June 13, 2008
Business Plans for Franchise Business Opportunities
Having a business plan is of utmost importance especially if you are deciding upon a first-time franchise opportunity or even if you are an experienced franchisee owner. It is the first step towards embarking on a new business and as you progress and grow you will see how important it was to have had one in place. It is also a requirement in order to get capital to fund your new enterprise. Therefore, a business plan is essential for acquiring money to get started and to chart your growth as well.
One of the advantages of purchasing a franchise is that you’re not alone. You can often get assistance from your franchiser to help with the business plan. After all, your franchiser has a vested interest in seeing your business thrive. Besides, there are certain aspects of the business plan that the franchiser alone has the answers too. But if the franchiser doesn’t have the time to help with the other aspects of the plan, or if you want to amend your business plan after getting the franchiser’s guidance, you need to ensure that you do it properly.
Prioritizing is so much easier with a business plan. It guides you in achieving what is important instead of focusing on what is not. Over time you will notice how a conventional business plan is different from the information that is given to you by the franchiser. New franchises are unique and because of this the franchiser may offer to be there to support you with the other aspects of the plan.
There are a number of features consistent with a franchise business plan:
The abstract is the introduction of your business plan, is shorter than an executive summary and provides key concepts of the business plan. The summary is a description of the company and related details about the business comes next. Overview of the franchise is at this point, where you discuss the franchise. This part of the business plan is put in place of the traditional “industry analysis” section of a conventional business plan.
The market and the competitive forces you will be up against including rival franchises or businesses are also discussed in the following section. The marketing plan — how you intend to attract customers (how you will advertise and market the business) is described here as well.
All businesses need employees to run an organization and, therefore, the busines plan for the franchise has also a management and human resources section. In this section, the different staff and management positions are discussed as well as the qualification of the people required for these positions. The organizational structure is also discussed.
The financial section is where you need to be clear about financial projections and objectives just as you would with a conventional plan.
The last section usually consists of exhibits or documents which support the projections, statistics or whatever information you provided in the business plan. They are generally at the end of the business plan as part of the whole document or in a separate binder.
Filed under Business and Marketing by Franco Andretti