Buying a Franchise May Be the Best Way to Start a Business

...especially if you have no business experience. Many franchises are turnkey operations, so you can literally walk through the door and start running your own business.

And well-known franchises offer the unbeatable advantage of providing "built-in" customers; the company and products are already well-known to the target market. Other advantages of buying a franchise rather than another business or building your own business from scratch include:

• training - The company will train you to manage the franchise. Some companies also offer staff training programs.
• company marketing - In some cases, the marketing will be done for you. At the very least, you'll get advice on how to market your new business.
• possible financing - Some companies will help finance the build-out costs for a new franchise location, for instance.

What's the downside? In my opinion, it's the fact that you're told what to do and sometimes exactly how and when to do it. If you can tolerate that, though, buying a franchise can give you a real edge when you're starting a business. In fact, I chose fast food franchises as one of my Best Business Opportunities of 2009.

Read more about the advantages and disadvantages of buying a franchise in Should You Buy a Franchise?

And what's the top franchise right now? Subway, according to Entrepreneur Magazine. You can see the rest of their top ten franchises list and a review of Subway on About Franchising Guide Don Daszkowski's blog.

(Entrepreneur Magazine is American; while Subway operates in Canada, not all the franchises on the list do.)