Franchising 101: Five Crucial Steps Before Franchising

It’s been five years since you opened your first restaurant. Business is great and customers keep coming back for more. You may have even expanded to a second or third location. Out of town visitors frequently ask when you will open in their hometown, confident that you would have a line of customers out the door. But, while you are passionate about your concept and would like to keep expanding, you are not sure that you have the resources to manage the additional growth. One day someone approaches you about buying the right to open one of your restaurants in a nearby city. It sounds intriguing, but where do you begin? What does it really mean to franchise your restaurant?

Franchising is a great way to grow a brand using other people’s capital. It often allows for faster growth and sometimes faster returns. However, it is not for the faint of heart. If you take the franchising plunge, you must understand that franchising is a business in itself and be prepared to devote the…