From established business to franchise: testing without the founder

A successful owner-run business is not necessarily a franchise model that others can replicate. Customers may come mainly for you, you may deal with exceptions every day, or your own working hours may be missing from the cost calculations. Before building a franchise network, you need to know whether another entrepreneur can deliver the same promise to customers. A trial period in which your branch operates without your day-to-day involvement will reveal any gaps in the knowledge, support and resources needed.

1. Design a trial that reveals dependence on you

Use your existing branch as the test site, but deliberately change your role. Put a manager in charge of day-to-day operations, while you provide support only at agreed times. Choose someone with sufficient expertise, but who has not spent years learning all your unwritten habits. Otherwise, you are mainly testing a trusted employee’s memory.

Decide in advance what you want to demonstrate. This might include consistent product quality, accurate quotations, timely service and workable staff schedules. Also agree when intervention is necessary, for example where there are safety risks or serious complaints. Staying out of the operation must never take priority over working safely and lawfully.

Draw up a simple trial plan covering:

• the tasks and decisions you are handing over;
• the instructions and training available;
• the results you will monitor;
• the situations in which contacting you is mandatory;
• how questions and departures from standard procedures will be recorded.

Choose a period that includes both ordinary and busy working days. One successful quiet week proves little about whether your model can be replicated. Repeat the trial if your business is strongly seasonal.

2. Measure hidden work and the true cost of support

Turnover is not the only important outcome. You need to know what resources are required to generate it responsibly. Record your behind-the-scenes work too: calling suppliers, correcting prices, handling complaints or fixing staff schedules in the evening.

Log every request for support, including what prompted it, the solution and the time spent. This will help you distinguish a one-off training need from an ongoing dependence on you. If you have to approve every non-standard order, you may be missing a clear decision-making rule. If you are the only person able to source an essential product, the problem is more likely to lie in how the business is organised.

Next, prepare an adjusted profit and loss account. Include realistic pay for work you previously did for free or at below-market rates. Factor in training, software, maintenance and the staffing levels actually needed. Then build a separate scenario in which a future franchisee pays franchise fees and any marketing contributions. This scenario is a financial modelling exercise, not proof of future profitability.

Always assess results in context. A fall in turnover may be linked to your absence, but it could also reflect roadworks, holidays or a temporary stock shortage. Record these circumstances. Do not let a single good or bad result determine the entire decision.

3. Turn recurring questions into ways of working that others can follow

A trial only has value if you turn its findings into improvements. For each recurring question, decide whether the answer belongs in a work instruction, in initial training or within the ongoing support provided by the franchisor.

Describe not just what someone should do, but also the required outcome and the scope they have to make decisions. A complaints procedure, for example, could specify which details must be recorded, which remedies a branch manager may offer independently and when escalation is needed. This helps maintain consistent quality without centralising every decision.

Keep a short improvement log:

• Problem: which task could not be completed properly?
• Cause: was there a lack of knowledge, authority, capacity or resources?
• Change: which instruction or support arrangement will be changed?
• Retest: can someone else now perform the task independently?

Have someone carry out important revised procedures again without any verbal explanation from you. Documentation that people can understand and use is stronger evidence than a manual that merely looks complete.

Remember, however, that an employed branch manager is not an independent franchisee. The trial demonstrates whether operations can be handed over, but does not automatically prove that an independent business owner with their own financing, local costs and business risks will achieve the same results.

4. Use the trial carefully in discussions with prospective franchisees in Belgium

Keep a record of the trial’s assumptions, results and limitations. When presenting figures, state whether they come from a company-owned branch, how much support was needed and which costs are included. Do not present observed results as guaranteed returns for prospective franchisees.

Belgium has no separate law governing franchise agreements in their entirety. However, Book X, Title 2 of the Belgian Code of Economic Law contains specific rules on pre-contractual information for commercial cooperation agreements. These are relevant when you offer your business model through franchising.

Under Article X.27, the prospective franchisee must receive the draft agreement and a separate pre-contractual information document at least one month before entering into the agreement, either in writing or on a durable, accessible medium. This document, known locally as the PID, contains important contractual provisions and socio-economic information. Trial results do not replace these documents. Ask a Belgian specialist to assess which information you must include and whether your presentation is sufficiently clear and complete. General contract law and other applicable rules also continue to apply.

Practical conclusion: do not recruit on the strength of your personal success alone. First, test whether your business works without your day-to-day involvement, calculate the actual support required and retest the weak points. This will give you a more honest foundation for a sustainable franchise network.