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You generally need to have personal funds to join a franchise otherwise it is very difficult to set up your own business.

However you could try to borrow from your friends or your family. This kind of loan would be considered to be personal funds if you do not have to pay it back (an advance on an inheritance or a gift) or if you can pay them back once your bank loan has been paid off.

You could also sell some property or cash in a savings plan.

Lastly, you could find a partner or look for a good manager (often difficult to find) or even carry on saving so that you can start up your own franchise at a later date.

It should perhaps be noted here that franchisors are not there to lend money. If they wanted to invest so much money then they could set up their own branch rather than take on franchisees. A franchisor’s aim is to share his success with franchisees who invest their own money in the business in return.

Nothing in life is free. There may be two reasons why a franchisor does not charge any royalties:

• the network is not a franchise and offers no services or help to its members,

• the price for these services is added to the price of your purchases.

We were surprised to hear that there is a franchisor who lets his franchisees purchase their goods from wherever they wish. Maybe they are only free to choose from a list of referenced suppliers or suppliers with referenced articles.

If all members really are allowed to purchase from wherever they wish then the brand name would lose any meaning and business would drop off.

Most franchisees are successful because they are part of a good franchise and because they work very hard.

There are a few rare franchises that do not require much work from their franchisees but most franchisees have to invest a great deal of their own time to make their business a success.

This type of network does exist but you should think carefully before joining a network that does not pay for advertising or for any services for its franchisees.

Are the costs for advertising and franchisee services covered by the purchase price of the products or does this network not support its franchisees at all? The criteria you mentioned are not a good basis for making a choice. Franchisors do not help their franchisees to be a success by hiding costs or by sitting back and doing nothing. However, there are a number of franchisors who do not charge fees and have any services paid for in the price of the product.

A number of networks allow people to do this but it is neither compulsory nor an obvious thing to do.

It is certainly interesting for potential franchisees to see how things are in the field as this makes it easier for them to make a final decision. However, they must generally sign a secrecy agreement and, in some cases, even a non-competition agreement to prevent them using any of the knowledge gained during the course outside the network.

However some franchisors do offer such “discovery” courses – they help the applicants to make a decision with full knowledge of the facts and also allows the franchisor to observe them before deciding to recruit them. It is a method that can be beneficial for both parties.