Even though that is partially true, the franchisee can plead their case and negotiate terms where they believe that they are offering something unique to the franchisor.

Most prospects come with a firm belief in the product or service…but a limited strength in sales and marketing. Yet sales and marketing skills are the very skills they need to sell themselves and their services…the skills they need to keep the business alive! If your potential franchisees and existing franchisees are like most…they are lacking the "selling gene".