Start a Business: Buy a Winning Franchise, Just Like Us

Our fears often prevent us from realizing our potential. Learn how to identify your fears. 

Explore why you would want to be a business owner. 

Emotions can cause havoc on your search for a business opportunity. It can cloud your decision making and undermine your progress. Learn how to use your emotions to your advantage. 

Use a practical approach to determine what you really want to achieve in life based on what is most important to you. 

Create a true commitment to move your life forward. Don't let stagnation be your default state. 

Explore why a franchise is or isn't a good business opportunity for you. 

Gain a clearer view of your passions, goals, and skills. This will help you find a franchise that fits with your unique situation. 

Download and learn how to use a Franchise Scorecard--a practical and powerful way to objectively evaluate each franchise opportunity. 

If you are enjoying the course, it would be awesome to let others know, so they too will find their path to a winning franchise. 

Introduction to the different ways to learn about the many franchise opportunities available. 

Discover the different online franchise directories so you find many franchises that you didn't know existed. 

A demonstration to help you unleash the power of online franchise directories, through a tour of FranchiseRankings.com. 

To make an informed decision, you need quality data.  The franchiser will provide you some of this data, and you can pull some data from online franchise directories.  However, you will need to develop your own data set to support a truly informed decision.  We will walk you through accessing several little-known resources that will help you build a rich data set to support your decision making and analysis.

We will show you how to use FREE public websites to get access to Franchise Disclosure Documents (FDDs), which are loaded with information you can use to better analyze the franchises you are considering.  

We will walk you through an alternative website you can use to download FREE FDDs to help you in your analysis.  

Explore the Minnesota Commerce Website for another easy way to discover information on national franchises you are interested in. Once you get access to the FDDs you need, you will need to go through them and pull out important data.  We will walk you through this and show you exactly how to pull out important data that will help you make a better decision.

We will walk you through reviewing an example FDD and extracting the information needed to determine if the franchise has positive or negative momentum.  If the number of openings is greater than the number of closings then it has positive momentum.  

In this demo we walk you through how to locate and extract a list of current franchisees.  You can use this information to contact and interview franchisees, which will inform your decision making process. 

We will walk you through analyzing the franchiser financials provided in the FDD.  We will show you where the financials are located and how to review them.  

Wrap up thoughts on the value of using the FDD. We summarize the information that can be pulled form FDDs and provide other resources that can be used to get access to FDDs.

Discover the trade show options to learn about franchise businesses. 

Find out about franchise brokers and how they can guide you. 

Find out about franchise consultants and how they can guide you. 

A quick review of our exercises you should have completed so far, in order to get the most out of the course.

Learn how to make the most of validation calls with the franchisor. Download the List of Questions to give you ideas for your calls.

Get familiar with the layout of a Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) and download our FDD Map. 

Deep dive into the Franchise Disclosure Document. 

Exploring the first five sections:

Item 1: The franchisor and any parent companies, predecessors and affiliates
Item 2: Business Experience of key company officers
Item 3: Litigation the franchise has encountered
Item 4: Bankruptcy issues to consider
Item 5: Initial fees you can expect

Deep dive into the Franchise Disclosure Document continued. 

Sections explored:

Item 6: Other fees you can expect
Item 7: Estimated initial investment
Item 8: Restrictions on where sources of products & services 
Item 9: Franchisee’s obligations
Item 10: Financing a franchise
Item 11: Support you can expect from the franchisor
Item 12: Franchise territories: What to consider

Deep dive into the Franchise Disclosure Document continued. 

Sections explored:

Item 13: Trademarks the franchisor owns and why that’s important 
Item 14: Patents, copyrights and proprietary info the franchisor owns and why that’s important
Item 15: Franchisee obligations to participate in actual operations 
Item 16: Restrictions on what the franchise can sell
Item 17: Policy on renewals, termination, transfers and resolving disputes
Item 18: Public figures and celebrities working with the franchise brand

Deep dive into the Franchise Disclosure Document continued. 

Sections explored:

Item 19:  Financial performance representations of what existing franchisees have earned
Item 20: Outlets & franchise Information listing where franchises are located including how many have opened and closed over the past few years
Item 21: Financial statements of the corporate franchisor 
Item 22: Contracts you can expect to sign as a new franchisee

Learn how to make the most of validation calls with existing franchisees.What you should be asking an existing Franchisee to get the most out of your conversation.

Download the Financial Model Template (an Excel file) to take most of the heavy lifting out of your financial modeling to predict the money side of a franchise. 

Explore the different advisors that can be part of your team as you look for and buy a franchise. 

Get a deeper understanding of the different ways you can do online research to determine if a franchise is right for you. 

Introduction into the different financing options for you to consider. 

You have narrowed you franchise hunt down to the businesses that fit you best. Now it’s time to consider how best to finance this exciting new venture. We have several ideas and practical tips for you on each.

Why you should and why you shouldn’t take out a loan to finance your franchise with debt. 

Someone wants to invest in you. Learn about the pros and cons of equity financing. 

Discover if you should take on an investment partner, who will own part of your franchise?

Ever wonder how much you are worth? Franchisors and debt providers will want to know too. Learn how to prepare your personal financial statement (PFS) to support your applications for financing. Download the template to make the process quick and easy. 

Learn about business plans and how you can create your own easily.

Become familiar with bank loans, including Small Business Administration loans. 

Discover if you can borrow money from you know. And, decide if you should.

Hello Partner. When & why equity financing from family and friends might be a good idea.

Understand the option of franchisor financing, if it is available. 

Evaluate different alternative financing choices to see if any makes sense for you. 

A few innovative ways to get a hold of money fast without paying penalties.

Learn about lease financing options. 

You now have seen lots of financing options. Discover how to narrow done your choices to what you can do and what you should do.  

Gain a general understanding of franchise and area development agreements. 

Be prepared to be able to evaluate attorneys, so you can pick one that is best for you. 

A short review of the top items to help you rapidly realize your dreams.