How Long Should You Research a Franchising Company?
As a potential franchisee, you will have many questions about owning your own business. Questions, not only about the process of becoming and remaining a franchisee, but about immersing yourself within the company itself. This process is one that’s important to your future success, therefore you want to be sure you are thorough and mindful of every step of the process. You don’t want to rush and jump into a culture before you fully understand it, but at the same time, you’re excited and ready to become a business owner and start managing your own location.
So how much time is “enough” when researching your new company? Of course, it’s hard to put an exact time down on this because it will be different for everyone. It will depend on how much you already know about a brand, about how much you know on franchising in general, and it will depend on your personality. Are you naturally nervous and an asker of many questions? Do you go with the flow regularly and work well with less information? All of this will factor into how much time you should be spending on the researching process.
However, the short answer of how much time you should spend is: until you’re satisfied. Once you know all there is to know about a franchise, once you’re fully immersed in the brand and feel confident with your understanding of inner workings, and more, you have done “enough” research going forward.
That is, until you’re ready for the next step or have a question about the brand. There’s always more to learn about franchising, and research that can be done with your next step in the process.
What Should You Research in Franchising?
Of course the next question comes in wondering what you should research about a franchising company. What is there to know? And how do you find it out? Start with the small stuff, Googling, asking us, and looking on social media. From there you can take it a step further, receive information about the company in-depth by contacting them. Here you will receive insights on income, business models, and more. You can also use this information to ask detailed questions … with stats behind you.
Ask for data on the sections that aren’t yet clear, and in the meantime, read as much as you can to learn about the business. Inside and out.
Once you take it another step further, say, deciding they’re the brand for you, there will be even more to find out, for instance, what’s expected of you as a franchisee. What legal requirements do you have, and more. It’s a good idea to have your lawyer look over contracts in beginning stages. (And you should definitely have them look anything over before signing with a company. This is simply to protect yourself with knowledge.) In the meantime, you can have your banker or accountant look at numbers statements with you to give a better idea of the franchising brand’s growth projection, fees, and so forth.
When researching a company, there is much to be learned. By putting in the time and your due diligence, you can easily learn more about the company itself, as well as insider questions you might be curious to know.
This is an important background check before signing on with a team, and it gives you more information about who you are going into business with … before you ever sign on.