If you are thinking about buying a franchise, there is a huge amount of information to take in. You will probably find yourself comparing franchise fees, territories, training packages, earning potential and what is included in the initial investment. All of those things are important, but having been a franchisor for many years, I think some of the most useful questions are the ones that help you understand what it will actually be like to run the business once the excitement of choosing a franchise and getting started has passed. 

 

Buying a franchise is a significant investment, but it is also a decision about how you want your working life to look. You are choosing the business you will be building, the people you will be working alongside and the organisation you will be relying on for support, potentially for many years. It is worth taking your time and looking beyond the headline figures. Is there a genuine market for the business? 

 

This sounds obvious, but it is a good place to start. Who is going to buy the product or service, why do they need it and is there enough demand for you to build the sort of business you want? 

 

It is also worth thinking about whether you can see yourself talking enthusiastically about the business in three, five or ten years' time. You do not necessarily need previous experience in the sector, because one of the reasons for choosing a franchise is that you should receive the training, systems and support to learn how to run that particular business. You do, however, need to believe in what you will be selling. 

 

At Pink Spaghetti, for example, our franchisees provide outsourced business support to small businesses. That can range from everyday administration and organisation through to CRM support, bookkeeping, social media and marketing administration. Our franchisees come from all sorts of career backgrounds, and we don't expect somebody to arrive already knowing how to run a VA business. What is much more important is that they can see the opportunity, enjoy working with small businesses and want to build a business of their own. 

 

 

Most franchise opportunities will tell you that they provide excellent or comprehensive support, so I would always encourage someone considering a franchise to dig a little deeper and find out what those words mean in practice. 

 

Ask what happens during your first few weeks and months, who you will speak to when you have a question, what training you receive and what ongoing contact you will have with the franchisor. I would also ask what happens when your business starts to grow, because the support you need when you are looking for your first few customers is very different from the support you might need when you are busy, employing people and deciding how to take your business to its next stage. 

 

A good franchisor should be able to explain this clearly and give you real examples. You should be able to understand what support looks like throughout the life of the franchise, rather than simply being given a list of what is included during your initial training. 

 

 

For me, this is one of the most important parts of researching any franchise. A franchisor is naturally going to tell you why they believe in their business, but the people already running it can tell you what it actually feels like from the other side. 

 

Ask whether you can speak to existing franchisees and, when you do, don't feel you have to restrict yourself to the easy questions. Ask what surprised them, what they found harder than expected, what support they have found most useful and what they wish they had known before they started. You can also ask whether the business they are running today looks like the one they imagined when they first joined. 

 

Independent franchisee satisfaction results can be useful here too. They give you another source of information alongside individual conversations and what the franchisor tells you about themselves. If you are comparing franchise opportunities, it is perfectly reasonable to want evidence that the people who have already made the investment are happy with the business and the support they receive. 

 

 

One of the misconceptions about franchising is that buying a proven business model somehow removes the need to build the business yourself. It doesn't. A good franchise should give you a considerable head start, with a brand, systems, training, processes, experience and ongoing support behind you, but you still have to put those things into action. 

 

I would ask what the successful franchisees in the network actually do. How do they find customers? How much networking and business development is involved? What does a typical week look like when they are starting out, and how does that change as they grow? 

 

This is where I think there is an important distinction between asking whether something is a good franchise and asking whether it is the right franchise for you. A perfectly good business opportunity can still be completely wrong for a particular person. Understanding what will actually be expected of you makes it much easier to decide whether you can picture yourself doing it. 

 

 

Look at how long the franchise has been operating, how established the network is and whether there are franchisees at different stages of their journey. Ask about the experiences of people who joined recently as well as those who have been there for several years. 

 

I would also look for evidence beyond turnover figures. How long do people tend to remain in the network? What support exists when somebody is struggling? How has the business changed as the market has changed? A franchise that has been operating for a number of years should have learnt a great deal along the way, and you are partly investing in that accumulated experience. 

 

Pink Spaghetti started franchising in 2012, so we have supported franchisees through many different stages of building their businesses, as well as through changes in technology, working habits and the small business market. That experience is an important part of what sits behind the franchise model today. 

 

 

It is tempting to compare franchises by looking at the initial franchise fee, but that only tells you a small part of the story. A lower-cost franchise is not automatically better value, just as a more expensive one is not automatically a better opportunity. 

 

Make sure you understand what the initial investment includes, what ongoing fees you will pay and what additional costs you should expect. Then look at what you receive in return, including training, systems, marketing, resources, ongoing support and access to the experience that already exists within the network. 

 

One of the reasons for choosing franchising rather than starting completely from scratch is that a great deal of the groundwork has already been done. The question is whether you believe what you are receiving will genuinely help you build your business. 

 

 

This is much harder to measure, but I don't think it should be underestimated. When you buy a franchise, you are entering into a long-term relationship with the franchisor and joining a network of other business owners, so how you feel about the people matters. 

 

By the time you are seriously considering a franchise, you should have had enough contact with the franchisor to get a feel for how they communicate and how comfortable you are asking questions. You should also have some sense of the culture of the wider network. That doesn't mean everybody needs to be the same, far from it, but the values and way of working should feel right for you. 

 

At Pink Spaghetti, our franchisees have very different personalities, backgrounds, ambitions and reasons for joining us, and I think that variety is one of the strengths of the network. What connects them is the decision to build a business of their own without having to do absolutely everything alone. 

 

If you are currently researching franchise opportunities, my advice would be to take your time, ask lots of questions and don't be afraid to look beneath the marketing. Speak to the people already doing it, understand what will be expected of you and think about the kind of business and working life you actually want to create. 

 

If Pink Spaghetti is one of the opportunities you are considering, you can request our franchise prospectus to find out more about how the franchise works, the support available and what running your own Pink Spaghetti business could look like. 

 

If you’re ready to learn more about becoming a Pink Spaghetti virtual assistant, simply request a prospectus here.