Franchise help

[Inevitability]

hi myBB,
A group of friend and I are looking into buying a franchise (a restaurant/take-away like Nando's etc).
Thing is, we know NOTHING about the food industry and very little about running a business.
But we're not mucking about here... we're all very serious about this, and very determined to get it off the ground before the end of this year.
So my question is: I've heard alot about govt providing assistance to help small businesses develop and succeed.
We don't really need financial support cos we're basically throwing in our spare cash and we know it will be enough to cover the initial cost plus some working capital for the first few months.
What we DO need is some guidance and expertise on what to do to give ourselves a great chance of success, and what not to do so that we limit our chances of failure.

Where can I get this kind of advice/guidance/expertise?
Is there some brach of govt that does this?
I googled "SBDC" cos that's something i know used to exist, but my Google search found an article titled "Scrapping SBDC a huge mistake - Mboweni"!!

Any comments or suggestions, please?

 

[Messugga]

Look, I'm no expert, but from what I know, it's ridiculously difficult to buy into one of the more popular franchises. Also, expect to may in excess of R10mil for a McDonald's franchise, not that they'll sell you one because currently they only sell to existing owners.
Also, the more popular franchises tend to handle everything on your behalf. They don't want you to mess with their style/theme/decor nor food and such. You'll have to almost purely focus on management of staff and such.

 

[Inevitability]

Look, I'm no expert, but from what I know, it's ridiculously difficult to buy into one of the more popular franchises.

Yes, for sure... which is why we're looking into something under R1m. It will definitely limit our earning potential with a "samller brand", but it will also limit our potential loss were it to fail. Baby steps. Perhaps some day once we have some solid experience we might look into a bigger brand.

Also, the more popular franchises tend to handle everything on your behalf. They don't want you to mess with their style/theme/decor nor food and such. You'll have to almost purely focus on management of staff and such.

Indeed! Again, we're looking into a smaller brand and some of them don't have their processes 100% idiot-proofed. So this is exactly the kind of inormation/expertise I am looking for... the processes and practices that the bigger brands have in place to ensure high chance of success and virtually no chance of failure.