So, you’ve decided to start a franchise. What now? Once you have made that big leap, it is important to figure out if you and the company are a good fit.  Like any job interviewing process, you have to find out if the company fits your needs. More importantly for the approval process, you need to meet their guidelines to be a franchise owner.  Otherwise, it doesn’t matter how much you like the company – they are in the driver’s seat, and they have to decide if they think you are compatible with their philosophy.

When you approach a company to sign up for Franchising with them, you may think all you need is to have enough money and the desire to work with them.  However, having sufficient funds is not enough for the company.  The company will want to discern if you can be successful for them.  If you are serious about starting a franchise with them, you will have to deal with a lot of questions, discussions, and paperwork.

You should also think carefully about your own temperament.  If you are very creative and entrepreneurial, most franchises are not going to be a good fit for you. It is important to them that you follow their system. Their system has been successful, so they expect you to be willing to work with it rather than doing your own thing. You will have to sacrifice some control if you want to be approved for a franchise. They want to maintain consistency among their locations, and if you think about businesses which are franchised, any given location will follow the guidelines set up by the franchisor.  If you do not follow their guidelines closely, particularly in cases where the company has almost complete control, like many fast food restaurants, you will be in trouble.

What do franchisors want from a candidate?  Several things are important, including personality, funding, and skills and experience. 

Personality is something the franchisor will assess when they ask you questions and meet with you.  Franchisors do want you to be somewhat entrepreneurial, but you need to be able to follow their guidelines, to ensure their formula for success. They also care about your personality in general; they want to know that you are committed and confident about working with them.

Funding is probably the most obvious and significant part of the equation.  When signing up with a franchisor, you need to have your finances in order and be able to tell them what your net worth is and how much liquidity (assets you can convert into cash relatively quickly) you have. Borrowing money from a bank is more difficult than you might think, even if your credit is good. More importantly, it is considerably less appealing to a franchisor than having the cash yourself.

Finally, as with any job, your experience and skills matter.  Franchisors want to see that you have management experience and the ability to market your business. They also want to make sure that you can handle the schedule that running your own business entails, which is much more work than the 9 to 5 job that most of us are accustomed to.

Blair Cavagrotti is in Marketing at WorldFranchising.com, a website that provides franchise information to potential franchise buyers.