1. Question the franchisor: The decisions that you make about your potential business will need to be based upon information from very pointed questions to the franchisors. Questions such as, what is the initial franchising fee. These fees vary from franchise to franchise and could run as high as several hundred thousand dollars.

More than likely you will also be required to pay an advertising fee to help promote the franchise. You will need to know the amount of that fee, or how it is figured (sometimes figured on a percentage of sales) and how much of that is used for local advertising and how much for national exposure.

Royalty payments are payments to the franchisor for the use of the franchise name. These are usually figured as a percentage of weekly or monthly gross sales. Again this number can vary from franchise to franchise and should be well understood before proceeding.

Find out the terms of the franchise agreement, including the period of time that the agreement will last (usually 5 years), how can you terminate that agreement and what the guidelines are around the franchisor terminating it.

Finally, some franchises will require you to do financial reporting each and every day along with upholding the uniformity of their system in each franchise. Inquiring if there is some flexibility will assist you in making a better decision about the franchise that suits your needs. You will also need to ask yourself if you can live with these processes or if it too stifling to allow you to exercise your own judgments in business.

2. The U.F.O.C. (Uniform Franchise Offering Circular). Much of the information above will be listed in the UFOC. It will be extremely important for you to peruse this circular very closely and even have a professional review it before signing any contracts.

3. Now if you have gotten this far with a particular franchise you will want to talk to someone who is actually running their own franchise. Try to get a couple of different prospective of the business. You must realize that some of the ones you will talk to will give you a negative outlook on the business. Your challenge will be to sift through all that to make the best decision for you and your goals. Below is a list of possible questions that you may want to ask the franchisee.