How can I tell if my business is franchisable?

John Pratt writes:

It’s easier to tell whether your business is not franchisable.

If your business is unsuccessful or if the business is successful because of you and your special abilities, if it’s a business that depends on skills that cannot be trained or which requires a substantial amount of training, or is fashionable and unlikely to have a long shelf life, it’s not franchisable.

If your business is franchisable, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to franchise it. Franchising is by no means cheap, because you’ll have to prepare a franchise agreement, an operations manual, franchise prospectus and so on. You also have to budget for advertising, attending exhibitions and appearing on franchise websites, etc.

Recruiting franchisees is not easy and it may take you many years before you have recruited a sufficient number of franchisees for you to earn a profit. Nevertheless, if you’ve concluded that you need to grow using other people’s capital and that your business works better with the individual motivation that comes from an owner manager, franchising may be for you.

Having said that, you must obtain as much information about franchising as possible. There is quite a lot of free information you should obtain before spending money with expensive franchise lawyers or consultants.

John Pratt is senior partner at specialist franchise firm Hamilton Pratt and has advised franchisors for over 25 years.