Purchasing a franchise business Purchasing a franchise business may be a good option to consider if you want to have your own business, but are not sure how to go about doing it. Purchasing and running a franchise is just like owning your own business, but it provides you with excellent tools, resources, and other advantages that do not come with starting a company from the ground up. A franchise is basically a license to use an existing company's name, trademarks, products, services, and other resources in return for agreeing to use that company's existing business formats and provide a percentage of your franchise's income and earnings. For the parent company, or franchisor, selling privileges to a corporation provides a way to expand the market share quicker, and less expensively. The most appealing aspect of purchasing a franchise business is usually the fact that most of the pre-opening work is done for you. When you purchase a business format franchise, you gain the privilege of not only being able to sell the parent company's products or services, but also the right to use their established practices. These procedures may include training programs, marketing strategies, trade secrets, accounting systems, etc. As opposed to starting your own enterprise from scratch, franchising allows you to take advantage of the parent company's already established reputation and recognizable assets. The main advantage of this is that you will be able to more easily be able to attract customers from the start, which is one of the biggest obstacles faced when starting a company from the ground up. For example, buying a McDonald's restaurant will no doubt provide you with a much larger instant customer base than you would have if you were to open an independent hamburger restaurant. In addition, most of the financial aspects of running a venture will be more clear-cut. The franchisor will be able to provide you with details of both start-up costs and operational costs, taking most of the guess work out of running a corporation. As with any business venture, there will be risks in opening a business. However, having a proven and reliable franchise system helps to minimize these risks. Good franchisors will be able to provide you with proven systems that are easily replicated in order to provide consistent results. Purchasing a franchise business should be thought of as entering into a partnership. As long as you can be a good business partner to you franchisor, your franchisor should do everything possible to ensure that you have a successful, profitable venture. This kind of support is what makes running a franchise business so advantageous to aspiring entrepreneurs.