writing a business plan for a franchise

Franchise Business Plan

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Franchise Business Plan Template

You’ve come to the right place to create your business plan.

We have helped over 10,000 entrepreneurs and prospective franchisees with how to create a business plan to start a new franchise or grow their existing franchise.

How To Write a Franchise Business Plan & Sample

Below is an example for each of the key elements of franchise business plan that you can use to create your own well-crafted business plan:

Executive Summary

Business overview.

Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise is a national franchise that is headquartered in Gilbert, Arizona. It is a home health care business started by Alma Briggs, Registered Nurse, after she noticed the lack of quality health care solutions for the aging population of the Phoenix area. Her business grew rapidly and she expanded her staff and eventually added locations throughout the Southwest United States. Today, Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise has 30 locations throughout the country with more franchisees submitting interest almost daily.

Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise offers home care services to adults who require health care needs in the comfort of their home upon being released from the hospital, rehabilitation facility, or nursing home. Helping Heroes Home Care provides skilled nursing services, therapy and rehabilitation, home health aide, and medical social workers.

Erica Moore is a Registered Nurse in Albuquerque, New Mexico and is opening the Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise Albuquerque location. Upon franchise approval and submitting her initial franchise investment, Erica will be employing a nurse, occupational therapist, nurse aid, and social worker for the first year of operations. As the Albuquerque location grows, more staff will be added as required.

Service Offering

The following are the services that Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise will provide:

Skilled nursing services
Therapy and rehabilitation by Occupational Therapists
Home Health Aides
Medical social work

Customer Focus

Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise will target those residents of Albuquerque, New Mexico that require nursing services and medical care at home. They are newly released from the hospital or a rehabilitation facility. Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise provides these services primarily to adults.

Management Team

Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise (Albuquerque) will be solely owned and operated by Erica Moore, a Registered Nurse in the state of New Mexico. Erica has worked as a home health care nurse in Albuquerque for five years. She saw the lack of quality care and reliable service and decided to leave the home care industry and save up to own her own health care business one day. For eight years, Erica worked for a rehabilitation facility all while saving up and researching reliable and quality home health care franchisors. Erica decided on Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise as they have a strong brand presence, strong marketing program, reliable technological support and training, implements the best clinical standards, and offers a scalable business model so that Erica can add multiple streams of revenue and grow her business year after year.

Success Factors

Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise will be able to achieve success by offering the following competitive advantages:

Friendly, knowledgeable, and highly qualified team of nurses, occupational therapists, and social workers who are able to provide the highest standard of care in the comfort of a patient’s home.
Customized plans that are affordable and flexible.
A reputable franchise that offers the most support in order to provide the best clinical care per the franchise standards.
Scalable business model to ensure each franchisee will successfully establish their business and grow to become more profitable each year.
Technology and support by the franchise to receive ongoing operational support, business consultations, and training.

Financial Highlights

Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise (Albuquerque) is seeking $250,000 in debt financing to open the Albuquerque location. The funding will be dedicated towards securing the office space, office equipment, and supplies. Funding will also be dedicated towards three months of overhead costs to include payroll of the staff, rent, and franchise investment. The franchise investment is $150,000 to get approved and started. The fees paid to the franchise are then paid monthly as a percentage of revenue earned by the franchisee. The breakout of the funding is below:

Securing office space and any build-out required: $50,000
Franchise investment: $150,000
Three months of overhead expenses (payroll, rent, utilities): $50,000

Company Overview

Who is helping heroes home care franchise.

Helping Heroes Home Care is a national franchise that provides home health services to seniors, those released from a rehabilitation facility or hospital, and those that require acute health care needs that require medical care at home. Helping Heroes Home Care provides skilled nursing services, therapy and rehabilitation, home health aide, and medical social workers. We work with the clients to continue their medical treatment at home. We learn about their situation and symptoms, develop a medical plan, and implement the best care plan available to prevent the client from needing to be admitted to the hospital again, and to promote self awareness and independence while working with the client in their home.

Erica Moore is a Registered Nurse at a rehabilitation hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She has been working with patients that have been released from the hospital for over ten years. Previously, Erica was a home health nurse for a local home health care agency and treated hundreds of patients in their home. She saw firsthand the lack of resources and quality care available to the residents of Albuquerque and had a goal in mind of owning and operating her own home health care business. After spending the last ten years researching and developing a plan, Erica has decided that the best option is to become a franchisee for Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise. Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise offers the best quality care and support to its franchisees. Their comprehensive marketing plan, strong clinical standards, and technology and support will make a strong impact to those requiring home health care in Albuquerque.

Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise History

Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise was started by Registered Nurse Alma Briggs in 2006 in Phoenix, Arizona. Like Erica, she saw the lack of quality home health care available to her patients and wanted to make a difference. She and her husband saved money and eventually began Helping Heroes with one location in Glendale, Arizona. Her business grew steadily and she eventually added more nurses to support her, an office to be the center of operations, and grew into more locations throughout the Southwest. Today, Helping Heroes has grown to over 30 locations throughout the United States with more franchisees applying daily.

Since incorporation, Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise (Albuquerque) has achieved the following milestones:

Found a small office space to be the physical location of the business
Obtained legal licensing obligations, permits, and tax registrations.
Applied to be a franchisee of Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise. Approval is pending capital requirements.

Helping Heroes Home Health Care Franchise Services

The following will be the services Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise will provide:

Industry Analysis

The Home Care Franchises industry will grow, as demand for services grows.The number of people 65 years or older in the United States is expected to increase at an annualized rate of 2.9% to 63.4 million people during the five-year period. This population demographic is the largest consumer of healthcare in the United States and will continue to demand a growing number of in-home care services as the trend toward aging in place strengthens. With the continued implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), demand for industry services will accelerate as seniors and the disabled are transitioned from nursing home services to at-home managed care. Consequently, industry revenue is expected to increase at an annualized rate of 6.4% to nearly $15.0 billion.

Customer Analysis

Demographic profile of target market.

The precise demographics for Albuquerque, New Mexico are:

Customer Segmentation

Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise will primarily target the following customer profiles:

Adult residents of Albuquerque, New Mexico requiring home health care
Adults and/or seniors who have been released from the hospital or nursing home and either request or referred by a doctor to have home health care
Adults and/or seniors who have been released from a rehabilitation facility who either request or are referred by a doctor to have home health care

Competitive Analysis

Direct and indirect competitors.

Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise will face competition from other companies with similar business profiles. A description of each competitor company is below.

TLC Home Healthcare Services

TLC Home Healthcare Services has been in business for over seven years. They provide services Monday through Friday and are available for on-call services after hours and on weekends. Their on-call services are to assist and triage any questions or concerns to the clients or family members for any issues they may be experiencing. Upon referral, they admit the patient into the system within 24 hours. There are physical therapy services on standby for evaluations needed during weekend admissions. Their focus is to immediately establish and initiate full recovery at home following an individualized plan of care soon after discharge from the hospital to maximize the rehabilitation potential by minimizing the time-lapsed between facility discharge and home healthcare evaluation. The mission of TLC is to provide professional and paraprofessional services to patients in their homes and assist them to achieve the highest level of potential in their day-to-day and self-care activities.

Interim Healthcare

Interim Healthcare has a fully trained staff of caregivers who are supervised by a registered nurse to provide the care needed in a patient’s home. They provide supervision, companionship, housekeeping, meal preparation, mobility support, transportation, medication reminders, grooming, and laundry. They provide as little or as much as needed. Interim provides respite care to offer relief for the primary family caregiver to take a break or get errands done. If it is no longer safe for the senior to be alone, the team at Interim Healthcare develops a plan for high-quality caregivers to provide home care around the clock. Interim Healthcare also offers hospice care by providing all basic needs are being met to ensure safety and basic needs are being met so that the families can focus on spending quality time together. Interim Healthcare charges by the hour with no minimum commitment or contracts. Their rates and plans are entirely flexible.

Compassus provides their clients with safe and reliable home care from a professional and trained staff. Their care is not one size fits all. They are committed to understanding the needs and offer personalized support. They provide home health care to seven counties throughout the Albuquerque area. Compassus’ team includes nurses, physical therapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, home health aides, and social workers. They also offer expert care in the areas of total joint program, cardiac program, prehab program, and CHF program. Their patients are those who are discharged from a hospital or nursing home but need additional support at home, require short-term skilled assistance at home due to outpatient surgery, need additional skilled assistance to live independently due to illness, disability or aging, and require regular health care due to heart disease, diabetes, or other conditions like muscular, nervous, or respiratory disorders.

Competitive Advantage

Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise will be able to offer the following advantages over their competition:

Marketing Plan

Brand & value proposition.

Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise will offer the unique value proposition to its clientele:

Promotions Strategy

The promotions strategy for Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise is as follows:

Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise is an already-established franchise that has a strong reputation in the healthcare community with their strong brand awareness. Hospitals, rehabilitation facilities, nursing homes, and doctors who specialize in seniors will recommend Helping Heroes to the families and patients needing home care services.

Franchise Marketing

Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise has a strong built-in marketing program that it provides to all of its franchisees. Upon acceptance as a franchisee, they are given a website page that feeds from their national page, social media accounts, flyers, and business cards for the franchisee to hand out to its contacts.

Website/SEO Marketing

Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise maintains a strong online presence. All franchisees have the unique advantage over their competition as Helping Heroes manages the website activity and pays to have a strong SEO presence so that when someone enters “home health care” in whichever city they are in, Helping Heroes Home Care is at the top of the list.

The pricing of Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise will be moderate and on par with competitors so customers feel they receive value when purchasing their services.

Operations Plan

The following will be the operations plan for Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise (Albuquerque).

Operation Functions:

Erica Moore will be the owner and operator of Helping Heroes Home Care in Albuquerque. She will employ and lead a team of nurses, occupational therapists, and social workers to carry out and establish the presence of Helping Heroes in Albuquerque.
Erica will employ an office administrator to answer phone calls and assist with scheduling the staff to see their patients.
Erica will start with one nurse, one occupational therapist, one nurse aid, and one social worker to join her team for the first year of operations. As the franchise presence grows into a steady stream of business, Erica will add more nurses, therapists, and social workers to meet the demands of the home care franchise.

Milestones:

Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise will have the following milestones complete in the next six months.

5/1/202X – Finalize contract to lease small office space

5/15/202X – Obtain small business loan to meet the capital requirements of being a Helping Heroes Home Care Franchisee

6/1/202X – Begin training program for Helping Heroes

6/15/202X – Start hiring staff and have them begin the Helping Heroes Home Care employee standards

8/1/202X – Begin first set of home visits referred by clients and/or those referred Helping Heroes national franchise

Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise (Albuquerque) will be solely owned and operated by Erica Moore, RN.

Erica Moore is a Registered Nurse in the state of New Mexico. She received her Bachelor’s of Nursing degree from the University of New Mexico in 2008. Upon licensure and graduation, Erica has worked as a home health care nurse in Albuquerque for five years. She saw the lack of quality care and reliable service and decided to leave the home care industry and save up to own her own health care business one day. For eight years, Erica has worked for a rehabilitation facility all while saving up and researching reliable and quality home health care franchisors. Erica decided on Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise as they have a strong brand presence, strong marketing program, reliable technological support and training, implements the best clinical standards, and offers a scalable business model so that Erica can add multiple streams of revenue and grow her business year after year.

Financial Plan

Key revenue & costs.

The revenue drivers for Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise are the fees it will charge to the patients for the home care services it will provide. The fees are paid for all or in part by the insurance company of the patient. The remaining balance will be paid by the patient or the family.

The cost drivers will be the fees paid to the franchise, payroll for the employees (office administrator, nurse, occupational therapist, and social worker), rent and utilities for the office space, and office supplies. The marketing, training, and technology costs are part of the franchise fees paid to the Helping Heroes Home Care Franchise.

Funding Requirements and Use of Funds

Key assumptions.

The following outlines the key assumptions required in order to achieve the revenue and cost numbers in the financials and in order to pay off the startup business loan.

Number of Initial Patients per Month: 40
Average Fees per Month: $50,000
Office Lease per Year: $100,000

Financial Projections

Income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement, free franchise business plan template pdf.

You can download our free franchise business plan template PDF here. This is a sample franchise business plan template you can use in PDF format. You can easily complete your business plan using our Franchise Business Plan Template here .

Franchise Business Plan FAQs

What is a franchise business plan.

A business plan is a plan to start and/or grow your franchise business . Among other things, it outlines your business concept, identifies your target audience , presents your marketing strategy and details your financial projections..

What Are the Main Sources of Revenues and Expenses for a Franchise Business?

The main sources of revenue for a business franchise are franchise fees and royalty fees. Some also earn from other fees like distribution fees, site assistance fees, training fees, technologies, and rebates.

The key expenses for franchises are inventory, payroll, marketing and advertising, rent and loans.

How Do You Get Funding for Your Franchise Business?

Among the most common sources of funding for a franchising business are commercial bank loans, Small Business Administration (SBA) loans, personal savings and friends and family loans/gifts. There are also lenders that can supplement other loans with equipment financing and business lines of credit for franchise businesses.

This is true for a business plan for a franchise restaurant, a business plan for franchise store, or any other franchise business plans.

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Creating a business plan for your franchise: what to prepare before asking for money.

🕒 Estimated Reading Time: ~8 minutes

Congratulations! You’ve decided that owning a franchise is the right investment for you. You may have even already decided on the type of franchise, and maybe even the franchise brand you are going to pursue.

What’s next? Financing. Securing the funding needed to make your franchise dreams a reality. And unless you are one of the fortunate people that has enough money saved to cover costs, you will likely be seeking a lender to make up the difference between the amount of money you currently have to invest and amount of money needed to open and maintain your franchised business until you 'break even.' (Breaking even is the point in the lifespan of a business where the operation starts turning a profit.)

To convince lenders that you are worthy of their money, the creation of a business plan is crucial. Lenders use a business plan as a guide to assess whether the prospective franchisee is a on a path towards success and profitability.

To approve loans, lenders want to have a clear, straightforward account of the business to be opened, the principals involved, and—perhaps most importantly—perspective on when the borrowed money will likely be repaid.

It's helpful to prepare for the meeting with the lender like a college graduate student would prepare for a thesis defense presentation. In both instances, it is the goal of the person (or people) going into the meeting to have done the adequate level of research necessary to competently back up the stated claims for the desired result (be it the granting of a master's degree to the student or the gaining of a loan for the prospective franchisee).

Important note: the business plan isn’t just for getting money.

Not only does a business plan help in securing funding, it forces you to take a hard look at the investment you are about to make. It gives you a chance to anticipate the challenges that come with opening a business, and temper unrealistic expectations.

As time passes and you move further into franchise ownership, the business plan you’ve created should be updated and utilized as a guide in helping you reach your franchise goals.

Parts of a Business Plan

Creating a business plan doesn't have to be complicated.

There is no standardized length for a business plan, but no lender wants to read a novel-length presentation. The main thing is that the plan is thorough enough to cover all aspects of your individual franchise. You want to give the lender confidence that you are prepared to take on the managing of a business that will turn a profit in a reasonable amount of time.

The key is compiling the proper information to address the reservations of the lenders you will meet with. This is where opening a franchised business offers a notable advantage over an independent business.

The franchise disclosure document (FDD) provided by the franchisor of the system you are investing in contains a great deal of the information needed to complete a business plan.

This information includes the company’s corporate background, a description of the target market, the competitive advantage of the product/service, marketing initiatives, plus the start-up and ongoing costs. Some franchisors even offer assistance to franchisees in the preparation of the plan.

Common parts of a business plan include the following, according to the Small Business Administration (a sample business plan is located at the end of this article):

Company description: A good place to look for the information for this section is Item 1 of the FDD. Provide an overview of the franchise and its history to the lender. You will also provide a brief outline of the franchise’s service/product (more detailed information will be given in the next section).

Service/product description: Describe in detail the service and/or product your franchise will provide to customers. This section can be combined with the company description. Again, Item 1 of the FDD is where you will find much of the information you need for this section. Item 16 will also be helpful in discussing what you will and will not be able to sell as a franchisee of a particular franchise system.

Market analysis: Use this section to prove to the potential lender that you are not jumping into a business venture on a whim. Concentrate on the specific area (market) in which the franchised business will be located. The territory description in the FDD (Item 12) will help you to a point.

Give a brief discussion of the following:

How big is your market?
What kind of people (demographically and financially) make up this market?
Is the market under-served in regards to this service/product?
If there is competition, who are your competitors and what is your competitive advantage?
Discuss what experts are forecasting for the service/product in terms of trends and growth possibilities for your specific market (can include demographic, legislative or environmental factors).

Management structure: This section provides a look at the people who will be responsible for the day-to-day operation of the franchise, particularly you as the owner. Is this venture going to be a sole proprietorship or will there be multiple owners? Explain if you will be involved day-to-day with business operations, or will be acting as an absentee owner.

For yourself and all of the others with an ownership stake, if applicable, detail all business qualifications. Stress any and all experience (even if volunteer) that is relevant to being successful in the future with the franchise operation. Item 15 of the FDD will help with explaining the managerial obligations of the franchisee.

Marketing plan: 'How are you going to get customers?' is the main question you’re answering in this section. Use FDD Item 11 to your advantage here. It provides an overview of the franchisor’s advertising and marketing efforts. Also, it provides a description of the training you will complete before opening. Often marketing and sales courses are part of required training.

Financials: This is the meat of your business plan. In this section, don’t only ask for the money you need. Give the lender the big picture of your financial situation as well. Detail how you are going to obtain the entire initial investment. Often times, a lender will not be financing all of the franchise investment. Are you using a mix of personal savings, loans, credit, etc.?

In addition to the funding request, you will be doing some financial projection. Give a reasonable time frame when the lender can expect full repayment of the loan, and back up that claim with figures. Include graphs and charts detailing the start-up costs, projected profit and loss and projected sales forecast for the franchise.

The franchisor can be of significant help to you in completing this section (via Items 5 and 19 of the FDD, and in direct conversation). However, keep in mind the franchisor is restricted legally about making certain claims about projected earnings. Be conservative with the projections as unexpected delays and unforeseen circumstances do happen.

Appendix: The appendix technically isn’t a part of the business plan, but an additional section to present items that would enhance your presentation. Include items you feel would be necessary to giving the lender a complete picture of you and the franchise you are seeking financing for. Examples include: the resumes of management figures, tax returns, media clippings, etc.

As previously mentioned, the best outside source of information to complete your business plan is the franchisor. No other outlet is going to know that franchise system better.

Additional resources include online sites such as Bplans.com, which offers site visitors a substantial library of sample plans to review, as well as general business websites like the Small Business Administration. Prospective franchisees can also use a professional business plan writer, particularly for the review of a plan before sitting down with the lender.

Confidentiality agreement: Because business plans contain sensitive and confidential information, the content needs to be safeguarded against potential leaks. To do this, you will need to enter into a confidentiality agreement with the parties you allow to review your business plan.

The agreement will bind them not to disclose or reveal any confidential information they receive, without your written permission.

Sample Business Plan Confidentiality Agreement Template

Sample franchise business plan: Please note that the example business plan linked below is a sample of one way to format a business plan. There are several different acceptable formats, and the contents of business plan sections will vary significantly due to factors including the franchise system, the type and amount of loan sought, the franchisee’s background, etc.

Sample Business Plan