A Quick Peek into Franchise Life

Healthy, Happy Choices

With eating habits taking a turn for the better, now is a great

time to open a franchise that is fun, fruitful and fantastically

healthy. The Happy and Healthy Products company, based in Boca

Raton, Florida, distributes and sells smoothies, healthy snack

mixes and frozen dessert bars.

The company is also the originator of Fruitfull, which the folks

at Happy and Healthy describe as the most amazing, delicious,

frozen fruit bar in the world. As a home-based Happy and Healthy

franchisee you will primarily operate a wholesale business.

The company ships its products to a commercial cold-storage

facility in your area and you wholesale the products (which are

displayed in freezers and racks custom designed by Happy and

Healthy or in conventional retail models) to locations like

hospitals, colleges, health clubs, specialty food stores, snack

bars and cafeterias.

You can also sell Fruitfull direct to the public at fairs and

festivals held in your area. This retail selling is done by means

of a very festive, fruit-inspired freezer cart that is easily

transported to the event grounds. Most Happy and Healthy

franchisees experience the greatest success by combining both the

wholesale and retail aspects of the business. The company looks

for hard-working, ambitious decision makers to run its

franchisees and a love of fruity, healthy snack bars doesn t

hurt!

Happy and Healthy Products offers qualified franchisees four

franchise options.

Retail Only (a freezer, a watermelon-shaped cart and 1 pallet of

Fruitfull).
Standard Wholesale/Retail (10 custom Fruitfull freezers, 2

pallets of Fruitfull, a week of field training and 15 to 20

accounts).
Grand Wholesale/Retail (20 freezers, 2 pallets, 2 weeks of field

training and 30 to 40 accounts).
Super Grand Wholesale/Retail (30 custom freezers, 3 pallets of

Fruitfull, 2 weeks of field marketing and training and at least

30 to 40 accounts).
While this business centers around selling, sales experience is

not a must. All of the franchise options include at least a week

with a highly trained Happy and Healthy Products marketing

consultant who will help initiate contacts at your wholesale

locations.

Although you could conceivably jump into a Happy and Healthy

Products franchise full time, the company highly recommends

starting out part-time and building your business as you are able

to gather more wholesale contacts. Start-up fees range from

$23,217 (Retail Only) to $54,843 (Super Grand Wholesale/Retail).

Happy and Healthy Products does not charge its franchisees

royalties although there is a $300 a year advertising fee. The

company currently has franchises in 39 states and Puerto Rico.

Happy & Healthy Products is also a member of the Veterans

Transition Franchise Initiative (VetFran), a program designed to

aid veterans as they establish themselves in the small-business

sector. Happy and Healthy Products franchises are available in

all but 10 states.

Another Restaurant to Rave About

Healthy, hearty, quick and casual. That s what diners want these

days and that s what Raving Brands is delivering once again!

Martin Sprock and his Raving Brands trademark restaurants, which

include Moe s Southwest Grill, Mama Fu s Noodle House, Planet

Smoothie and PJ s Coffee, have developed a new link in their

chain of franchises. Doc Green s Gourmet Salads will serve up

fresh, healthy, made-to-order salads, soups, meat and three

meals (meat, chicken or fish with three vegetable

accompaniments), panini sandwiches, casseroles and other bistro

fare. With the growing number of people following low-carb diet

plans like Atkins and South Beach, Doc Green s will offer

customers light, low-carb, low-fat and low-cal dressings and

toppings for their meals.
If you re interested in a Doc Green s franchise (or Moe s, Mama

Fu s , PJ s or Planet Smoothie for that matter) don t be

surprised if your restaurant shares a wall or two with one of the

other Raving Brands franchises. In this business, it’s all about

real estate, said Sprock in a press release. Doc Green’s will

average 2,500-3,000 square feet, but we have the ability to take

something two to three times that space and fit multiple, but

independent concepts. We have such great franchise demand for the

portfolio that we may have two or three different franchisees

carving up one space for a Moe’s, Mama Fu’s and Doc Green’s

because the real estate is so premium. That’s a great place to

be. The first Doc Green s restaurants will be open later this

year. Keep your eyes out for franchising information to be

released soon.

Tax Services Franchises Enjoy Unprecedented Success And Expansion
Who likes income taxes? Tax preparation services, that’s who! Entrepreneurs who have successfully used the franchising business model to spread their brand across the globe are enjoying unprecedented success and expansion in 2006.

Learning Centers And Educational Franchises Cater To Increasing Demand
The quest for knowledge. That, and an increasingly competitive world, coupled with parent demand, is driving the tutoring and learning center industry. It’s another growing opportunity in franchising. The Education Industry Association projected growth of 15 percent in this sector last year. Higher expectations, low test scores, and mounting competition for admission to top-tier universities are boosting student enrollment at tutoring and learning centers across the country. Facilities like Sylvan, Huntington, and Kumon are witnessing this exploding growth firsthand.

The Franchise Alternative by Elena Fawkner

ANY new business involves risk. The proportion of new
businesses that fail within their first two years of
operation is much higher than those that succeed. Whether
you can afford the risk of your business failing depends
on your own individual circumstances. If you are continuing
in full-time paid employment and your business is something
you start in your spare time for a little extra cash to see
how it goes before quitting your job, then you are more
likely to be able to afford the risk of that business
ultimately not succeeding.

But what if you’ve lost your job, taken a package, and are
looking for a business in which to invest the proceeds of your
package? All of a sudden the risk of your new business failing
looms very large indeed.

One way of reducing that risk is to consider buying a
franchised business.

WHAT IS A FRANCHISE?

Simply put, franchising involves the owner of the business
which is being franchised (”the franchisor”) granting to the
person who wants to offer the products and services of the
franchisor (”the franchisee”) rights to use its trademarks,
business names, associated intellectual property, know-how,
business systems, training systems and operating manuals in
exchange for monetary payment in the form of an initial
franchise fee/purchase price and/or ongoing royalty payments
which are typically calculated as a percentage of the
franchisee’s turnover.

ADVANTAGES OF A FRANCHISE

-> Proven system

The franchisor has already done the work of establishing a
system for the business being offered for franchise. This
system provides you, the franchisee, with a roadmap to
follow, hopefully to success. The franchisor has already
tested and refined all aspects of the business and has
created a “business success formula” for the franchisee to
follow. This means that you are spared the trial and error
of working out what works and what doesn’t and are therefore
freed to focus on “working the system”, hopefully generating
profits within a short period of time.

-> Avoid many start-up problems

Starting a business from the ground up requires a lot of
time and effort just getting the basics in place. These
include major undertakings such as developing a reputation
in the market place, obtaining finance to fund the new
venture and overcoming competitive threats, as well as the
more mundane such as what business licenses to obtain and
what insurance cover to purchase. The franchisor will have
already done a lot of this work. For example, the
franchisor will already have developed a reputation for the
business in the market place, will have identified competitive
threats and opportunities, incorporating ways of meeting them
within the franchise system and will usually have already
established relationships with service providers such as
financiers.

-> Existing name and reputation

As stated above, you do not need to invest significant time
and effort into getting your business known in the
marketplace as the franchisor will already have done this
for the benefit of the group as a whole.

-> Support when needed

You are not on your own when things go wrong. Got a
business problem? Contact your franchisor for assistance.
The franchisor will have employed many different specialists
within its organization who are there just to assist
franchisees successfully operate their businesses. In my
14 years of experience in franchising, the most successful
franchisees were those who were not afraid to ask for help
when needed. The most unsuccessful were those who thought
they knew it all or, for whatever reason, refused to ask for
help when they needed it.

-> Group buying power

Depending on the size of the franchise network, the group
should benefit from being able to negotiate favorable buying
prices because of their ability to generate volume sales for
the supplier.

-> Group advertising

By contributing advertising fees into a group fund,
individual franchisees are able to benefit from much greater
advertising exposure than they could afford if each
franchisee had to market their business on an individual
basis.

-> Greater knowledge base

The franchisor is likely to have invested in market
research for the benefit of the group as a whole. This
means the group has a much greater knowledge of their
market(s) than does the local “independent” competitor.
The results of this market research can be put to good use
in the group’s advertising and marketing programs.

DISADVANTAGES OF A FRANCHISE

-> Restrictions on autonomy

Because you’re buying the rights to participate in a proven
“system”, the franchisor will be concerned that all
franchisees adhere to the system and not operate outside it.
After all, if franchisees are free to adhere to the system or
not as they see fit, there is no point in buying into a
franchise at all. For this reason, for the benefit of the
system as a whole, franchisors will generally impose strict
controls on things such as the quality and types of products
and services that you may offer for sale, the types of local
advertising you may undertake, methods of dealing with
customers, ethical conduct and the like.

Although I’ve categorized this factor as a “negative”, it can
equally be viewed as a positive. As a franchisee, you want
to know that your franchisor is not going to allow its

franchisees
to damage the reputation of the system in which you’ve invested
your hard-earned dollars.

-> Pay initial franchise fee and purchase price

There may be an initial investment ranging from a few hundred
to tens of thousands of dollars to buy into a franchise.

-> Pay ongoing royalties

In addition to the initial franchise fee and purchase price,
most franchisors will also charge an ongoing royalty for the
rights to use the franchised system. These royalties are
usually calculated as a percentage of turnover but various
other fee structures exist.

-> Restrictions on ability to sell business

Some franchise agreements can restrict quite severely your
rights to sell your business to another franchisee. They may
impose strict criteria for proposed purchasers and you may
find it difficult to find buyers who meet this criteria.

-> May not be able to realize value for business on
termination

Some franchise agreements state that upon the expiration or
termination of the franchise agreement, the goodwill of the
business reverts to the franchisor. This means you may have
operated and developed a business over many years and yet,
when the franchise agreement expires, you effectively walk
away from the business with no further financial compensation.

Under this type of arrangement you must understand going in
that you are expected to derive your financial return during
the term of the franchise agreement by way of annual profits,
not by way of a capital gain at the end of the franchise term.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A FRANCHISE

-> An established franchise system with a good reputation.

-> Comprehensive training systems for both your own
management team and other employees.

-> A relatively harmonious relationship between franchisor
and franchisees. Some friction from time to time is
inevitable in any long-term business relationship but a
constant atmosphere of hostility, mistrust and long-running
disputes can be a warning sign of an unstable system.

On the other hand, if you’re looking at a franchise system of any
significant size, a completely harmonious relationship between
franchisor and franchisee can be a signal that the management
of the franchisor is weak. Although a weak management team
on the franchisor side may translate into short-term personal
benefits for franchisees, in the long-term it undermines the
stability and foundation of the franchise system itself and,
ultimately, the value of your investment.

-> Ethical business practices both by franchisor and
existing franchisees.

-> An inclusive “partnership” approach on the part of both
franchisor and franchisees. This does not mean that the
franchisor should not impose controls on the system but you
should look for a spirit of goodwill and cooperation,
willingness to listen to others’ ideas and a climate of open
communication at all levels throughout the organization.

-> Exclusive territories - although not crucial, exclusivity
of territory (where the franchisor grants you a limited but
exclusive territory which is yours alone) can in some cases
be a relevant factor to the competitiveness of the business.
It would be fair to say that it does not benefit the franchise
system if franchisees are forced to compete with each other
for limited business.

These are just a few of the major factors you should take
into consideration when deciding whether a franchise is
for you. Although franchising minimizes the risks of
business failure, it cannot not eliminate them entirely and
any decision to proceed with a franchised business should
only be made after a thorough reading of the franchise
agreement and accompanying disclosure documentation and
obtaining the professional advice of both your lawyer and your
accountant.

About the Author
Elena Fawkner is editor of A Home-Based Business Online …
practical home business ideas for the work-from-home
entrepreneur.
http://www.ahbbo.com