When you consider franchising your business, you must meet various requisites like operational requirements, pre-sale disclosures, and legal documents. Meeting these requirements enables you to sell franchises to individuals considered your franchisees. You grant them rights to develop and set up shop in different territories using your suppliers, trademarks, training, business models, and customer support.

However, you want to consider and implement certain practices and strategies when developing your franchise. This ensures that you reduce the risk of business failure and disputes with franchisees. Protect your future business using the strategies below:

Set Realistic Goals

The key to success in any business is setting realistic goals. It's essential not just when you first start but every year after that. If no changes or improvements are made over time, fans will notice and leave your brand altogether. Before launching your franchise, spend time thinking about what would make it challenging, from marketing strategies to financial decisions like where should your headquarters should be located.

Research Your Competitors

Competitive positioning is a crucial part of the franchise offering process. You need to make sure your Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) and franchise are compared with other companies' offerings. Hence, you know what it takes for success, like an initial fee or royalty rate that can affect profits and popularity among potential buyers before they invest their hard-earned money into any business venture!

Develop Your Franchise Offering for Both Individual and Multi-Unit Sales

You gain a lot when you sell multiple franchise units to one franchisee. This is because many franchisees want the rights to expand their business in several territories. Your FDD must allow selling a single franchise unit to one franchisee. This occurs when the franchisee wants to open their business in one location. The franchisee is needed to sign just one franchise agreement.

You offer the franchisee a development agreement when you want to acquire rights to operate in multiple locations. Also, they receive a schedule that offers them a particular time frame to open in other territories. Under franchising laws, this is referred to as a ‘dual structure.’

Make Sure Your FDD Is Compliant for Every State

As a franchisor, it could be frustrating when you cannot sell franchises within the target time frame because of delays. You want to ensure that your FDD is multi-state compliant from the word go. The FDD must be set for filing and registration in all states.

To achieve the multi-state status, you must engage your franchise law attorney to help prepare your FDD on a multi-state basis. Your FDD must include the required modifications and addendums to render it compliant with the state's laws in which you are selling the franchise. If you fail to comply with this multi-state requirement, you risk potential blockages and compliance violations to your future franchise sales.

Learn Franchising and Get Involved in the Franchise Community

You want to invest this time in learning more about franchising. Attend various franchising events to gain extra insight into the franchising process. Also, involve your attorney when receiving calls and attending meetings so that they can help you learn more about franchising. Not only will you learn about franchising but also engage franchise organizations, masterminds, suppliers, networking events, and other professionals that could offer value to your franchise. Another tip to consider is speaking to other franchisors to be ahead and make informed decisions.

Develop Your Franchise Sales Marketing Plan

When selling your franchise, many moving commodities are involved. At that point, you are building a channel for subsequent franchise sales. Therefore you must develop a marketing plan before selling your franchises.

Below are questions you should find answers to when developing your first franchise:

• What characteristics and qualities should the ideal franchisee entail?
• What is my franchise vision for the next 6 to 12 months?
• What renders my franchise more unique than other competitors?

Position Your Franchise Brand and Build a Franchise Brand Story

Before investing your cash in marketing your business, you want to avoid certain mistakes. Do not begin marketing your franchise through joining broker organizations, franchise sales web portals, or buying pay-per-click ads before developing, knowing deeply, and communicating your brand story. Also, you must understand the value you will offer franchisees.

If you follow a proper marketing strategy, you attract good franchisees. After knowing the value you offer franchisees, you could evaluate potential marketing mediums, including:

• Franchise broker organizations.
• Organic Web Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
• Paid Web Ads, like Pay-Per-Click.
• Organic social media paid social media ads.

To ensure the strategies mentioned above are feasible, you want to consult with an attorney who has many years of experience solving franchise issues. The ideal franchising lawyer should understand your brandy story and help with insights and strategies they have learnt over time when helping other franchisors.