let’s talk about to open a franchise with no money so the first thing you can do, if you want to open a franchise with no money down is go to your friends and family look. I understand that that’s something that you may not want to do sometimes that’s a toughest conversation asking friends and family for money but I would assume if you’re willing to open a franchise and you have some skill sets you have a certain level of intelligence and a certain level of ambition so assuming that you have a good reputation and a good rapport with your friends and family then that’s the first place that you can go to get money to fund your franchise.

Now when you’re approaching them for the money it’s important to be tactical and strategic about it and you don’t just say hey! can I borrow ten thousand dollars can I borrow twenty thousand dollars can I have fifty thousand dollars you have to go into it strategically so go into it with a business plan this is the franchise that I want to buy this is the amount of money that I need to get started this is a lot the amount of money that I think I will make with the franchise this is the time period which I can pay the money back to you and get on that loan repayment plan, another way to approach getting money from feds and friends and family to fund your franchise is to ask them to be a partner with you so although they may not want to work in the franchise themselves maybe they’re more willing to give you money or lend you money for the franchise if they are an owner or an investor with you so maybe you’re the one that runs the franchise and you handle the day-to-day operations the sales managing the staff managing the overall business and they get a percentage of the profits as a way of paying them back.

The next way that you can fund a franchise is to get a loan and before you read about that real quick with the franchise so now in getting a loan to open a franchise business it’s important to note that one you’re going to need to have good credit and two you’re going to need to have an income that can support paying back. The loan and three the likelihood is you are still going to need money for the down payment on that loan if you get us an SBA loan which is Small Business Administration they require a minimum of 10% down from you in order to fund that business so what does that mean if you need $100,000 for your franchise business then that means you need to come up with $10,000 in order to here that loan so the question is how will you come up with that $10,000 and there’s a number of options that we’ll go over in a second of how you can do that one way you can do that is what we already talked about which is getting money from friends or family it’s so even with the Small Business Administration having a ten percent minimum requirement that you have to put towards the loan in order to open a business.

Most lenders that issue SBA loans are going to require anywhere from 20% to 30% in order for you to secure that loan so again in that example if you’re looking to open up a business that’s a total of $100,000 you’re going to have to figure out a way to come up with twenty to thirty thousand dollars in order to secure that loan and so in a second I’m going to tell you about a strategy of exactly how you can do that without having to ask your friends or family for money another way that you can fund a franchise without having any money so to say is seeing if you have any 401k or retirement plans now as someone who has managed over a hundred million dollars over the course of career as a financial advisor typically. I would not recommend for someone to take money out of their 401k and that’s not what I’m recommending to you. So, I want to make sure that you get that clear because there are severe penalties and tax consequences that you should consult the tax advisor about but there are ways that you can leverage your 401k so if you’re still working with your employer you can take out a loan against your 401k in order to fund a business and when you take out a loan there’s one thing that you have to be very careful about the thing that you have to be careful about is that if you leave that employer and you have an outstanding loan they are going to make you repay that loan within a certain period of time usually it’s 60 days if that is the case if you don’t come up with the money and repay the loan for the 401k they count it as an early distribution you’re going to have to pay taxes on that money depending upon if it’s a pre-tax 401k and you may have to pay some penalties. 2 guys opened up first location they were going to need 300 just over $300,000 in order to get first location open so they had a significant equity in their home at that time and want to went ahead and apply for a home equity loan they secured a three hundred and ten thousand dollar home equity loan use that home equity loan to fund the business and to pay for the business about a year or so later they actually wind up moving they sold their house the home equity loan was paid for paid off and now they own the franchise in the business completely outright don’t have any loans on the business and then the last way that you can potentially buy or open a franchise with absolutely no money is to talk to the franchiser again it’s not about the resources it’s about your resourcefulness so it never hurts to ask them and to make a pitch if you’re truly excited and confident about the opportunity.

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