Twelve questions to ask an existing franchise owner

The most valuable hours in this whole process are the ones you spend on the phone with people who already own the business you're considering.

Not with the brand. Not with me. With owners. They have no reason to sell you anything, they have already made the decision you're weighing, and a surprising number of them will tell you the truth if you ask a question worth answering.

Most people waste those calls. They ask "do you like it?" and the owner says yes, and everyone hangs up feeling good and knowing nothing.

Here's how to not do that.

If you haven't read it yet, start with Validation: the step most franchise candidates rush.

Where the list comes from

Item 20 of the Franchise Disclosure Document contains outlet information and, in most cases, contact details for existing franchisees. It also lists owners who have left the system in the past year, and often how to reach them.

That second list is the one people skip and it is frequently the more useful one. Somebody who sold, closed, or walked away has no incentive to be diplomatic. You don't have to weight their view heavily. You just have to hear it.

The brand will also offer you names. Take them, and then call people the brand didn't offer you. Every system has a handful of enthusiastic owners who take these calls regularly, and they are usually genuine, but they are not a sample.

How to run the calls

Call more than you want to. Five is a real sample; two is an anecdote. If the brand's system is small, call most of it.

Spread them out geographically and by tenure. A first-year owner and a ten-year owner are describing different businesses. So are an urban and a rural one.

Ask, then be quiet. The best material in these calls arrives in the pause after somebody finishes their first answer. Don't fill it.

Don't argue and don't sell. You're not there to defend your interest in the brand. The moment you start persuading them, they stop telling you things.

Take notes the same day. After six calls they blur, and the specific phrasing somebody used is often the thing you'll want later.

The twelve questions

Ask them roughly in this order. The early ones are easy to answer and build the trust you need for the later ones.

1. What does a normal week actually look like for you? Hours, days, which ones. This is the question that most often ends somebody's interest in a category, and it should, if the answer doesn't fit their life.

2. What did your first year look like compared to what you expected? Not "was it hard." The gap between expectation and reality is where the useful information is.

3. What surprised you after you signed? Every owner has an answer to this one and it is almost never in any brochure.

4. How long before the business stopped needing you every single day? Some models never get there. Better to know which kind you're buying.

5. What do you actually spend your time on, and what did you think you'd be spending it on? Many people buy a franchise imagining the craft and get the management. Some enjoy the switch. Others don't.

6. When something breaks, how responsive is the franchisor? Ask for a specific example. "They're great" is not an example.

7. What do you pay them for, and is it worth it? You'll pay ongoing fees for the brand, the system and the support. Owners have strong, specific opinions about the value of each.

8. What's the hardest part of this model that nobody mentions up front? This is my favorite question in the set.

9. How hard is it to hire and keep the people you need? In most service categories this is the actual business. If staffing is the constraint, you want to hear it from six people, not one.

10. If you were starting over, would you buy this brand again? Would you buy a franchise at all? Two separate questions and you want both answers. Someone can love franchising and regret the brand, or the reverse.

11. Who in the system is struggling, and do you know why? You're not fishing for gossip. You're trying to learn the failure pattern, because that's the pattern you need to avoid.

12. What should I have asked you that I didn't? Ask this on every call. It has produced more useful sentences for the people I work with than any other question on the list.

On the money questions

You will want to ask about money, and you should. Owners are free to talk about their own businesses, and many will.

Two things to keep in mind. First, an individual owner's experience is one data point about one market and one operator, not a systemwide picture. Second, anything the brand itself tells you about financial performance has to appear in Item 19 of the disclosure document, in writing, with the context that makes it mean something. A number you hear in conversation has none of that context attached, so treat it as a story rather than a statistic and ask what's behind it.

And ask the question people are too polite to ask: what does it pay you, personally, for the hours you put in? An owner working sixty-hour weeks in a business that covers its costs is describing a job, and it's fair to want to know what kind.

How to tell a real answer from a rehearsed one

Rehearsed answers are general, positive and fast. Real answers are specific, mixed and slower.

If somebody has nothing critical to say about a business they've run for five years, they are either unusually fortunate or managing you. Every real operator has a list of grievances about their franchisor, and the useful ones sound like "the marketing fund spend doesn't reach my market" rather than "they're wonderful."

Watch for the tell where an owner answers the question they wish you'd asked. Bring them back gently and ask again.

A question worth asking

Why should I speak with several existing franchise owners?

One owner's experience may reflect an unusual market, personality, or period. Speaking with several owners, including newer and more established operators, helps you spot patterns and ask better follow-up questions.

Then bring it back

When you've done six or eight of these, patterns show up that no single call reveals. The same complaint from four owners in four states is a feature of the system, not a personality. The same praise from four owners is worth believing.

That is the point of doing the volume. And it's the part where I'm genuinely useful: not answering the questions for you, but helping you make sense of eight conversations that don't obviously agree with each other, from having sat on the other side of them as an owner three times.

There's no cost for that and no obligation. If you're about to start validation calls on a brand, it's worth half an hour beforehand to make sure you're asking the right things of the right people. Let's talk.