Ask Before You Buy: Fifteen Questions To Ask An Existing Franchisee

Before investing in any franchise opportunity, just as with any new business venture, thorough research is key. It’s vital to fully investigate the franchise brand's product or service, to explore the potential territory and location, to carry out an analysis of the local market, customer base and competition, and to look into the structure of the organisation and the training and support that they offer to their franchisees.

Part of that research should usually include a visit to a franchise location in operation wherever possible, and should include a conversation with at least one existing franchisee and ideally several. No online research will ever be able to offer the same level of insight into the franchise opportunity and what being part of the brand and network is really like as speaking to those who are actually living and breathing it.

When approaching franchisees in order to have these types of discussion, it's helpful to identify a good cross section of business owners - franchisees at different stages of their business journeys. It also makes sense to have conversations where possible with franchisees who have come to the business from a similar background or who are operating in a similar type of location to your propose venture, as their learned experiences will be incredibly valuable and informative.

As it is such an important part of the research process, before talking to an existing franchisee, take time to draw up a list of the questions you want to ask and topics you want to cover. Below are fifteen key questions you may want to include as part of the "interview" process:

1. What was your background (personal, educational, commercial) before you invested in the franchise?
2. When did you join the franchise and what stage of your business journey are you at?
3. Did you consider any other franchises before investing in this particular brand and if so, what factors influenced you to choose this one over the others?
4. What is your view of the franchise's product/service? What competitive advantages and disadvantages does it have?
5. What initial training and support did you receive? Was there anything that was missing/lacking from the initial training and onboarding experience?
6. What is the ongoing support like? How easy is it to get in touch with the franchisor and head office team if there is a problem, challenge or issue?
7. How easy or difficult have you found it to market the franchise locally? How does the franchisor assist and support with marketing?
8. How long was it before you saw a return on investment?
9. Were there any unexpected costs?
10. What have been your biggest challenges to date? How have you managed to overcome them? What help has the franchisor provided?
11. What does your working day/week look like?
12. What is being part of the franchise network like? Do you have much communication with other franchisees and does the franchisor encourage this?
13. Has the franchise met your needs and expectations, both financially and otherwise?
14. Is there anything that you would do differently so far in your business journey?
15. If you could start again, would you still buy this same franchise? Or a different one?

Every franchisee will come to the business and franchise opportunity with their own motivation and goals. The above list of questions is certainly not exhaustive and it is important to recognise that some franchisees may not always be comfortable answering questions about their business finances. But open conversations and the opportunity to chat to people who are already where you hope or want to be can provide a good insight into the brand, the team and what your own experience could turn out to be should you decide to go ahead and sign on the dotted line as a brand new franchise business owner.