Five Guidelines to Guaranteed Results

We’re always hearing about the latest programs designed to guarantee success!  Whether weight loss, financial independence, or improved memory, there’s a program out there that will help you achieve your desired results.  Most claim easy success by following a series of simple guidelines and many even offer a guarantee. 

Franchising is no different.  There are all kinds of reference articles written for prospective franchisees that outline the guidelines to achieving a successful franchise business.  Some emphasize the importance of real estate selection and lease negotiation, others discuss the merits of training and ongoing support, and some discuss how to manage the top and bottom lines in your business.  These are all very important elements to achieving a profitable franchise business, but most franchise companies won’t guarantee results.

However, there is one approach that all franchise companies agree produces guaranteed results!  It doesn’t have a name and there isn’t a lot written about it, but the strategy is as old as franchising.  Thousands of franchisees have tested this approach and produced consistent results, across all types of franchise concepts, and within all franchise industries.  

The one drawback to this program is that the result you will achieve is guaranteed failure!  Now, for the first time, the five guidelines to achieve guaranteed franchise results are outlined below. 

GUIDELINE 1:  Select Your Franchise Based On What It Sells.

Most successful franchisees look at many factors before selecting franchises to investigate.  The key criteria include:

1. Their lifestyle and work schedule expectations. 
2. Their strengths or weaknesses. 
3. Their income needs and the amount of capital you can reasonably invest.
4. Their marketplace demographics and desired locations. 
5. Their understanding of the skills necessary to succeed in the franchisee role.

In order to guarantee failure, you need to disregard these factors.  The idea is to select a franchise based solely on your feelings about the product or service it delivers.  Choose a company because you are familiar with the produce or service or think it might be a fun business and you’re well on your way.  For instance, if you can program your VCR, you should consider a video rental franchise.  If you can make a sandwich or flip a burger, think fast food.  Failing to carefully consider your goals, skills and financial parameters is a clear path to making a bad decision. 

GUIDELINE 2:   Ignore The FDD Document.

Every franchise in the United States has a FDD (Uniform Franchise Offering Circular) that details the current status of their business.  This document provides information on the history of the company, the management team, the training and marketing programs, all costs and fees and even the success rates of the existing franchisees.

Successful franchisees use the FDD as a key source of information to help evaluate a franchise company and base much of their decision on the contents of this document.   Upon review, they have a clear understanding of the current state of the business, how the growth is trending, and what support programs are in place.  Many FDD’s also provide earnings claims that help you estimate the earnings potential of the business.  

But to guarantee failure, disregard the FDD altogether.  You’ll miss all the warning signs of a bad franchise company.  You won’t know if they’ve had extensive litigation with their franchisees or if they’ve closed more units in the last two years than they’ve opened or anything else that they must disclose to you.   Ignoring this valuable tool in your investigation process will put you on the fast track to a bad result.

GUIDELINE 3:  Don’t Call Existing Franchisees.

When investigating a franchise, most people feel that the most valuable and meaningful information they receive about the opportunity is from existing franchisees.  They are living and breathing the business every day and have already taken the journey you are contemplating.

These calls usually start with a series of general questions that help determine the lifestyle of the franchisee – what hours they work, what they do at work and how much they like the business.  These calls also cover subjects like the effectiveness of the initial training programs, examples of the ongoing support they receive from the franchisor and the strength of the marketing system.  They generally conclude with a discussion of the economics of the franchise opportunity in actual practice to allow you to verify your income expectations for the business.

Guideline 3 is essential to guaranteed failure.  Don’t call any existing franchisees.  By not utilizing this resource, you can reserve the joy of discovery for yourself.  You’ll find out soon enough about the training and support, the hours and tasks you’ll be performing and the financial results you’ll achieve.  Skipping this step is a must to ensure a bad ending to a franchise endeavor.

GUIDELINE 4:  Just Roll The Dice To Make Your Decision!

When it’s time to make the decision on which franchise business to purchase, the smart buyers go through a process of evaluation.  They have carefully compiled all the information they need to thoroughly understand the franchise.  They compare this understanding with their goals and expectations for a business to make sure the franchise has the characteristics they want.  They keep looking until they find a business that is the right fit for them.

To guarantee failure, ignore this process and just roll the dice.  It saves time and will avoid the frustration you might experience when you realize you don’t have the information to make a comparative judgement if you’ve followed the first three guidelines.  Best of all, since your chance of success is now random, you can eliminate any sense of personal responsibility for the outcome.  Omitting this process of comparative reasoning is essential to achieving bad results.

GUIDELINE 5:  Remember The Key Word In Franchising – Innovate!

The key to a successful franchise opportunity is a very carefully designed system for doing business.  Franchise companies spend years testing and refining their systems so they can teach a new franchisee exactly how to market and operate their business to maximize success as soon as possible.  These systems are well documented with comprehensive manuals that tell a new franchisee the most effective method for everything they need to do. 

To guarantee failure, just ignore these proven systems and innovate at every opportunity.  You just might have some better ideas for marketing and operating the business and you’ll never know if you don’t try.  The key is to use the system training from the franchisor as a starting point and then test every new idea you can come up with.   Discounting the established systems that the franchise company has spent years developing to “do your own thing” is the quickest and surest route to a bad outcome.

SUMMARY

Following any, let alone all, of the guidelines in this article will surely help you guarantee failure in a franchise business.  Assuming that this is not really your goal, then focus on doing the opposite of the guidelines and your results should be much more positive.

The best advice to follow when considering a franchise is to gather as much information as possible.  Carefully determine what characteristics you want in a business.  Study the materials provided by the franchise company and research the opportunity with the existing franchisees.  Make an informed decision based on this information and then follow the system perfected by the franchise company once you get in business.  The outcome may not be guaranteed, but it will be good!