There are thousands of franchises available across the world but what characteristics need to be in place before a company embarks on franchising? More importantly, what sets apart the average from the great?

We believe there are 5 ‘Success Keys’ that must be in place if a business is going to transform into a successful franchise. As always you need to put your feet in the shoes of a potential franchisee looking to invest their hard-earned money into the franchise…

1. They must have a profitable business – many business owners embark on franchising as a way out of trouble. As a result any planned franchise inevitably fails. Having a good profitable business has to be the most important factor before franchising is even considered. Why would you want to invest in a business that is failing? Well the answer is you wouldn’t - so why would a franchisee?

2. Unique – having some element of uniqueness differentiates the business from competitors and is an important ingredient to the sales and profits of franchisees. Nothing is truly “unique” but the way you do business or the way you treat customers must stand your enterprise out from the crowd. Another “me too” business will look like that to both prospective franchisees and ultimately their clients as well. What is it that makes your customers use you – time and time again?

3. They must have proven sales and marketing strategies in place – even the best product or service in the world won’t sell unless a raft of proven sales and marketing strategies are in place. If a company depends on “word of mouth” built up over twenty years, then it needs to develop strategies that franchisees can use for a business that is starting from scratch.

This is probably the most important element in creating a successful franchise – too many franchisors think that a simple advert in the local press makes a marketing strategy. It might be an element but there needs to a be a whole plethora of proven methods that have brought customers in to your business.

Not every strategy will work in every location in the same way and you need to have different processes that the franchisee can sue to develop his client base.

4. Systematic – in essence a franchise is a ‘proven business system’. It therefore stands to reason that the business must have a systematic approach to running the business. It dies not have to be totally documented but there must be processes in place which someone new to the business will be able to follow successfully to build their own business.

5. Does the owner have the vision and drive to run a much bigger business? Is he comfortable with other people using his “name” to run their own company? Franchising is not for control freaks! Is the owner fully committed to the franchisees making money for themselves – a win win scenario?

If a business has each of these 5 attributes in place, then creating a successful franchise, although never easy, gives the franchise a huge edge over others who do not.