A franchise contract must bring together two different aspirations. Those of the franchisee who is an entrepreneur giving up part of his entrepreneurial autonomy. And that of the franchisor, who surrenders his know-how to a company that may then turn out to be, tomorrow, his direct competitor. From this premise, you can understand how delicate it is to implement one. For this, you need to turn to lawyers who are experts in the field, and we can help you in drafting your contract. The contract is not only to protect you but has in it a strategic vision that may prove useful only after a few years.

In Step 2 we talked about the importance of standardizing processes. The operations manual is the document in which you are going to put in black and white the know-how you have identified through analysis, with the goal of transferring your knowledge to franchisees. The manual serves to protect you both legally–in the franchise agreement you have an obligation to transfer your know-how to franchisees–and also operationally to reduce the margin of error for franchisees. To learn more about how to build an operations manual, read the book Let’s Franchise (chapter 6) order now.

If you have followed all the previous steps, you have everything in your bag to get going. What you need to do now, to reach your target audience and bring them to know about your offer, is to prepare a promotional strategy in which you will decide which channels to use both analog and digital ones to get contacts to manage, or “leads” in marketing terms. A very delicate phase of this work is precisely contact management, and for this you will benefit from having an experienced affiliate salesperson on your team. We have figures on our team who can help you both in the lead research phase, helping you to devise an ad hoc marketing strategy, and in the subsequent management of the contact.

From the book Let’s Franchise to the location issue is reserved an entire chapter, since location is the choice of choices, the backbone of any business. Just as you cannot design a house without a foundation, in the same way you cannot start a franchise without knowing the characteristics of the place where you intend to open the business. As a franchisor you will have a duty to help the franchisee in choosing the location. This is why we recommend that you provide a figure on your team who is precisely responsible for selecting the best among the location proposals that franchisees will make.