How to franchise your brand in India
By CA Shrenuj Jalan · · 5 min read
Before you sell a single territory: proving unit economics, writing the operating manual, deciding the fee and royalty, defining territory, and getting your listing in front of investors.
Franchising is not a way to fix a business that is not working. It is a way to multiply one that already does. Work through this before you take the first enquiry.
1. Prove the unit economics first
You need at least one outlet, ideally more, that is profitable without your daily presence and without founder-rate discounts. If profitability depends on you being there, you are not selling a system — you are selling a job you cannot do for someone else.
Write down, per outlet: revenue, cost of goods, rent, salaries, other overheads, and the resulting margin. A franchisee will ask, and vague answers end the conversation.
2. Write the operating manual
Everything an owner needs to run the outlet without calling you: opening and closing procedure, product specification, supplier list, pricing rules, staffing structure, training schedule, service standards, reporting formats. If it lives only in your head, it cannot be franchised.
3. Protect the brand
Register the trade mark before you licence it to anyone. Licensing a mark you do not own creates a problem that surfaces at the worst possible moment.
4. Decide the commercial structure
- Franchise fee — one-time, and it should be defensible as the cost of onboarding and training, not treated as revenue.
- Royalty — percentage of sales or a fixed monthly amount. Percentage aligns you with the franchisee; fixed is simpler to collect but is punishing in a slow month.
- Investment range — be honest about the total, including fit-out and opening stock. Understating it produces undercapitalised franchisees, and undercapitalised franchisees fail publicly.
- Territory — define it as pin codes or a map, and decide in advance how online sales interact with it.
5. Build the support you are charging for
Royalty is payment for ongoing support. Decide who trains, who visits, how often, and who answers the phone at 9pm when the equipment fails. Franchisees leave over support, not over fees.
6. Get the agreement drafted properly
Term, renewal, territory, supply, standards, default and cure, transfer, exit, non-compete, dispute resolution. Use a lawyer who has drafted franchise agreements before.
7. Be findable
Most franchise investors start with a search, not a phone call. That means your figures need to be published somewhere they can be compared — investment, franchise fee, royalty, area, term, payback and the territories you are actually open in.
On this site you list the brand yourself, from your own account. You control the figures, the FAQs and the territories; the listing is reviewed before it goes live, and enquiries come to you directly. See what listing involves.
8. Be ready for the first ten enquiries
Decide, before they arrive, who responds, how fast, and what the qualifying questions are. The brands that convert are not the ones with the best brochure — they are the ones that reply the same day with specific numbers.