Adler Stone

April 18, 2019

Why You Want To Use A Franchise Broker

Why You Want To Use A Franchise Broker | What Is A Broker?

We have talked about this on our social media accounts but we want to explain it here as well. A Franchise broker is like a middle man. We help potential franchisees find a franchise that is going to be the best fit for them. We use a lot of methods to help us with that and we do it out of the potential franchisees best interest. We are paid by the franchisor once the deal has been signed, out of their marketing budget. But we are not associated with any one franchise. So you know you are going to get an honest opinion from us, both as a potential franchisee and as a franchisor. So, let’s talk about why you want to use a franchise broker from both perspectives.

Why You Want To Use A Franchise Broker | As A Potential Franchisee

As a potential franchisee, you have no idea what you are getting into. There are so many options out there when it comes to franchises, you can easily get lost in all of the concepts. As a broker, we are here to help you navigate all of that. We will first evaluate your business style so we can determine which businesses are a good fit for you. If you want to, you can do that here. We will then walk you down the path of buying a franchise. You can read about the 8 Steps to Buying a Franchise here. Like we said above, we are in this to make sure you end up in the right business for you. And you don’t pay us at all. The franchisor pays us out of their marketing budget once the deal is done.

Why You Want To Use A Franchise Broker | As A Franchisor

If you are a newly franchised company, you may not be using franchise brokers. You think you can get all of your potential leads on your own, and maybe you can. But what if you could pay someone a few to bring you qualified leads. These leads already know what their funding options are and they are more than likely to make it to the finish line because they have someone to guide them through the process. Trust us, you want to talk to us about using franchise brokers to help grow your business!

April 11, 2019

Step 4. Prepare Yourself

Step 4: Prepare Yourself

Preparation is key. During this step you will be armed with valuable information and essential tools. As Franchise Brokers, we spend all day, every day looking at and assessing franchises. We have developed numerous systems to prepare you. We will be walking you down the path of what questions you need to ask the franchisors, the franchisees in those systems, and your finance people. We want to make sure you are ready to start talking about to the Franchisors.

The Rest of the Steps

April 4, 2019

The Reality of Buying A Franchise

The Reality of Buying A Franchise | The Good

There are a lot of really good things about buying a franchise. You are starting a business but you are not alone. We like to say you are going into business for yourself but not by yourself. You have the support of the franchise system you are buying into. So you are going to have some more freedom when it comes to deciding what your working hours look like and you are your own boss.

In some instances, you can have an impact on the development of the franchise system you are buying into. If you end up buying into an emerging company, you can have an impact on how they do business, the systems they use and other areas of the business. All of that without the risk of starting your company with no support.

When you use a Franchise Broker, you will get all of the information you are looking for in order to buy the right franchise. You will be able to vet other franchisees and you will be able to get actual numbers for how well they are doing and how much they have invested into their franchise.

The Reality of Buying A Franchise | The Not So Good

There is a possibility that you go through the process of looking at a franchise and you are then rejected by the franchise company. They have the right to award a franchise at the end of the process. They may decide that you are not the right fit for their company and not award you the franchise. This is one of many reasons why you should use a franchise broker (we will talk more in detail about this in a few weeks!).

There can be a lot of money that is required to be invested into a new franchise. You may need to get a loan or borrow money elsewhere. A lot of people see this as a bad thing but we don’t!

The Reality of Buying A Franchise | The Light At the End of the Tunnel

We may have made you a little nervous about buying a franchise now. But we want you to know what you are getting into. There are no guarantees when it comes to this. However, you can make your life a lot easier by making sure you sure you use a Franchise Broker to help you through the process. Not only will we hold your hand and guide you through the entire process, we will also make sure that you are working with the right people and you are going in the right direction!

March 28, 2019

Step 3. Compare Your Options

Compare Your Results

Now that we know what industry best suits you and what industry you are interested in, we need to compare them to one another. We help you by finding franchises that fit into that industry and presenting them to you. You can then narrow down your options based on the concepts you like best.Through this process we look at each of the concept’s growth, track record, retention, competition, costs, etc. At the end of this step you will have a clear picture of which concepts are the movers and shakers and those which ﬁt you and your personal goals. Once we have figured out which ones you like best, we will move on to step four!

The Rest of the Steps

March 21, 2019

3 Ways to Finance a Franchise

We talked last week about acquiring funding to purchase your franchise. There are several ways for you to finance the purchase of a franchise and today we want to go a little more into detail about what those options are. Keep in mind, your options will depend on your credit score, your net worth and a few other things. These are just options that are available.

SBA Programs

The U.S. Small Business Association helps Americans start, build and grow businesses. One of the things they do is offer an array of financing for small businesses. This ranges from micro lending to substantial debt and equity investment capital.

You can find a lender that offers loans for your business through SBA and the loan will be guaranteed by SBA. This allows you to get competitive terms, you can get additional support and advice from SBA and many of the loans come with unique benefits. Having SBA involved in the loan will reduce the risk for the lender and gives you the buyer easier access to capital.

SBA can help you find an investor through a Small Business Investment Company (SBIC), which are licensed by SBA. These are private investors that participate as limited partners and invest funds into your business.

Business Loan

To be more specific, a Revolving Unsecured line of business credit. An unsecured business line of credit is a debt financing option that offers a revolving credit limit but doesn’t require you to offer up collateral to secure that revolving credit limit. The key here is that you don’t have to offer up collateral. When you are opening a new business, you don’t have collateral related to the business that you can offer up. Because unsecured lines of credit won’t require collateral, they will typically come with higher rates, shorter repayment terms, and lower credit limits.

IRA/401K No Penalty Business Investment

This is the most exciting funding option, in our opinion. Many people have an IRA or a 401K from a current or previous job. There is quite a bit of money sitting in those accounts that you can’t pull out without a penalty but you can invest into securities without penalty. Many people don’t realize that a franchise is a type of security! That means you can allocate funds from your 401K or IRA towards the purchase of a franchise and you won’t get hit with a penalty or taxes that you would if you just pulled the money directly out of one of those accounts.

Next Steps

So what is next? You know what your options are and now you want to move forward and find the right franchise for you. Let’s set up a call so we can talk about what your options are! Fill out the form below and we will get started.

March 14, 2019

Step 2. Acquire Funding

Acquire Funding

When you are looking into buying a franchise, you need to be able to fund the purchase. There are a lot of ways to fund the purchase of a franchise, not just having cash in the bank. You usually won’t have enough cash in the bank to purchase the franchise anyway. So you need to figure out which of the many other ways you are going to fund this new venture. We don’t want to overextend you and our goal is for you to be successful for the entire life of your business. We will help you get the answers to the following questions:

What do you qualify for?
What is in your price range?
What is going to keep you comfortable in the start-up phase?
What assets can you leverage to help fund your purchase?

Once we have figured out how to fund your new venture, we can get moving on step three, comparing your options.

The Rest of the Steps

March 7, 2019

9 Apps for Running Your Business From Your Phone

9 Apps for Running Your Business From Your Phone | Business On the Go

If you are a small business owner, influencer or even someone who just works on the go, you know that your phone is a powerful tool that can help you get things done. Between running several small businesses and having a micro influencer on our team, who know which apps are going to help you the most when you are working from your phone.

9 Apps for Running Your Business From Your Phone | Buffer

Buffer is a powerful tool that is going to help you get your social media posts scheduled out ahead of time so you can focus on the daily tasks your business requires. We would strongly suggest spending the $15 a month for the Pro plan. This will allow you to link 8 social media accounts from Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and have 100 scheduled posts for each social media account. There is both a desktop version and a mobile version so you can put content in from your phone and then decide on when each post can go up.

You get to decide your posting schedule and all of the posts go automatically to your social media accounts. No reminder notifications where you have to manually publish the post yourself. Everything is taken care of for you so after you have scheduled your post, all you have to do is watch it work. You also get analytics for each post so you know how your posts are doing.

Emily has done an entire blog post about using Buffer. You can read that here.

9 Apps for Running Your Business From Your Phone | Smartsheet

Smartsheet is a work execution platform that Dan discovered a few years ago that we don’t know how we lived without it! We have done some additional education classes for this software but it truly is user friendly. You can use it to track tasks, set up a work flow, track purchases and just about anything else you can think of. It is really an Excel spreadsheet on steroids. You can add attachments, make comments and send reminders.

You also have the ability to create and send a form for a specific sheet. So if you want people to put their hours in for a project and the aren’t on your Smartsheet subscription, you can send them the link to the form and they can put in whatever data you are looking for! We use it for all sorts of things including tracking expenses, tracking contractor hours, work flows for projects and task management. The best part is that the app is AMAZING! You can do pretty much everything on the app that you can do on the desktop version.

9 Apps for Running Your Business From Your Phone | Gmail

We feel like this one is a little obvious but we still think it is worth discussing. Most email accounts can be run through Gmail nowadays. You can manage your email on the go without having to log into the server every time you need to get on. It is easy to use and allows you to toggle between multiple accounts.

9 Apps for Running Your Business From Your Phone | Google Calendar

We like Google, have you noticed? The Google Calendar app is awesome because you can easily view events on shared calendars. The Adler Stone team shares their calendars so we can all see everyone’s availability and what is going on.

9 Apps for Running Your Business From Your Phone | Google Hangouts

Do you use Google Hangouts? You should. There are three reasons why you need this app on your phone. 1) Chat windows. You can chat with anyone one your team and it is searchable within your Gmail! This means you can have a conversation about work and then go back to it later if you need to reference something. This is also really helpful for sharing links.

2) Video chat! And not just any video chat. You can chat with multiple people in one location without even having to leave your chat window. You can do this easily from the phone app and you don’t need to worry about wifi connections or if you are in a good spot with your laptop.

3) Screen Sharing! This is one of our favorites parts about the Hangouts app. You can share your screen so other people can see your presentation without having to pull up a separate email or awkwardly listening to you talk without having any idea what you are talking about.

9 Apps for Running Your Business From Your Phone | Google Drive

If you are using the G Suite, you need Google Drive. It is an easy place to store all of the stuff you need to run your business, including images, files, videos and more. You can organize your drive so it looks just the way you want it and you can share files with other people on your team. This is how we get stuff done on the go and share it with one another without having to send a bulky email or worry about where the files are.

9 Apps for Running Your Business From Your Phone | Tasks

Everyone needs to have a place to write down a task when they are on the go. Tasks (another G Suite app) allows you to put tasks into your phone without it being complicated. You can also add sub tasks and dates for when you want the tasks to be complete.

9 Apps for Running Your Business From Your Phone | LinkedIn

If you are running a small business, you NEED to have LinkedIn on your phone. That is how you grow your network and even your customer base. One of our favorite things about the LinkedIn app is their messenger. You can easily message people back and forth without having to leave the app (we are looking at you Facebook). It is just as good as texting to be honest.

9 Apps for Running Your Business From Your Phone | Canva