Let's not make another soul suffer...

If you are seriously thinking about getting into HotBreads franchising, contact me. Leave me a comment here and I will reply to you. There is a lot going on with this organization that is not in the public domain. It took me six months to find out exactly what is happening with this organization. The fact that my location is not open after 9 months of signing the franchising deal is a testament to this. My main purpose of putting this blog together is to make sure no one else suffers through this ordeal of what we are going through.

So, if you think HotBreads is good for you, then do yourself a favor and CONTACT ME.

Spoken words mean nothing

...unless it is on the paper, it means nothing. People take advantage of you. It is the reality in today's business world. Unfortunately, we were naive. We trusted this organization and their words. They took us for a ride. Neverthless, it taught us so many lessons.

When things are not on the paper in the form of agreement, you have no case to fight. Fortunately, somethings are in our favor. We are sheer lucky for that to be the case. So, here are the things that need to be kept in mind while dealing with franchise agreements:

• Ask them every question you have. Like wise people say, there are no stupid questions. A question that is not asked is the stupidest question. The best way to do this is through emails. Reason to do this through emails is, it conveniently leaves a electronic trail for your future use.
• They try to avoid the document trails as much as possible. Insist on getting responses to your questions in written form. It is for your own future reference.
• Have a lawyer whose expertise is in business franchising. Every state has different rules and we are not experts in them. It is the most important investment you make for your future peace of mind. Tell the lawyer exactly what you are told by the franchiser, they will tell you what is in the agreement and what else needs to be in there.
• Do not sign on the dotted line unless lawyer gives you green signal.

In our case, we were told we had certain territory. We were told we have first right of refusal for the second location. None of this was written in the agreement. Unfortunately, we did not show the agreement to the lawyer. We trusted this organization and we signed on the dotted line. When we were working on our location, this organization went and signed up with another party for second location without even mentioning it to us. We were not told about this until we saw about the second location on their website and confronted them about it.

Then everything started to unravel and we realized that every thing they told us was nothing but lies. It is unbeleivable that a person of VP stature would lie to you straight face even after confronted about his lies and dishonesty. So, be careful, and remember, you got to look out for yourself and they are looking out for their bottom dollar. That is right. Their bottom dollar and that is all that matters to them.

Step 2: Figure out numbers

Hope your homework is done. You should have a good idea of what you are getting into. First part of getting into franchising is to put together a rough draft of numbers. This could be base for your final business plan document. The numbers should give you an idea what your initial investment should be, your monthly expenses, if you have to hire anybody, and most important of all, how long it will take to break even.

This should also give you an idea about financial help you might need. This is where your local small business administration could help you. Small business administration offices have local businessmen who volunteer to help new small business owners. This is a tremendous source of information for new small business owners. They usually conduct seminars in various aspects of business ownership. You can either attend these or you could contact them with specific questions.

This is also a good network builder. If you attend some of these sessions, you will get to meet local business owners and networking is very important for any of us to succeed.

Once you figured out numbers, you should have an idea of how much you can invest from your personal savings and how much of a loan you need from banks. However you cannot apply for loan until you sign up with the franchiser for a franchise. I will get to that in my next post.

Lesson Number One: Homework.

Do your homework!!! You heard it right. Do your homework. Thinking you are out of school and still have to do homework? Yes, my friend, homework is never going to leave us for the rest of our lives. Talk to as many people as you can. Gather as much information as you can. This is going to be an invaluable source in your decision making process.

First thing you can do is to search online. See if there is any buzz already going on about the company that you are planning to become a franchisee. Once you gather as much information as you can on the web, talk to the company people. The thing with talking to company people is, you will hear all the positive things about the company. Sometimes a little exaggerated. That is fine. Ask them to give you references from current franchisees. Talk to them and see what they say about the organization.

Another way of doing homework is to increase your network. You will surprised to see who knows who. You might have a friend who has a friend with a franchisee friend of your business interest. Your neighbor might have thought about the same organization sometime ago and he might have some insight into it.

We did some of it. Wish we had enquired with existing franchisees and see what they might have told us about HotBreads. Nevertheless, we are where we are and each lesson of mine will teach you how we got there. See you soon with another lesson.

Shameless Commerce :-)

Are you planning to start a Hot Breads franchise? We provide consulting services to guide you during the franchising process. You will have the peace of mind knowing that we have already been through this process and we know it inside out. We know exactly what to look for in the contract documents, what needs to included in the contract documents so that you have control on your franchising market. We have experience, bad one at that, that taught us so many lessons. You can mail us through this blog to contact us.

Little bit about Hot Breads

Hot Breads is an ethnic indian bakery with a french baking touch. It caters primarily to Asian Indians with puff pasteries, eggless cakes, and such products. It is a growing franchise in its infant stage. It is a good business to own where there are high Asian Indian population numbers. That is why you see more locations of this bakery in New Jersey and California.

How did we get into this bakery? There is a Hot Breads bakery where we live. We used to go there often and we loved the products. We saw it grow into a bustling business in front of our eyes. We thought it was a cool business to own. One fine day, we started talking to the franshising people of Hot Breads. We signed on the dotted line. We picked a decent market for the location but it is not as huge as NJ or CA locations. We were exited as this is a new chapter in our lives.

Things started rolling fine and we started scouting locations for the shop. We ordered the baking equipment. Everything was looking good. Until...

Welcome to the wonderful world of business ownership!!!

Welcome to our blog. This is a guide to starting a small business. Through our own experience of starting a small business, we have learned a lot about setting up small businesses. We will publish every such lesson here to guide new comers so that they do not make same costly mistakes we did. Please come back and start checking this page regularly. Thank you for your visit