Innovative Legal Solutions

New Franchisors - What Can We Do For You?

 

If you think franchising is for you, you want to make sure you get it right.  We can help you get it right by offering you franchising solutions - both legal and practical - and an in-depth knowledge of franchising.

 

Building the picture - the initial consultation
  • We offer a free one-hour consultation with one of our franchising team members. During this hour, we will discuss your business, your aims and the sort of structures that should be in place to ensure long term viability of your system. Fundamentally, we will ascertain whether your business can actually be franchised or if it would be better suited to another structure such as licensing or distribution.
  • We will follow up the consultation with a letter detailing what was discussed during the consultation and our recommendations for going forward.


  • Adding value - our networks

    • Over the years we have built up a network of contacts in the franchising industry which we can tap to help you achieve your goals. Those contacts include:
    • Bankers - All the major banks have franchising teams and we are familiar with those teams. We have particularly strong ties with Westpac, The National Bank, ASB and Bank of New Zealand.  We can introduce you to any of these banks.
    • Franchising consultants - Franchising consultants can help you get the most out of your franchise. They will provide you with support at each stage of your franchise’s life cycle. Typically they can assist you with undertaking feasibility studies, pre-entry market studies, drafting a business plan, developing a marketing strategy and recruitment document, preparing manuals and providing you with franchise development and maintenance advice. While franchising consultants can be invaluable, in our experience the quality of advice can differ from one consultant to another. You should, therefore, do your homework before engaging a franchising consultant - we can recommend to you those consultants which in our experience have added value for our franchising clients.
    • Accountants - Without the help of a specialist franchising accountant, franchisors can end up poorly advised. Again, we can help put you in touch with specialist accountants.

    Getting it down in writing - the franchise agreement

    • Once we’ve ascertained that you have a franchiseable business and the best structure is for you, we will prepare a franchise agreement.
    • The fundamental thing in preparing a franchise agreement is ensuring that a balance is struck between protecting your needs and those of any potential franchisee. The franchise agreement mustn’t be so franchisor friendly that it scares off potential franchisees. This is where our expertise comes into play. We have the experience to know what is fair to both the franchisor and the franchisee without compromising the franchise brand. We will not belt out a standard template franchise agreement in archaic language which confuses both parties. We will ensure that the agreement is tailored to meet to your needs and is drafted in clear plain English.
    • In order to streamline the process of preparing the agreement, before we start drafting we will provide you with a franchise agreement checklist. This checklist covers all the main issues that need to be considered before the agreement can be prepared.

    The other bits and bobs

    • Your intellectual property is extremely valuable and should be protected. We recommend that in order to protect your intellectual property a separate company is set up in which it can be held. We can help incorporate any such company. We can also make any necessary applications for the registration of trade marks with the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand.
    • As well as the franchise agreement, it is common for us to prepare ancillary documents such as confidentiality agreements, application forms and letters of offer. These can be explained to you when we meet.
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