Franchises are one of the fastest-growing types of businesses in the U.S. and can be purchased for as little as a few thousand dollars, to over a million dollars. There are franchises for all kinds of products and services—food, pet grooming, massage services, auto repair, etc. Although exact statistics are hard to find, they also tend to have a higher success rate than independent businesses that are not franchises.
Although franchises tend to have higher success rates, they also have risks , and can fail for any number of reasons like any other business. You must investigate Joe’s Restaurant Franchise just as thoroughly as Joe’s Local Diner before buying it. There are a number of great resources in addition to this article to help you determine if a franchise is the right way for you to go. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has some excellent resources , as do several other services like business brokerage websites. Enter “Is Franchising For Me” in any Internet search engine, and you’ll retrieve links to a large number of resources.
What is a Franchise?
The SBA resource I mentioned above offers the following definition for a franchise: A franchise is a legal and commercial relationship between the owner of a trademark, service mark, trade name or advertising symbol and an individual or group seeking the right to use that identification in a business. The franchise governs the method of conducting business between the two parties. Generally, a franchisee sells goods or services supplied by the franchisor or sells goods or services that meet the franchisor’s quality standards. As a business model, franchising is essentially a finance vehicle for expansion of the concept. You, the franchisee, finance the start up of the individual franchised unit and pay licensing and royalty fees to the franchisor. This is as opposed to the franchise company bearing the costs of opening its own units (many franchises do have company-owned stores along with franchised stores). The franchise agreement is a contract that governs the manner in which you will do business.
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