if you are thinking about buying a franchise then there's a few
questions i think you should be asking and i had
this discussion last week with a gentleman who was thinking of buying a
franchise and there's a number of questions that i
asked him and i thought that it'd probably be
useful questions for anybody else who was thinking about
buying a franchise now on my youtube channel i do have
another video about franchising i think it's called 30 questions to ask
if you're buying a franchise or something of that nature
and i'll link it if i remember in either up here in the video or else
in the description but in this video i just want to take a look at six
questions that you should be looking at i think if you're considering buying a
franchise the first one is number one is it a
recognizable brand so we all know that mcdonald's or burger
king or teddy rockets or
dominoes starbucks these are franchises and they're recognizable
international brands recognizable international names
people immediately know what they're about and what they do
and what they sell costa coffee and so on
but if you are getting a franchise or thinking about purchasing a
franchise for example for cleaning for cleaning houses or cleaning offices
or perhaps some sort of a nail bar situation or
some other service or product then you need to consider
whether it's a recognizable brand and whether it's worth the franchise fee
as a consequence of that or not so clearly
there always should be an element of recognizability
recognition with any franchise the second question you need to consider
is is there a strong system strong products strong services
with the franchise that you're thinking about buying when i say a strong
system again if you are buying for example a
franchise that has something to do with cleaning
then is there a particular system particular products particular equipment
that is being used by the franchise or which will give you an advantage over
other cleaning companies because if there isn't an advantage
if there isn't a strong system or strong products or strong services
to differentiate your franchise from other cleaning companies
what's to stop other cleaning companies from simply providing
as good a service or a cheaper service without the franchise fees and so on
so you need to look at the system that's being offered you need to look at the
intellectual property the training and so on and see how valuable
and how useful it is and is there genuine
value in it or is it just something that anybody could do
third question you need to consider is is it easy to copy
again if i'm going to set up a burger bar
or a coffee shop i can do that with no difficulty
but nobody's going to confuse or mistake my coffee shop or my burger bar with
mcdonald's or with starbucks or with custard coffee or a strong
franchise like that there will be clear differences but if i
was going to people know what they're getting when
they go to costa coffee or they when they go to mcdonald's or to
go to burger king because they're getting a consistent
system and a consistent products and services across the board
consistent branding consistent uniforms consistent trademarks consistent layouts
of retail units and so on but if for example again
if i was considering buying for example a nail bar franchise or some sort of a
beauty salon franchise or perhaps a cleaning franchise is it
easy to copy because if it is easy to copy and if
there isn't a recognized brand if there isn't a
recognized system then why would i buy a franchise
fourth question you need to consider is do you need it
do you actually need the franchise again if you want to set up in business
in uh
an endeavor which is going to be low risk than franchising
is certainly the way to go if you set up a burger shop
or if you buy a mcdonald's the chances are
you're going to be exponentially better off going with mcdonald's from the point
of view of staying in business for a long long
time but there is other franchises being
offered for various services and products but
particularly services where you'd have to ask yourself the
question do you actually need the franchise
again if you're going to send up set up a burger bar or burger shop that's one
thing if you're setting up mcdonald's that's
quite a different ball game then your talk talking premier league
and you're talking division four but if you again are thinking about
buying a franchise which was going to allow you
to clean houses or clean offices or clean commercial premises then you
would have to ask yourself the question do you actually need the franchise
the fifth question you should consider is is there many of these franchises
trading already or are you in the very early stages are
you going to be a guinea pig because you know a lot of companies
have the idea of franchising as a way of generating more profits as a way of
rolling out the brand and rolling out the system and so on
very quickly across a geographical area for example a country like ireland
but whether the systems are tried and tested whether they're
sufficiently robust or not would remain to be seen
and if you were early on if you were a guinea pig in the situation
then you need to consider that because you may be the one
who is like the canary in the coal mine you may be
used as somebody who's flagging up the problems but
that's no great consolation to you especially if you spent hard earned
money perhaps redundancy money in buying a franchise
you really don't want to be a guinea pig you really do want to see
how other people have got on and how they're getting on and what to have to
say that leads me to question number six of
the six questions i'm referring to in this video
what do the others say what do other franchisees say
the best thing you could do is if you're thinking of buying a franchise go and
talk to other franchisees and ask them what their experience is
because when you go and speak to the franchisor they're going to sell you
on the concept they're going to sell you on the franchise
both the people and they're going to sell you on spreadsheets and projections
and so on and so forth but bottom line is you
will be very usefully gay engaged if you go and speak to other
franchisees and franchisees and see what they have to
say what's their experience what's the franchise are like in terms
of support in terms of advertising in terms of hand holding in
terms of training what's the system like what's the
manuals like what's the products like what are the services like
what are the experiences that they've had what problems do they encounter
so there are six questions i think you should be asking if you are thinking
about buying a franchise as i say i have another video on my
youtube channel 30 questions which you should ask if
you're buying a franchise and those 30 questions i think off the
top of my head or are of a more technical or legal
nature but we're not harmed have a look at that video as well
i will link it um up here in this video thanks for watching if you find this
video useful i would appreciate if you give it
the thumbs up down below thank you