This lesson is part of our free Franchise 101 course.

Setting up your own franchise business can be a long and complicated process. By breaking it down into five key steps, that process becomes easier to manage.

Step 1: Self-Reflection

Before you do anything else, it’s important to consider where you’re coming from. What are your interests? What are your skills? What do you want to get out of the business? On a practical level, are you willing to relocate, and what sources of finance do you have access to?

Everything else will have to fit within these limits, so it’s important to consider them first.

Step 2: Information Gathering

Now comes the desk research, gathering information on potential franchises, comparing them with each other, deciding which might be for you. This is the stage where the Franchise Chatter comparison tools can really help you.

Having picked your most likely franchise, you’ll need to get in contact with the company, to start sounding each other out. If they like the sound of you, then you’ll go to a discovery day, where you’ll learn more about how they function in practice and get a sense for whether these are people you want to work with.

You’ll also have a chance to contact other franchisees, to learn about their experiences and find out what the company isn’t saying.

Step 3: Selection

Once you’ve learned about the franchises, it’s time to make your choice. You were probably halfway there when you went to their discovery day, but if you like the look of a franchise then it’ll soon be time to commit by signing a franchising agreement.

You’ll also need to make some other important choices, like the location for your business and where you’ll get the funding to support it. These choices are all tangled together, their outcomes depending on each other.

Step 4: Setup

Having made the big picture decisions, it’s time to start working on the practical details, and there will be a lot of them. You’ll need to arrange permits and insurance, get your location fitted out, obtain supplies, recruit employees, and start the publicity machine turning. This is also the time to get training, both for you and for your staff, to ensure that you can provide the best possible service in line with the franchise you’ve joined.

Step 5: Open Business!

With a great deal of fanfare, it’s time to present yourself to the world. Time to see your dreams fulfilled and the money coming in. Time for all that effort to pay off.

Simple, right?

Of course not. But by breaking it down into steps, you can make an overwhelming experience seem manageable, and by using resources like Franchise Chatter, you can get the guidance and information you need to make the process run as smoothly as possible.

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