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Franchising Your Business: The Brand
As a Franchisor you will be building a brand with a reputation that other people will want to buy into.
You will therefore need a brand which is distinctive and appropriate for all the places you would want to have franchisees in operation.
It will also be your responsibility, and your obligation to franchisees paying for the benefit of using your brand, to protect it against abuse, both by outsiders and by ex-franchisees.
You will therefore need specialised advice on protecting your trade and service marks.
The British Franchise Association maintains a list of lawyers with the necessary experience.
The principal benefit which Franchisors hold out to prospective franchisees is the opportunity to run a business which has already proved its capacity to deliver products or services profitably to an identified market.
You cannot sell an idea as a franchise. You must have proven in practice that the idea works and that you can successfully transfer the "know how" to another person operating at "arms length" from you.
You will need to draw up and prove a comprehensive operations manual that details what a franchisee does, how they are to do it, and to what performance and quality standards. The manual(s) will need to cover the setting up phase as well as continuing operation.
You will also need to develop and prove an initial and continuing training programme that ensures that the "know how" contained in the operations manual(s) can be transferred successfully to a third party within the time available.
The work involved in proving and documenting your operating and training systems is extensive and ordinarily calls for highly skilled and experienced advice.
The British Franchise Association would be happy to offer some introductory guidance. The Association offers a manual for prospective franchisors and maintains a listing of the UK consultants qualified to help.
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