starting your own business or franchise

I am looking to start my own computer franchising bussiness in the next 2 -3 years and I was wondering if anyone has had any experiences with openning there own bussiness or franchise that they would like to share or a little advice for me to look out for when starting my own business. I am really trying to gather as much information as possible first to find out what I need to do to be succesful

any help is appreciated !!

 

Go to your state website and see what grants / tax breaks you can get. There is a great deal of money out there for people starting their own business.

 

Take a marketing course and believe everything it says.

Figure out whether the market will support your business and do everything to distinguish your business from the competition.

Whenever someone asks my advice about buying a business, my first question is what the client is going to do differently than the old owner who's bailing out.

I also do the Ruhl's Cadillac test. If the people in the market drive rusty old pickups it is bad. If they all drive nice cars and have big homes, perhaps that is a market with potential. This is more easily done in a small town.

 

Make a sound business plan, you can get templats on line. It may seem like a waste of time, but it has been SOOO useful to me. Make sure to complete every section, even though it seems like a simple exercise. If you ever need a loan, it will be a good reference, in 6-9 months, look back and see if you are still meeting your objectives, if you need to hire others, it will be useful, for grants, it is useful, and just to get a good idea of what you have before you - it is a good idea all the way around.

Also, there is a big website out tehre, something like samplebusinessplans.com - and it gives templates by industry - very helpful.

 

I assume that by "franchising business" you mean that you want to sell franchises to other people.

If so, I would suggest that this is the wrong approach.

By far, the most important aspect of being able to successfully franchise a business is operating the business model successfully yourself. I would suggest focusing on this. (And, along those lines, Han's advice is fantastic.) Develop detailed policy and procedure manuals. Establish good relationships with vendors. If you are successful, then consider franchising it.