subject: Avoiding Pitfalls Of A Franchise Business [print this page] Getting a franchise business is one of the ways to grab hold of a seemingly good business opportunity. There are many obvious advantages of the same. You do not have to toil day and night to get the business to establish from scratch and to develop a reputed brand name for the same. What you get is a well established brand name to work with which has ready market of its own. There is one more obvious benefit of the franchise business that the resources are channelled in the proper direction and there is less operational wastages of the same since you build upon the experience and the expertise of the others.
As is the case with other businesses, there are some obvious pitfalls of the same as well. For you, it is important to be vigilant of these pitfalls and to avoid these at all costs. Here are some of these which you shall be careful about:
1. Training: Normally, training is the responsibility of the franchiser and the same shall be done properly for the franchise to succeed. The serious franchiser does recognise the importance of maintaining uniform brand values and therefore, the training sessions are quite elaborate. When some franchiser is only offering the training for a small period of time to be meaningful and it looks to be mere eyewash, then the suspicions must arise.
2. Geographical reach: Try to get as much geographical reach as is possible under the deal depending on your own estimation of the market potential. If the geographical clause is not suitable for you, then you can try negotiating on the reduction of the share of the franchiser in the business profits.
3. Do consultations: For assessing any business opportunity, either the business for sale offer or the franchise business opportunities, there is always an agreement between the two parties. It has been observed that these agreements are deliberately designed or loaded against the franchisee. These put him in the weaker position. So, the pros and cons of these shall be duly examined before these are signed. You can consult a lawyer for this purpose.
4. Promise too much and deliver very little: If there is a feeling in the negotiations that the franchiser is putting too many conditions or is expecting you to do too much, far beyond your reasonable duties and is not taking what is ideally his part of the responsibility, then this is going to be an uncomfortable association. The people who promise much and are not seen to be taking action are actually wasting your time trying to hoodwink you for money.
In order to assess the merit of the franchise business proposal, it is quite imperative that you have done your own in-depth research on the subject and take your decisions in the light of these findings of your own. Do not commit anything till the whole picture is clear. Do not act in haste, but do not be lethargic as well. Take reasonable time for arriving at a decision.
