One of the simplest ways of starting a business is to buy a franchise. These are usually sold by suppliers of well-known products or services in order to expand their user base without investing in more staff, bricks and mortar etc. It’s also a good way of increasing cash flow.

Franchises can represent a good deal for a startup business. Typically, the franchising business will provide product, literature, national advertising, links to potential customers, and much else. All for a price, of course.

What to look out for when buying a franchise

1. Make sure you have a solid business plan in which you have budgeted for your living expenses and management fees.

2. You may have to borrow from a bank, but expect to commit about one-third of the total cost yourself.

3. The franchisor should know the business and its prospects better than you, so take their projections seriously.

4. See if you are eligible to secure any loan through the UK Government’s Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme, if you are in the UK. Other countries may have similar schemes.

5. If you are not satisfied with the information you are given by the seller, walk on by.

Tomorrow we’ll look at what you need to do before you sign on the dotted line.

If you are buying an existing business as a way to avoid the uncertainties of the startup phase, you’ll need to do “due diligence” on it before committing yourself and your investors to the deal. So, what is due diligence?

Essentially it’s the process of going through the books, examining current trading information, details of investment plans, commitments and liabilities. It should give an indication of any flaws in the setup, any skeletons in the cupboard.

For a listed company, it can ensure that shareholders receive the highest price and set off an auction process. It is disruptive to the target company which has no certainty that anything at all will come of the process.

Most companies like to keep closed books so that sensitive information doesn’t fall into the hands of rival firms who may just be fishing for confidential data.

The system isn’t foolproof either, in that investigating lawyers and accountants can run up huge bills without guarantee of accuracy.

Additionally, in the new world order, after Enron, we know that some companies have kept a second, secret set of accounts.

But for buying small-to-medium businesses, it would be unthinkable to go ahead without some form of due diligence, if only by the prospective buyers themselves.

In the UK, shares included in the FTSE 100 are around 5pc down on an April high. However, The Financial Mail is following a stategy that counters this trend:

The Dogs of the Footsie approach is based on a theory conceived by American fund manager Michael O’Higgins. We buy shares in the ten Footsie companies with the highest percentage yield — their predicted annual dividends divided by current share price.

Then, every three months or so, we check to see how the list of top ten yielders has changed. Companies might drop out because their share prices have risen or forecast dividends have been cut ; and they might move into the top ten if dividend forecasts have increased or their share prices have fallen.

We sell shares in the companies that drop out and reinvest that money equally in companies that have moved into the top ten.

In assessing the performance of our investments, we look only at share price. We do not take into account dividend income received.

Since the Mail’s portfolio was launched in 2001, the Footsie 100 has risen about 4pc, so an investment of 10,000 units would now be worth 10,400 units.

On the same basis, however, the Mail’s portfolio would be worth 17,493, a gain of almost 75pc.

It seems like Dogs really do run faster.

The problem with sending email newsletters to your customers has always been that different states have different requirements.

In the US, Federal laws defining allowed practices for email marketers, which includes email newsletters, are detailed and precise. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulates what is know as the CAN-SPAM law. At present though, state laws are causing more concern, particularly in Michigan and Utah. I’ll begin with these :

New laws in Michigan and Utah for child protection carry custodial sentences for even inadvertent non-compliance.

In essence, the problem is : The states of Michigan and Utah have passed child protection laws with “Do Not Email” registries for individuals to enter minors’ email addresses. Marketers potentially face stiff fines as well as time in prison if they send email to a registered minor’s address and the email contains material, or links to material, which children may not legally see or respond to. If you send commercial email, of any type, and you don’t check the address against the registry before you send it you are potentially liable.

The laws are not clear on what products or services a minor is prohibited from purchasing, viewing, possessing, participating in, or otherwise receiving. However, the State of Utah’s Department of Commerce is attempting to add further definition to what types of advertisements are covered. There’s a pdf here.

The only way to avoid liability is to check every address in your email list against the Michigan and Utah registries before you send them an email.

The fees to start are expected to be 0.007 cents for Michigan and 0.005 cents for Utah per address on your list. The costs for a 100,000 name list will be $1200 per pass. So you’ll need to check each new subscriber as they come, plus the whole list every 30 days. For a 10,000 list which acquires say 100 new subscribers a month. The cost will be $121.20 monthly. A 50,000 list with 500 new subscribers would be $606 monthly. Not cheap.

Any business anywhere in the world with a presence in the US needs to follow these laws. This law does not just apply to businesses in Michigan and Utah, it effects all businesses with a presence in any of the 50 US states.

These are the main provisions of the Federal law :

It bans false or misleading header information. Your email’s “From,” “To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person who initiated the email.

It prohibits deceptive subject lines. The subject line cannot mislead the recipient about the contents or subject matter of the message.

It requires that your email give recipients an opt-out method. You must provide a return email address or another Internet-based response mechanism that allows a recipient to ask you not to send future email messages to that email address, and you must honor the requests. You may create a “menu” of choices to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to end any commercial messages from the sender.

Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your commercial email. When you receive an opt-out request, the law gives you 10 business days to stop sending email to the requestor’s email address. You cannot help another entity send email to that address, or have another entity send email on your behalf to that address. Finally, it’s illegal for you to sell or transfer the email addresses of people who choose not to receive your email, even in the form of a mailing list, unless you transfer the addresses so another entity can comply with the law.

It requires that commercial email be identified as an advertisement and include the sender’s valid physical postal address. Your message must contain clear and conspicuous notice that the message is an advertisement or solicitation and that the recipient can opt out of receiving more commercial email from you. It also must include your valid physical postal address.

Fines can be up to $11,000 for each violation, but may also impact other laws, so can be progressively higher, or even custodial.