Franchising

When looking for franchises for sale you may be looking in your local area or you may be looking on a national scale, in both cases your franchise company will not allow anyone else to open a franchise in that area. However, the problem is that they have no control over a competing franchise company opening in your area. For an example you open a Starbucks in your area but your franchise company have no way of stopping a Costa Coffee franchise opening in the same area. Your franchise company have no power to stop another franchise or independent with the same type of franchise opportunities from opening up in your location.

There are other things to look out for when looking for franchises for sale in a particular location. The first thing to look out for is the size of your area, this is very important as you may have a town, city or county, but these lines and borders are somewhat misleading as there may be a suburb of that city or there could be a village that lies in between county borders. The next thing is to get this clarified in your franchise agreement or contract. Make sure that your legal team and yourself negotiate these boundaries and you are fixed to that particular area for that franchise. The franchise company may offer numerous franchise opportunities for you but make sure that what you want is down in a legal document and that the franchise company have been clear on the locations.

There are a number of stories that indicate that franchisees have had problems with other franchises opening up in their area. If you have a franchise that is about to open up in a suburb of a city then you need to look at other franchises that are already established in the city and work out how close they are. If the contract states that another franchise can open up in at least a 5 mile radius to yours then you might leave yourself vulnerable to the other more established franchises. The marketing and advertising that you do could well drive traffic to the other franchise and not your own. Make sure that the distance to other franchises is far enough away for you to market your own franchise opportunities to your own specific area or you will lose business to other competing franchise owners.

There are many franchises for sale online and through many media channels, there may well be franchises for sale around the corner. The main thing to remember is to have everything in the contract or franchise agreement, this means that the franchise company is bound by this contract and you will not have competition from other franchises in the area offering the exact same product or service. Do not be scared to negotiate the distance or location as the franchise company need your expertise as much as you need theirs. Many franchisees have been unable to grow due to saturation of an area, it is the franchisees responsibilities to set their boundaries and protect their investment for the long term.