The Power of Drawing!

Now here is something interesting..










If you are interested in working with children and help them develop their potential, what better way than to start your own Young Rembrandts!!

Young Rembrandts is a home-based franchise that provides affordable art education for families. Named ‘Best in Category’ and #2 overall in Children’s Enrichment Programs by Entrepreneur Magazine, Young Rembrandts is more than the original, most recognized, and most respected art enrichment program in the United States; it is an art education methodology focused on fostering children's overall brain development.

By participating in each week's new and engaging lessons in elementary schools, pre-schools, day-cares, park districts and other host locations; Young Rembrandts students are not only developing drawing skills and mastering artistic concepts – studies also show that they are developing classroom and social skills critical to both academic and life-long success.

A Young Rembrandts franchise provides many opportunities in one neat package – an affordable, family-friendly, true home-based business; a profitable and secure investment; the ability to make a difference in the lives of children, education, and to a community; AND the chance to make a positive and significant change in your own life.












More information is available from Stacy Miller (stacy@sg-franchiseresources). Don't wait contact Stacy now!! For a list of franchises for sale, click here.

Business Development from the Franchise Perspective #3

You have got your company all up and running. You have been churning profits healthily. You have made some research and plan for your business expansion with your suppliers backing you. You have log on to the net and see the possibilities and the facts about franchising and how it can drive your business into the next millennium. You decide that its time for you to pick up the phone and call that "Franchise Consultant" that have been bugging you and share your plans.

Now hold our horses cowboy. Now getting a consultant to execute the job is fine. What you would want to know is, will "he" (some "consultants" is a one-man-show operation) do a good job.

Here are the list of things that you need to find out about your consultant / consulting firm.

#1. Office. Does your consultant have an office space. Visit your consultant in his office and see if its a genuine setup. Meet up with the team (if any). Get to know them and learn what they do and will they be a team member in your project.

#2. Your Consultant. Get to know your consultant. What are his / her experiences. Often, you should be able to get a brief idea of his or her knowledge through your discussions / conversations. Is he certified? Is he part of any government association or agencies? This may be trivial at first, but a certified and credible consultant will go along way to give you good service.

#3. Consulting firm. Check the background of the consulting firm. How long have they been in business? Locally and / or internationally. What is the their unique identifier or what makes them different from the other consulting firm. What kind of services have they got to offer? Are they providing an end-to-end service or are they outsourcing some of the processes to another company? Get to know what are their past projects. Although it is not possible to get your hands on their past clients completed documents, they can definitely show you a sample.

#4. Franchise Process. Get to know in detail what are the processes that will be involved in Franchising your business. What are the specific steps and the deliverables from you and most importantly from the consulting firm. Find out how long will the consulting firm take to get the job done. do they have a proven franchise system?

#5. Price. Ofcourse... "When you pay peanuts you get monkeys" Being expensive does not determine that the consulting firm will do a good job. But a rock bottom out of of the ordinary price smell fishy as well. Get a quote from the consulting firm after you have a through discussion. From there, make sure that the price is firm. Ask them what will be the coverage and ask them to put it in writing. Sometimes, the price is low due to some process being skipped and when you want to include it, a snowballing cost is incurred and at the end of the day, you are paying alot more.

Which ever consultant that you go to, I do believe these few points apply. Having said that, you have to be comfortable enough and should trust you consultant. A business expansion project is essentially a huge project and may take months to complete and all of the time, an expensive project.

Identify contact persons (yours and the consulting firm), this should enable smooth communication and exchange of information. Communicate to have a checkpoint meeting often to identify issues and road blocks before they get out of hand. Communicate clearly your expectations and objectives and have your end result in mind.

Do not make assumptions and leave it to the consulting firm to explore and make the decisions. Decisions should come from you, the business owner as you very well know how the business should be run.

Next post, we will discuss about post implementation issues and activities.

1. Reporting
2. Relationship Building
3. Support to your Franchisees
4. "Selling" your franchise

Business Development from the Franchise Perspective #2

Dear Friends,

Previously, we talked about setting up a company where in the process of getting it up and running, a series of areas were focused on so as to keep in mind of the end result.

We talked about:

a. Automation
b. Branding and Trademarking
c. Equipment Inventory
d. Clean Accounts
e. Being a good pay master
f. Building relationships with your Supplier
g. Knowing your Business

By no means these are the only things you should be focusing on when you start up a company, but these are some of the main areas you should look into if you have a franchising strategy in mind.

So, you have done some background study, you have your company up and running. You have a beautiful outlet / office of which you spend some hard earned savings from your previous employment, or use money from a loan you had from a friend or a relative. Your company peaks and is at its maximum performance. you are happy and so is everybody. Then what's next?

Expansion you say! Franchise you say! OK, so what are the things you should know / think about prior to going into the market looking for a consultant?

1. Staffing. Do you have enough staffs to handle the franchise outlets? what will be the ratio of staff to franchise outlets? I came across recently of a doctor practising homeopathy who projected to open 1000 franchise outlets in a year with 3 staffs. that's 333 franchise outlets per staff!! You need to have a good ratio of staffs to franchise outlets to ensure good support as a franchisor. Training is also essential and will ensure service quality is met each and every time.

2. Supplies. Ensure that suppliers are aware of your expansion plan and is willing to expand their business with you at the same time maintaining the quality of their products. If its possible, have multiple suppliers to ensure a continuous supply if in case your primary supplier failed to deliver.

3. Feasibility. Do a study of your company's performance and know its strength and weakness. Ensure that the weakness are addressed and will not be a hindrance to your progress. This weakness can be your staffs resistance to change for example.

4. Profitability. Is your company making profit? Check you accounts and ensure you have a healthy profit at the end of every month. Remember, if you are not making profits, so will your franchisees. You will also need to take into account, the royalty your franchisees needs to pay and they themselves needs to make a net profit as well. It doesn't work if you profit and your franchisees don't, or your franchisees profits and you don't.

5. Strategy. Have a basic idea of what you want to have. Most of the time, your franchise consultants will be there to help you out, but you have to have some idea of what is best for you too. Example, number of franchise outlets a year, franchise fees and franchise type and internationalization.

6. Teachability. For a concept to be able to replicate for a a measure of success, you must be able to convey the underlying business system to someone else. If for some reason, a system is not replicable, then, franchising may not be suitable.

7. Adaptability. How will your product or services perform national and internationally. Is your business for the local market or can it be used internationally? You should know your business better than anyone else.

8. Marketing. After the franchise have been developed, what will be your strategy of attracting potential franchisees. Know in advance what are the type of franchisee profile you should be targeting.

9. Support. Have an idea on how your franchisees will be supported.

10. Franchise Consultant. This may prove to be the most important point in planning for a franchise. Choosing a Consulting firm is in fact the most crucial part of a franchising project. Although it is difficult to say how its going to be in the first meeting. What you can do however, is to visit them. Ensure that they have a physical office space and are operating as a franchise consulting firm. Meet the consultants that are going to help you with your franchise project. Ask them questions on how they can help you. Find out if your project or part of your project being outsourced to another company? Or do they have in-house staffs that contribute to your project. Do they have a system or a methodology for building successful franchises? Ask yourself do you want to work with a consultant or a consulting firm? Know what are the deliverables that the franchise consulting firm should provide.

On the surface, it may seem easy for one to consider franchising, but successful franchising requires collaborative efforts from a team of experts from a number of vertical disciplines with expertise in these areas.

a. Strategic Planning.
b. Legal.
c. Franchise Operations.
d. Marketing.
e. Franchise Sales.

In my next post, we will discuss in detail of item #10 above.What are the areas to consider when choosing a franchise consulting firm where they will be your partner in your company expansion plan. I will also try to explain as detail as i can on the process of franchising.

Stay tuned..

What Franchisors would like to Think...

Franchising is not easy way out to expand. It takes careful planning and execution. But most important thing of all potiential franchisors should not for-sake franchisees and hope that the end of the day royalty are collected.

A good franchisor will have to take into consideration all aspects of the business and ensure that franchisees are profitable too. If franchisees are not making profit, why should they want to stay.

I do believe the picture is self-explanatory.