Franchising as a growth strategy for businesses can have benefits that far outweigh traditional expansion methods. But first of all, let's have a look at suitability of your business for franchising.

So the first thing that I would ask you is, has your business experienced consistent growth over the last two to three years? Or in other words, can you show a track record of success and increased demand for your product or service?

The next question is going to be, is your business easily replicable? Or in other words, could you open another business unit, appoint a manager and train them to run the business in the same manner that you do, in a profitable manner?

We're also going to look at your market. Is there a strong demand for the product or service? Do you have a USP, a unique selling proposition? Are you able to differentiate your offering from your competitors? You may not have this now, but this could be something that is developed and I quite often work with clients to help differentiate their product or service from their competitors in the market.

The next thing is, is your business profitable? Obviously the franchisee is going to be wanting to make money in the business venture. So you should be looking at whether the franchisee could be expecting to earn a good income within the first 12 months. That's a reasonable period of time and that's what the franchisee will be looking at.

And if all of those things are in place, then you probably have a franchisable model on your hands, and I think that we should have a chat and explore what the process would look like for your business.