If you own a successful business, you may be facing an important question: to franchise or not to franchise? More importantly, how do you know if your business is even ready for a franchising opportunity?
To know whether or not you should franchise, you must first evaluate your business and determine whether or not the business is one that can be franchised. Here are a few important factors for determining franchisability.
A Track Record of Success
Before you can ever entertain the thought of franchising, there is a simple question to ask: is the business successful? In order to develop a successful franchise, the core business has to have a track record of positive results.
Take a good, hard look at the past few years of your business. Be honest with yourself. If you feel that the business has been unequivocally successful, franchising may be a real opportunity.
Determining Business Scalability
Having a successful business is great, but do you have a business model that is capable of growing? This is where scalability comes into question. There are several questions related to scalability that you need to ask:
- Can you train franchisees?
- Can you develop supporting systems for franchisees?
- Will the franchise be profitable following your model?
When the answers to these questions become clearer, so too does the path to franchising.
Being Committed
Franchising may sound like a great opportunity to make money off of the business that you have built. But there is a greater commitment at hand that many do not realize before they branch out into the world of franchising.
Ask yourself about the commitment ahead. Creating a successful franchising system does not happen overnight. It takes time to develop and a commitment to see that goal to fruition.
Consider your desire to not only expand the business but to grow the brand. In franchising, the brand is one of the essential components. When franchising, building that brand is one of the biggest keys to success. Know if that is a commitment you can handle.