Are UK franchises for sale a source of great new business ideas?
I have worked within franchising for around 12 years and have helped many franchisor recruit new franchisee’s. Franchising covers a huge cross section of businesses, from fast food to pet care, plumbing to estate agency and franchise opportunities can also be a great source to find new business ideas.
Why? Well simply because many new startups that are experiencing rapid growth cannot fund this rapid period of expansion and seek other ways to help them finance the expansion, many times including franchising.
This the business opportunity seeker a great way to “buy into” a new and rapidly growing sector, great right? Well not always.
Setting up any business is a risk, investing into an existing business whether it is a franchise or not is also a risk and you need to carry out thorough due diligence. What you also need to consider is that as a new business concept that has franchised due to lack of funding for organic growth could be an amazing opportunity but also many of this type of business lack the longevity of other businesses for sale and franchises and therefore although their is a potential higher return on investment these investments usually carry a higher risk as well.
To summarise you need to think very carefully when considering investments in UK franchises for sale;
- Take professional advice, legal and financial
- Thorough investigate the business and the business owners
- Carry out market research and a SWOT analysis including a through review of the opportunities competitors and if there are not any, then why and has anyone else failed previously?
- Finally remember when investing in a business it’s buyer beware, you need to be 100% sure before you invest