Franchising, Licensing, and Harvesting Your Business Brand

Franchising, Licensing, and Harvesting your brand in the world of business has made many entrepreneurs millions of dollars.  Fashion designers, celebrities, and athletes have profited greatly by branding perfumes, shoes, clothing, and other products.

Ciroc was named one of America’s Hottest Brands of 2010 in Advertising Age.  Congratulations to Sean “Diddy” Combs and Blue Flame on an outstanding job in the brand positioning Ciroc Ultra Premium.

The "Jumpman" logo is used by Nike to promote the Air Jordan brand.

There are five objectives to consider in knowing what you need to "grow and go" your business. 

1.  Determine how you want to grow your business and exit from it by developing a business plan in detail spelling out the kind of business and the steps you will take to build it to the desired vision, what you want out it, whether you will expand it, merge or sell, or continue as a family business.  Licensing your brand to sell your product is another method of growth as well as franchising.

2.  Using licensing to promote and increase brand recognition in a positive manner gives you free publicity and advertising, as well as royalties.

3.  Franchise your business if it is beneficial.  Being a franchiser has benefits such as:  growth with minimal capital investment, lower marketing and promotional cost, and royalties.  The drawbacks are:  for franchisees may sue if they are not as profitable, it can be costly and difficult due to regulations, and reputation could be damaged if franchisee is not qualified or trustworthy.  In any cost, research should be done before hand to know what either party is getting involved in.

4. How does your business value with similiar businesses and what benchmarks do you use or will use to help value your business.

5.  Know your Harvest plan and options for business when exiting and when to harvest.  Investors in your business will want to know how this would profit them so it should be very clear in your business plan if and  when you will sell business, take it public, or merge with another company.