The Heart of a Successful Franchising Program

According to Andrew Sherman, "The concept of a system or prescribed business format that is operated according to a uniform and consistent trade identity and image is at the heart of a successful franchising program. Therefore, a prospective franchiser must be able to reduce all aspects of running the business to be franchised into an operations-and-training manual for use by franchisees in the day-to-day operation of their business. If a company offers services that are highly personalized or a product that is difficult to reproduce, then franchising may not be the most viable alternative for growth because of the difficulty in replicating these systems or products in the operator's manual or in the training program. Similarly, if all the 'kinks' in the system have not yet been worked out, it is probably premature to consider franchising."