Inc.Magazine has a great article on the 5 Biggest Mistakes People Make When Buying a Franchise.

The one I want to touch on in this post is #4 – Not learning how to implement the franchise system. All too often, would be franchise owners think they are “buying their own business.” This is not really true. What you are really buying is a franchise system. (Well, at least you hope it is a system because far too many franchises have no system at all but that’s for a different blog post). You will need to implement the system and training programs into the business. But make no mistake – the franchisor is not interested in your plans to change their system or develop your own system. They are looking for you to run THEIR system. If you can’t do that franchising is definitely not for you.

I encourage you to read the full Inc. article.