Franchise Myths You Need to Ignore

When you look into owning your own franchise, you will hear many myths concerning the franchise industry. Today we will take a look at some of the more common myths and debunking them. This could be extremely beneficial to know before you invest all your hard earned money into a business franchise that is touted as a win-win situation but may turn out to be a stressful situation that could set you up for failure and a major loss of revenue. So, here are the top franchise myths you may be better off ignoring in your journey to owning your own business.

1. You can never lose as an owner of a franchise. You need to understand that failure can happen in any type of business venture, even franchises. The franchise model may be the best business model out there for most people, but nothing is perfect. You can have the perfect location and the best business plan and still fail. People make mistakes and what is trending now will not always be trending. It is better to say and realize that a franchise may be less likely to fail, but you can never totally eliminate the chance of failure.
2. The franchisor will provide you with everything. The franchisor will you with a lot of things you need to help your business succeed, such as the business model, support and guidance, their brand name and technology, just to name a few. However, there     are many things that only the franchisee can provide, such as motivation, determination, and the necessary skills needed in management, operations and human resources. The franchisor wants to see you succeed and will help you in any and every way possible, but there are some things you will have to bring to the table in order for you to see your business succeed.
3. Owning a franchise is easy. You need to remember if it were easy, everyone would be doing it. We know that not everyone owns a franchise, so it is obviously not that easy. This is mostly because franchises require an investment, and the return on this investment can be risky, as with any business venture. There are many ways that owning a franchise can lower your risk of failure, but as stated before, there is always that chance that you may not succeed. Owning a franchise, just like owning any other type of business, means you have to take full responsibility of everything. You will probably need to work long hours to ensure your business is operating at its peak potential. It can be stressful and frustrating at many times, but you have to get used to it and suck it up because it is going to take a lot of hard work to make any business successful and profitable.
4. Franchise agreements are non-negotiable. In order to own a franchise, you will have to sign a franchise agreement with the franchisor. This is a legally binding contract between you and the franchisor. Before you sign this, you should hire a franchise attorney to look over every single detail with you. Most people assume that you can not negotiate on a franchise agreement; however, there may be a small amount of wiggle room. The best thing to do is always ask because if you do not ask, you will never know. If you find yourself uncomfortable with some of the details in the contract, you can always have your franchise attorney talk with the franchisor and see if you can find a happy medium, but you should not expect to always get your way, there may be some things the franchisor will not bend.
5. Franchise loans are easier to get. This may have been true before the economic downturn, but now the banks are consistently looking for ways to say no to anyone that wants to obtain a small business loan for any type of start-up business, franchise or non-franchise. The banks may be slowly coming around; however, small business loan approvals still have plenty of room to grow. We can only hope that things will continue to get better on the loan front, but you should not rely on the myth that your loan will get approved faster or even get approved at all, just because you are buying a franchise. It is difficult for everyone out there right now. There are no exclusions, so do not have high hopes when applying for any type of loan.

These days owning any type of business can be risky. Your dream of owning your own business can be extremely difficult, but it can be worth all the hard work and headaches. All you need to do is research and plan ahead for any type of situation that may arise. I do not want you to give up on your dream of owning a business. I just want you to be prepared. To help you on your path to owning a successful franchise, you should always make sure that the franchise you choose is the right fit for your location, is well within your means and is a concept that you are passionate about and excites you. You want to love your work because you just may end up spending a lot of your time there.

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