Franchise Focus Business News…

Performances at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (to give it its proper title) are usually associated with up and coming Beckett wannabes, soul searching thespians and struggling comedians however this year’s festival is currently playing host to an interesting combination between stage and SME.

Rachel Bridge (pictured right), Sunday Time business journalist has brought her very own one woman show, entitled How to Make a Million Before Lunch, to Edinburgh this year in order to give budding entrepreneurs a quick tour through the ins and outs as well as the do’s and don’ts of starting their own business.

In an article in last week’s Sunday Times, Bridge explained her reason for doing the show, “Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur these days, thanks to shows such as Dragons’ Den, and the one thing I do know a lot about is entrepreneurs [...] what people really wanted to know was how successful entrepreneurs such as Simon Cowell and Peter Jones had managed to make it work, and how they themselves could make a fortune – ideally in the shortest possible time. I could tell them some short cuts so they didn’t get bogged down in the time-wasting stuff.”

If you’re in Edinburgh this week, you can catch Bridge at Pleasance Courtyard at 12.30 pm daily until Sunday, August 29th. If you won’t make it all the way up there, you can also get your hands on Bridge’s new book also entitled “How to Make a Million Before Lunch” from Virgin Books available on thesundaytimes.co.uk/bookshop. For more information on Rachel Bridge, visit her personal website: http://www.rachelbridge.com/

The main goal of Franchise Direct is to support franchisors in their search for suitable franchisees. Since the company was founded in 1998, our main goal has been to steadily increase the quality of our services for our clients and users. We are proud of the fact that over 1,000 clients are highly satisfied with our services, which proves that we are on the right track!

In order to be able to provide a wider range of information for our readers and customers, we are looking for interested guest-authors for our blog at:

http://www.franchisedirect.co.uk/franchisefocus/

Our readers’ expectations:

-    a high content of accessible information

-    text that is not overly complicated and easy to read

-    substantial information with a high degree of practical relevance

It is for those criteria that our editors read and approve every single article before we publish it on our blog. We only publish articles that provide substantial information on a topic that is of interest to our readers.

Perhaps you have recently read a book that provides interesting information on a relevant topic and would like to write a short review about it? We will be glad to publish your review on the book as one of our blog-posts.

Due to legal requirements, we have to inform you that the person who provides us with an article for publication has to be the holder of all copyrights (both texts and images) for all material that is related to the article. If your article complies with these requirements and we have decided to publish it in our blog, we will ask you to confirm the possession of all copyrights by email.

The publication of your article on our website is fully free of charge for you and for our readers.

In order to comply with our standards of quality, your basic layout of your article should follow some basic guidelines, such as:

I)    Your title:

Keep your title short but catchy. The reader should develop an interest in the main article just by reading the title. Please note: The higher the significance of your title, the more readers will be interested in reading your article.

II)    Introduction:

You should begin your article with a short paragraph at the beginning that serves as a short summary for the main content and the most important aspects. Use your introduction to lead your readers to the main content and to make them interested in reading on. The introduction should not be longer than 5-6 lines in total.

III)    Main body paragraph:

This is the core-paragraph of your article. Try and divide the single aspects into individual text-passages. In doing this, you will provide a clear structure that makes it easier for the reader to follow you all the way through. The use of subheadings can also help to structure your article.

IV)    Conclusion

Write a short summary of the most important aspects of your article. Should you plan a series of articles, you can also use this section for cross-references to previous or upcoming articles.

To make the reading of your article as captivating for your readers as possible, the overall-length of your article should not exceed 800 words. Should the topic you are working on require longer articles, you might want to plan it as a series of articles.

Here are two examples of the types of posts that we think are particularly interesting to our readers.

This guest blog post was written by our US Franchise Editor - Donald Cranford on his trip to India and the differences and similarities which he saw in the Indian franchise industry: http://www.franchisedirect.co.uk/franchisefocus/franchising-in-india-part-1-the-context/

This is an article which we recently published on up and coming young entrepreneurs in the UK and the schemes and support services put in place to help the UK’s young entrepreneurs: http://www.franchisedirect.co.uk/franchisefocus/the-young-entrepreneurs-of-the-y-generation/

If you want to, you can add a short paragraph to the end of the article. You can use it to introduce yourself or state some professional facts that our readers might be interested in (your job, your professional background etc.).

If you have an article that you like to publish on http://www.franchisedirect.co.uk/, please email it to me at the following address: kate@franchisedirect.co.uk

We are looking forward to working with you.

I decided to go back to basics with this blog post, and explain some basic franchising terms. So I got a little creative, and created this infographic which hopefully will explain franchising to those of you who are new to the industry. For more information on franchising, why not visit our franchise information centre?!

Some people think that franchisees are not entrepreneurs; however my fellow US blogger recently argued otherwise and I have to agree, investing in a franchise does not eliminate risk or nerves when it comes to starting and operating your own business.

Even though traditionally franchisees have a lower rate of business failure than unique businesses, that is not to say that franchise businesses cannot fail and the onus is on the individual franchisee to ensure that their business is able to compete to the highest standard. In fact, a lot more pressure can be on certain franchisees who have to meet certain targets as part of their franchise agreement.

That being said, when I say this video on AVC recently I was impressed by the video content but also intrigued by the discussion going on in the comment section about the nature of entrepreneurship. There are a lot of great opinions about what should influence your choice when deciding what kind of business you want to start, along with concerns about going it alone, away from the safety net of being an employee.

What are your views on working for yourself? Does anything scare you about becoming your own boss and starting your own business?

Franchise Direct, the UK’s leading online portal of franchise opportunities, is excited to announce the launch of their Exclusive Franchise Direct UK Offers campaign. The campaign, exclusive to Franchise Direct, features discounts and special offers from some of the UK’s leading franchises, including APS Legal & Associates and Husse – the highly successful Swedish pet franchise.

The campaign has been established to encourage franchises to offer discounts to potential franchisees in the UK so that the level of new business start ups in the UK will increase. Unemployment levels rose in the first quarter of 2010, and it is clear that a stimulus is needed to spur more and more UK entrepreneurs into business. The campaign will last throughout the summer months and into late September and will feature discounted franchise opportunities from a diverse range of industries including business consultancy, web design, education and children’s fitness franchises.

During an economic low, franchise opportunities offer real career alternatives to individuals facing redundancy and unemployment. Working from a proven business model, under a recognisable brand, franchises have a higher success rate than independent small businesses. In conversation with Franchise Direct recently, chairperson of the International Franchise Association Dina Dwyer Owens described franchising as “the real economic stimulus plan”. Franchise Direct hopes that the summer campaign will enable more people to start their own business and keep the British economy working towards an economic recovery.

Speaking about the launch, Director of European Sales for Franchise Direct Brian Rogan said “we hope the campaign will make more people aware of the wide range of franchise opportunities available today. The discounted franchises for sale will offer individuals real opportunities to start their own business. Some franchises are offering two for one offers on their products, others are offering financing packages or reduced franchise start up fees.”

Budding entrepreneurs interested in browsing the directory of Exclusive Offers should visit the following link: http://www.franchisedirect.co.uk/exclusiveoffers/