On the New Year eve I wish all franchise and non-franchise companies, their employers and employees, their families, relatives and friends all the best!
Let everything be OK in upcoming year. Let it bring a lot of profits and happiness, success and luck!
And thank everybody for reading and commenting my franchise thoughts!
I was not writing here for a long time as I was too busy with my new hobby – FOREX trading.
But studying Forex I found that there are not only traders but also special forex franchise companies that try to combine the benefits of both businesses – franchising and currency trading. It’s rather interesting and worth of deeper study as I think
http://de.betheboss.com/franchise.cfm?s_booth=899437 - - the link to the German company that says that they managed to do it!
By the way GLOBAL FOREX TRADING characterizes itself as FOREX franchise. But when I tried to find the word “franchise” using the search option on their site they said “Your search did not return any results.” 
The proverb says: “Tell me who your friend is, and I’ll tell you who you are”. I can say: “Tell me who your team members are, and I’ll tell you who you are”.
Think over the following questions:
Who are the team members?
Do you, the project manager, get to pick the team?
Or are you given a list of team members and expected to include them?
The next step in the Project Management process is to identify the people who will participate in the project.
Even if you have a rock-solid goal with clearly defined steps, you have little chance of succeeding without a group of people who possess the ability and perseverance to complete the steps; failure is imminent. Ensure that the project team can work together well and has the necessary skills to get the job done. Here’s a simple analogy to illustrate the point.
Suppose that you want to buy a franchise company that specializes in building bridges in remote locations. On the day of a new site survey for a bridge across a small canyon, every one of your engineers calls in sick. So, in a panic, you call the temp agency and ask to send over six of great engineers — pronto. To your delight, they arrive on time, and you fly them to the first potential site of the new bridge. When you point the engineers to the first possible bridge site, one of them pipes up, “You do realize that we drive trains, don’t you?”
Your company may have many talented people. Your job as a project manager is to identify the people who can finish tasks in the manner required and in the time allotted. Don’t consider including a technical wizard who returns from vacation the day the project is due. Don’t consider any potential team member who does not have the time to devote to the project. A great asset who can’t put the time and focus into a project is really not a great asset at all. Always consider all factors when determining whether a person can contribute to the team.
Ask questions! Remember: you don’t have all the answers. In fact, it’s extremely difficult to even know all the questions. (If you really do have all the answers, please e-mail me. I have some work for you.) Include proposed team member “interviews” as part of the selection process. You don’t have to hold a formal meeting. Sending an e-mail message or talking on the telephone works just as well. You just need to ask a few questions. Here are some questions you need to answer as you talk with prospective team members.
1. Are they available?
No one can do an adequate job if there is no time to work on a task. Overbooked, talented individuals are just as ineffective as available people with no skills. Be sure to explain what you need for your project and what the performance expectations are. Add at least 20 percent to any estimate you give. After setting proper expectations, ask for the person’s interest and availability. Make sure that each prospect’s supervisor agrees with this availability status before you make your final team selections.
2. Are they able?
Because you’ve outlined the whole project and listed all the individual tasks (don’t worry; we’ll go over how to do this later), you have a pretty good idea about what needs to get done. You know what you need from this prospect. Ask this person about her experience with similar tasks. If Stacey’s part of the project requires her to use a Dutch oven, it makes sense to find out if Stacey has ever used a Dutch oven. Ask earnest questions: “Stacey, your part in this project would be working with a Dutch oven. Tell me about your experience with Dutch ovens. What kind of dishes have you prepared with a Dutch oven? What kind of problems have you had cooking with a Dutch oven? If I asked you to cook a peach cobbler in a Dutch oven right now, could you do it? If not, what would you need to get the job done?”
3. Are they willing, eager, and optimistic?
The last thing your project team needs is a naysayer. There’s incredible momentum generated in a project when all the team members have good morale. It’s your job to keep the enthusiasm high. Don’t kill it from the start with a team member who doesn’t want to be on the team. Sometimes, you’re forced to put someone on the team, regardless of qualifications. In those cases, spend a little extra effort encouraging good morale and ensuring that any bad vibes don’t spread to other members. Simple positive reinforcement and recognition go a long way in such cases.
4. Do they have any questions?
Always remember to be quiet and listen at some point. Ask for any questions they have about the project. You can often uncover potentially damaging things you forgot by asking for input from other people. You can also get a good feel for what each team member considers important. Make notes of your conversations. Comments and questions at this phase can be very useful later in the project.
Keep in mind during these initial interviews that your purpose is to evaluate potential team members, not to select the team on the spot. Ask for any referrals and express genuine appreciation for their cooperation. Set a deadline for announcing the team and live up to it. The goal is to form a team for this project and have a pool of resources to draw from for later projects. It’s important to avoid alienating anyone during your team selection.
5. Inheriting a team
You may not have the luxury of selecting your own team. You may have the team member list handed to you. Do not skip the interviews! Even if you inherit a team, you still need to know what each member can do. The questions just covered can give you valuable insight into some cool skills available to you. You may also find that the team is incomplete. Ask to augment the team. Fill in the missing areas. Remember that you’re on the hook. If the project fails, it’s the project manager’s fault. Go in prepared.
If you do add new team members, take the time to make sure that each member feels equally important. You don’t want the original members to feel that you added to the team because you distrusted them. They were on the original team for some reason. Whether a team member made the team due to skill or being a relative of the CEO, use the skills you find.
The success of the project reflects directly upon you, the project manager, so make every effort to assemble the best team you can.
After you’ve outlined the process and set your team, you’re ready to draw the 20,000-foot view.
Don’t overlook the importance of personality to team composition. You may be spending lots of time together. Build the team with interesting and stimulating folks (as long as they fit your selection criteria) and you’ll be more productive - and have lots more fun!
Dumouchel, J. Robert. Government Assistance Almanac. Detroit: Omnigraphics, Inc.
Edwards, Charles J. and James V. Shuster, eds. Guide to Federal Funding for Governments and
Nonprofits, 2 vols. Arlington, VA: Government Information Services.
Federal Register. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration.
U.S. Office of Management and Budget. Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Keep in mind: Lack of good information is one obstacle to finding the right government funding agency. There may be a great deal of information on federal funding programs, but much of it is confusing and contradictory. Call the agency in question before applying for government funding in order to obtain the most up-to-date information on the program.
Bergan, Helen. Where the Money Is: A Fund Raiser’s Guide to the Rich. Alexandria, VA: BioGuide Press.
BoardLink [CD-ROM]. Detroit: The Taft Group.
Glynn, Jeanette. Who Knows Who: Networking Through Corporate Boards. Berkeley, CA: Who Knows Who Publishers.
Index to Marquis Who’s Who Publications. New Providence, NJ: Reed Reference Publishing.
Reference Book of Corporate Management. Bethlehem, PA: Dun & Bradstreet Corporation.
Social Register. New York: Social Register Association.
Standard & Poor’s Register of Corporations, Directors and Executives, Vol. 2. New York: Standard & Poor’s.
Who’s Who in America. New Providence, NJ: Reed Reference Publishing.
If the individual you are researching is not connected to a foundation, you may still be able to find information regarding his or her personal wealth, corporate interests, or charitable donations by referring to the resources listed above. A number of online databases provide extensive biographical information. You can access these with your personal computer and modem, or inquire whether the library you are using performs computer searches for patrons.
Corporate 500: The Directory of Corporate Philanthropy. San Francisco: datarex corporation [sic].
Corporate Foundation Profiles. New York: The Foundation Center.
Corporate Giving Directory. Detroit: The Taft Group.
Directory of International Corporate Giving in America and Abroad. Detroit: The Taft Group.
National Directory of Corporate Giving. New York: The Foundation Center.
National Directory of Corporate Public Affairs. Washington, D.C.: Columbia Books, Inc.
Keep in mind: Corporations may give by means of a company-sponsored foundation (in which case they file Form 990-PF, as other private foundations do) or by means of a separate corporate giving program (in which case it may be more difficult to get information), or both.
Corporate giving is almost always limited to programs of benefit to employees, their families, or residents of specific locations where the company conducts business. Geography plays a significant role in corporate grantmaking. Employee matching gift programs are increasingly common vehicles for giving.
Cash donations are not the only type of corporate support. Ask yourself: Can the project be handled as a business expense rather than a grant? Would in-kind support such as the donation of equipment, use of corporate facilities, printing, design services, or access to executive expertise be helpful to my nonprofit organization?
When approaching corporate grantmakers, always consider the self-interest of the funder. A proposal to a corporation should emphasize how its support of your project will help it achieve its goals.
Corporate Philanthropy Report and Corporate Giving Watch are two useful periodicals for keeping up to date on corporate giving.
If you want to change the world around you and think about non-for profit franchise than common sources of financing are not for you. I hope the following information will be useful:
Explore the Internet to learn about the many fundraising resources accessible there. Some of these include nonprofit organization Web sites, discussion lists, and newsgroups. Although locating information on the Web can be daunting at first, there are many helpful resources. Here are a few:
The Foundation Center
The Chronicle of Philanthropy
The Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP)
Actions without Borders
The Resource Alliance
I’ll speak about this using the equipment purchasing project. The company buys equipment at the beginning and to substitute the old one. So, the first thing you have to do is to determine your goals.
You could state the project goal as “Goal: To Buy a New Equipment.” That is way too general, though. Don’t stop with that. You haven’t set a deadline for buying the new equipment, you have no criteria for the productivity or capacity, and there is no mention of cost.
Hint: You need to examine the process involved in equipment buying to understand all the decisions you have to make to meet the goal.
One of the most common mistakes that can doom a project from the start is to state the goal in terms that are too general. By working through the equipment -buying process, you begin to see what you need to know before you can start to plan the project. It often helps to get some help from experts. In the equipment -buying example, there are at least two distinct steps of the process:
You can break each of these steps into multiple subcategories. For example, some subcategories for Step 1 might include the following:
After you outline your subcategories, proceed to purchase if you find equipment that meets your criteria. If not, select alternate equipment.
Subcategories for Step 2 might include the following:
And the subcategory borrow money has its own subcategories:
Your outline, or map, of the process can quickly expand to many levels. That’s okay. This process is called process mapping. You can see from this example that before you can plan the equipment -buying project, you need answers to the following questions:
After you have answers to these (and perhaps more) questions, you can develop an outcome statement that clearly states the project goal. For example:
“My goal is to buy a new equipment with the productivity …., capacity …, size…, at a cost of $XXX,XXX or less, using an 80 % borrowed money by October 31, 2006.”
Businessmen write business plans for different purposes. I want to turn attention of my beloved readers that the size, structure and contents of the document can differ in compliance with the purposes. So, why do people write business plans?
-to evaluate the effectiveness of their prospective business or project;
-for potential investors and partners;
-to apply for a loan;
-to apply for a government preferences;
- they need to have a business plan according to the legislation of the country.
Let me characterize every purpose by turn.
It’s a very good idea to do some calculations and evaluations before you start a business or a project. Sometimes people underestimate the necessity of business plan “for myself”. They say: I’ll do it later, after my business reaches its capacity. Or: I don’t want to waste time for papers; I’ll better start making money. Or even: I’ve planned everything in my mind; why should I spend time for paper work. But it’s a big mistake when new business or project starts without preliminary planning. Why? Because when you do the calculations you summarize all the facts and can see the whole picture. You’ll better see all the threats and opportunities. You will see the prospective profit: maybe it’s too small for you? You will get not approximate (like $10,000-$20,000) but real amount of initial and current investment.
But the main reason why new business or project has to start with a completed business plan is hidden in the following: after you start a company you will be able to catch the moment when things go not as you plan. If you get less you’ll see it before it turns to real trouble. If the things go better you can instantly start thinking about other project and earn more money with your extra profit!
When you write a business plan for your potential investors and partners you need to take into consideration the main statement: THEY CAN’T READ YOUR THOUGHTS! What does it mean? If you want to prevent problems and misunderstanding in future present as many aspects of your business as possible in the business plan. Remember: things that are completely clear for you are not the same for all the people on the Earth. Write about conditions and terms of supply, methods of salary calculation, way you choose the materials and equipment. Spending time this way can help to avoid many problems with investors and partners in future.
Also you need to remember that the main purpose of investor is profit. Unlike creditors investors are not seriously interested in collateral and payback period. They want you to show so-called ROI (return on investment) – in rate they’ll get on their investment per months or per other period of time.
When you create a business plan to get an external financing in the form of a loan or credit you need to show that your business will be enough successful cover both interest and loan itself. Creditors are not interested about the life and results of your business after the payback period but they will be very happy to see a good collateral.
If your business plan is presented to government authorities while you are trying to get some guarantees or preferences you need not only to show the financial results of the business. Tell them about the additional taxes they’ll receive, about new jobs created, about any other positive influence your company will have on the community. And don’t forget to write about the ecological site of your business (it’s an advantage when you business improves the ecological situation in the region in any way).
Before you start your business (either franchise or not) you need to lay the foundation. I’ve found rather interesting material about project management and business planning and want to share it with my readers with my comments. The material covers impressive project management feats — including some tactics that will dazzle coworkers, whether above or below you on the corporate ladder, helps to understand your project objectives and actually know how to meet each one and many other things.
Conventional project management states that you have three general variables in a project: schedule, budget, and quality. Pick the two you like best and let the others slide. In other words, most project managers and businessmen start their projects with the goal of being only mostly successful. What if you could get things done ahead of time (not just on time) and under budget (not just on budget)? What if you accomplished these feats while maintaining the desired quality? You would be a super project manager. To achieve this you need to know that organization is the key to successful project management and business.
You need to learn how to set goals and then reach them. You need to understand how meet your goals through well-timed and well-executed communication and decision making. As a result you will have the added benefit of being able to eliminate do-nothing meetings and time-wasting distractions ! Learning these skills will help you manage yourself, your team, and your business. Using these skills will ensure that your company’s effectiveness is recognized and rewarded. And this recognition is not only words but money, real money!