NobleProg Franchise Frequently Asked Questions by a Prospect Franchisee

General Questions

Q: How a typical business day of a Franchisee looks like?

If you start a franchisee without employing anyone you usually will be:

• Answering phones and replying to emails from prospect clients
• Calling trainers and setting up dates of the courses
• Booking classrooms, preparing computers (if applicable)
• Advertising the courses you want to sell on your local newsgroups, web pages, news-papers, etc...
• Sending newsletters to people who subscribed (discount and promotions, etc...)
• Participating or providing courses you have organized and control quality of services

Q: What are the steps of the Franchise Investigation Process?

1. Initial Interview
2. Qualification check
3. Reviewing Franchise Agreement
4. Franchisee Validation, Data Gathering, and Analysis
5. Yes/No Decision

Q: What are the steps after acceptance?

1. Setting up system accounts
2. Initial Training
3. Post-training consultancy

Q: Can I provide other services in addition to NobleProg Franchise?

The simple answer is no. You can own other companies, but they should not compete with the NobleProg business.
All income earned by the company designated in the franchisee agreementis liable for appropriate commission fees stated in the Franchise agreement.

Q: How much of an initial costs do I have to prepare to start the Franchise?

The total costs at the beginning are made of:

• Training Costs
• Franchise Fee

In total £25000k

Extra small fees for emails, stationary, will be needed as well

Q: Is it possible to have exclusivity in a specific area (geographical location, area of expertise)?

The standard Franchise agreement does not offer exclusivity.
If you are a franchisee for at least a year, we can negotiate an exclusivity in certain areas.

Q: How long does it take to start the whole business?

Due diligence process can take a couple of weeks.
If you have a registered limited company, it is a matter of 5-day course and you can start your business after that.

Q: Do I have to have an office at the start?

No, you can work from home providing that you have a phone line and fast Internet connection. Please mind that in certain areas we will require some franchisees to rent/buy and office.

Finance, income, costs and profit

Q: How long do I need to wait for the first income and profit?

Depends of the area and season (training industry is highly seasonal) it takes around 3 months to produce first profit. Within a year you should be brake even. So far all our franchisees made a profit in the first month.

Q: What are the fix annual costs  of running a small franchise?

We try to cut down on fixed costs as much as possible in order to be recession proof.
The example of running a franchise can be find below.
Minimum Fee to the Franchisor per year: £5000
Phone lines: £500
Emails, stationary, pens, business cards, etc.... £500
Total: £6000
Note that there might be other expenses involved like accountants expenses related to your specific area.

Market and Marketing

Q: What is the strategic plan and goals of the Franchisor?

It is available at: http://www.nobleprog.co.uk/strategic+plan

Q: What is history of the Franchisor? How did this franchise get started?

The company started by Bernard Szlachta in Poland in 2005. He was a trainer irritated by the low quality of the training businesses. He started deliver the courses himself, later he hired a training coordinator and hire more trainers. This cut down on the intermediaries between the trainer and the client. The informal franchise model has been running in Poland since 2006 and proved to be more efficient than standard "full time employees" company.
From 2007 we started our activities in the UK.
From 1st of August 2009 the informal agreement between NobleProg and people cooperating has been formalized and the put into franchise context.

Q: What is the number of units open and under development?

We have 3 Franchisees in Poland. We operate in the UK but not through franchisee (we are looking forward to change it).

Q: What markets are being targeted for development?

All developed countries with stable government and good legal system.

Q: Long-term growth objects? How many units does the company eventually want and over what time frame?

• Poland: max 24 franchisees
• United Kingdom: max 24 franchisees
• Ireland: max 4 franchisees
• Other countries will be decided by the Master Franchisees

Q: Have any unites failed? If so, how many and why?

None.

Q: What are the Services?

Training, Consultancy and Coaching.
If you need more information about type of course, please visit: www.nobleprog.co.uk/course+types

The list might be extended in the future.

Q: What makes NobleProg different from others?

• Simplicity
• Absolutely low fix costs
• Global scope (sharing costs, experience and knowledge with a lot of companies)
• Exceptional IT system
• Simple course development process

Q: What is NobleProg price strategy?

Public courses prices depend on many factors like number of people, booking time, location etc... The mathematical model will be explained during the initial training.

Franchisees usually split the profit 40/60, i.e. 60% for the services provider, 40% for themselves. It is up to franchisee though to adjust the prices to the local markets.

Q: How many employees does a franchise require?

At the beginning you can start yourself with freelance trainers. Later you will probably need training coordinators. Usually two to four permanent employees is enough for medium-sized area (1 mln people)

Q: Who is the competition?

• Newhorizons
• Learning Tree
• JBInternational
• GBDirect
• Other smaller companies, but we want them to join us rather to compete with them

Industry

Q: What is the size of the market?

The size of the IT training market in the UK is estimated around £1bln. Other course types (like management, HR, etc...) will close around £10bln.

Q: Is the demand for the services the same throughout the year?

No. The demand is seasonal. Depend of the type of the service or training it changes drastically.
For example, during the summer holiday period, there is little demand for training courses. In the end of the year, a lot of companies try to spend their budget, so the demand is much higher.

Q: Why this industry is attractive?

Retraining people is more and more important. The universities realized that they cannot keep-up with the pace of change. NobleProg, because of its flexibility, can. A lot of universities are our clients so we teach them what they pass later on their students.
You are always familiar with up-to date knowledge and technology. Being in the training industry gives you a unique opportunity to progress your career in any direction you want and learn the stuff you want.

Customers

Q: What is the demographics of clients.

People aged 25-50, already working in the specific industry. Either trying to improve their skills or retrain themselves to do a different job. We target to enter the markets for undergraduates and students in the near future.

Q: Buying Behaviours

Clients usually find us themselves (the person who buys is the delegate themselves) Detailed buying behaviours and type of clients are described in the NobleProg Franchise Manual.

Q: Why should they do business with your franchise?

• Personalized service
• Good organization
• The best quality for reasonable price
• Quality control and compensation in case of dissatisfaction

Selling Services

Q: How do you find customers?

Usually we do not find customers, they find us. As our primary tool we use online marketing tools. We advertise on many pages related to training courses, forums, newsgroups, etc...
Creating links to the outlines is very good option as well.
We use Google Adwords in order to promote certain courses.
Once the client has booked they usually select the option that they want to receive information about discount and promotions, so the longer in the business, the easier it gets.
Tenders are other ways of getting orders.

Q: Do I need to cold-call people?

We don't send any unsolicited emails, letters or we do not cold call people. They are banned explicitly in the NobleProg Franchise Manual.

Q: Advertising strategics, marketing strategies, PR, etc...

Apart of web site, sometimes you will be asked to promote NobleProg on regional fairs, conferences, etc...
Occasionally you will benefit from our PR work. PR can be done on the global level, as well as on the local one. All articles, interviews or other form of presenting NobleProg to wider audience should be coordinated with the Franchisor.

Location

Q: What type of location is needed?

It depends of the local demand. If in your geographical area or area of expertise most of the courses will be held on client premises, there is no need for having big office and training rooms. Sometimes even small home office is enough.
In the big cities, usually we require you to be near a train/metro/bus station and relatevily close to the centre or any other important area.
Some other location can be attractive to participants as well, like mountains resort, lakes, sea, etc..

Q: Do I need to buy the location?

No. Though in the long term it might be a good investment.

Q: Do a lot of changes to accommodate a location is needed?

It takes usually a couple of days to a couple of weeks to set everything up. You need comfortable chairs, desks and appropriate logo place in the foyer or reception. All the guidelines are written in the NobleProg Franchise Manual. It is a good idea to visit one of our existing offices.

Q: Successful franchisee?

Our franchisees come from completely different backgrounds. Some of them come from the training background, some of them used to be full-time employees, others where just small entrepreneurs. The most important traits are openness, empathy, dedication to work and teamwork.

Franchise Support

Q: Do you provide any location support

In some cases we can buy a property or rent one in your area. Please contact us for more details.

Q: Ongoing Training and Coaching

Unpaid Consultancy

You can have up to 8 hours free consultancy a month. This is stated in the Franchise Agreement.

Paid Consultancy

If you need more, the Franchisor can provide you with a consultant. The extra fee is charged in this case depends of type of consultant.

Review Meetings

During the review meetings the Franchisor will help you to understand what you did well and what wasn't the most efficient way.

Conferences

During the conferences you will be familiarized with the future plans, improvements and you will have a chance to discuss problems and opportunities common to many franchisee.

Ongoing Training

If there will be substantial changes in the way you conduct your business, the obligation of the Franchisor is to train you so you can utilize the new features and grasps the new opportunities.

Community Support

Remember that at NobleProg you are not alone. There are many people who might have experienced the same problems and probably discussed it on NobleProg Forums or other NobleProg Community resources.

Q: Business Process Database

You will have access to a database of all processes available at NobleProg. So you don't have to spend a lot of time thinking how to solve 99% of the situations you can encounter. The Business Processes Management Software allows you to learn, improve and master processes in a matter of days.

Q: How do you improve the system and process?

The Franchisee Agreement obliges you to contribute back any process or system improvements. We employ full time people (like Chief Innovation Officer) to implement the your suggestions in a matter of hours. It is related to the IT system as well as the business processes themselves.