How to Narrow Your Franchise Selection Options

There are significant franchise opportunities in Canada! In fact, Canada has:

• The 2nd largest franchise industry in the world
• More than 40 different franchise categories
• Between 1,200 and 1,300 franchise companies
• Approximately 80,000 franchise units in Canada

Franchising can be a great opportunity for you to operate your own business with reduced risk and support of a parent company. Selecting an already successful franchise concept with recurring revenue can make sound business sense for your new venture. Recurring revenue is predictable and stable revenue that you can count on with a high degree of certainty.

If you have completed our free Franchise Self-Assessment, you will have a sense of how suited you would be to owning a franchise! This self-awareness is important information to have, but it’s only one piece of your decision-making process.

3-Step Selection Process

Selecting the right option for you can be overwhelming if you don’t know where to begin. There are many franchise categories to explore from retail to business services to personal services. You may have a general idea of the category that interests you, but you still have a variety of franchise businesses and investment levels to consider.

When you think of franchising, you may jump to the large and well-known franchises that operate in Canada, for example, McDonald’s or Subway. However, there are also a number of franchise opportunities that require less significant investment. Some franchises may require initial investments as low as $10,000.

Step 1: Explore Franchise Categories

Use your Franchise Self-Assessment results to determine which franchise categories would be of interest to you and that match your personality traits, interests, skill set and needs. Select one or two categories that you could see yourself achieving success.

Step 2: Explore Franchise Businesses

Now that you have identified a franchise category, you can create a short-list of franchise businesses that best represent the category. Remember to consider the range of investment levels that are required.

The short-list will provide you with the franchise businesses that you can further research and compare. Landing on a short-list will help you to determine which businesses to conduct in-depth research.



Step 3: Conduct Franchisor Due Diligence

This is the most important step to ensure that you are making a sound selection decision. It can take anywhere from three to four months to conduct extensive franchisor due diligence. Read more by reading our blog: The Importance of Due Diligence.

Combined with a sharp business mindset, personality fit for franchising, and a sound franchise selection process, you can be on your way to an exciting and lucrative franchise opportunity.