Franchise Help

aimingforadebtfreelife

I am seriously thinking about starting up a franchise business and doing a lot of research - Ive picked 2 franchises I am interested in and starting to research. Can anybody tell me if there are any sites with forums about franchises - all I can find are sites advertising franchises not ones where there is discussion about the bad bits. :rolleyes:

Nytehawk

You will rarely find a franchise organisation telling you the bad bits.
This is a site as a good starting point www.thebfa.org


Please do bucketfuls of research and be as sure as you can that there is a sustainable need for the industry you are looking at. I believe that we all like to believe in the nice side of the product but forget about the biggest factor that can easily wipe you out, "The competitor" especially those that have a bottomless pit of money to market you out of their patch.


Previous Franchisee

aimingforadebtfreelife

cheers for the info,

I found a business forum last night and there is a lot of negatives about franchising and posts from accountants were they looked at figures of ones which went wrong stating what was quoted initially as income was overstated. Also the honesty box franchises were being slated. It is frustrating as there are many bad posts about certain franchises but no one will name them for legal reasons :mad: - Ive had many glossy brochures through but who is to say thats to draw you in. Before I commit I am going to contact a sample of the chosen franchises people working at the moment, my sample not their sample and will get a friend of mine (an accountant) to run over the figures.

Its scary to know many people think franchising is an instant formula for money, get a redundancy pay off and go straight in and fail.

aimingforadebtfreelife

does anyone know of a good franchise opportunity that is working for them/know of one?? all ideas greatfully received as covering all angles

Nytehawk

aimingforadebtfreelife wrote: »

cheers for the info,

I found a business forum last night and there is a lot of negatives about franchising and posts from accountants were they looked at figures of ones which went wrong stating what was quoted initially as income was overstated. Also the honesty box franchises were being slated. It is frustrating as there are many bad posts about certain franchises but no one will name them for legal reasons :mad: - Ive had many glossy brochures through but who is to say thats to draw you in. Before I commit I am going to contact a sample of the chosen franchises people working at the moment, my sample not their sample and will get a friend of mine (an accountant) to run over the figures.

Its scary to know many people think franchising is an instant formula for money, get a redundancy pay off and go straight in and fail.

I did franchising for 6 years and figures are often overstated. IMO Franchising works well in the states because many Franchisors have got sufficient knowledge and sound finances to keep the principle going. Here in UK we tend to play at franchising and I would say for every success there must be at least a dozen failures. It is portrayed as easy fortunes but reality shows (the hard way) that this isn't the case. PM me if I can help any further

sundancer101

I run a franchise and have done so for over 3 years. It does have some negatives but it also has many positives, I guess it will vary from company to company. To the OP - please message me if you would like some advice from me - happy to do so but don't want to plaster all my business info over a public forum.

barrymung

aimingforadebtfreelife wrote: »

does anyone know of a good franchise opportunity that is working for them/know of one?? all ideas greatfully received as covering all angles

I'd say the only franchises worth looking at are those that are household names.

The main advantage of buying a franchise is that your potential customers recognise the name. If they don't recognise it then what's the point of buying the franchise??

Perhaps it's worth going out onto the street and surveying a few members of the public? Ask them who they'd turn to if they needed someone from the industry you have chosen.

If the majority mention the franchise you have in mind then you are onto a winner. If they don't then...