The Franchisee Interview: 20 Questions to Ask Before You Buy
The people already operating the franchise you're considering will tell you things no FDD, no broker, and no discovery day ever will. Here's exactly what to ask — and how to listen to the answers.
No document, no sales presentation, and no amount of online research will give you what a 20-minute phone call with a working franchisee can.
The franchisees listed in Item 20 of the Franchise Disclosure Document are real operators who made the same decision you're about to make. They're not trying to sell you anything. They don't have a commission riding on your purchase.
Most prospective buyers never call them. That gap — between the buyers who call and the buyers who don't — correlates strongly with the quality of franchise investment decisions.
Before You Call: A Few Principles
Call more than you think you need to. Call at least five current operators and two former ones. Ten is better.
Diversify who you call. Select franchisees in different geographic markets, at different tenure levels, and in different location types.
Also call the former franchisees. Item 20 lists franchisees who left the system in the past fiscal year. These conversations are often the most revealing.
Let the conversation breathe. The best information often comes in the second half of a call, after some rapport has developed. Don't rush through questions.
Take notes. Write down not just what people say but how they say it. Enthusiasm, hesitation, and emotional tone carry real information.
How to Open the Call
"Hi, my name is [your name]. I'm researching [Brand] as a potential franchise investment and I got your contact information from the Franchise Disclosure Document. I know this is coming out of the blue — I completely understand if you're not in a position to talk. But if you have 15 minutes or so, I'd really value your perspective as someone who's been operating the system."
The 20 Questions
Category 1: The Overall Investment Decision
1. Knowing everything you know now, would you make the same investment again? Listen not just to the yes or no, but to the hesitation, the qualifications, and the emotional weight behind the answer.
2. What do you wish you had known before you signed? This question surfaces the gap between what the franchise sales process communicates and what operating the business actually involves.
3. If a close friend asked for your honest advice about buying this franchise, what would you tell them? The "close friend" framing invites honesty in a way that direct questions sometimes don't.
Category 2: Financial Performance and Earnings
4. Is your location performing in line with what you expected going in? This opens the financial conversation without asking for specific numbers upfront.
5. Were the earnings figures in the FDD consistent with your actual experience? This is the key question for validating Item 19 data.
6. What was your actual total investment to get open, compared to what the FDD showed? Item 7 investment ranges frequently underestimate real-world costs.
7. How long did it take you to reach break-even? The ramp period is one of the most important financial variables and one of the least disclosed.
8. Are there any ongoing costs that surprised you — things you didn't fully account for before you opened? Required technology platforms, escalating supply costs, unexpected maintenance — the surprises that cost franchisees money are worth knowing about.
Category 3: The Franchisor Relationship
9. How responsive is corporate support when you have an operational problem? Franchise support quality varies enormously across systems.
10. Has the quality or responsiveness of corporate support changed in the last year or two? This surfaces recent trends that the FDD won't show.
11. Do you feel like the franchisor is a genuine partner in your success, or more of a compliance monitor? This gets at the cultural texture of the franchisee-franchisor relationship.
12. Have you ever had a significant disagreement with corporate — and if so, how was it handled? How the franchisor handles conflict tells you something important about how the relationship will work long-term.
Category 4: The Business Model
13. What's harder about running this business than you expected? This reliably surfaces the operational realities that the sales process underemphasizes.
14. What aspects of the business have been better than you expected? Balance matters. Understanding genuine positives gives you a complete picture.
15. How do you feel about the required supplier relationships? Do you feel they work in your favor? Mandatory supplier relationships are a significant source of franchisee frustration in some systems.
16. Has the brand introduced any required changes in the past two years — new technology, remodeling, menu changes — and how did those go? Understanding how recent transitions were managed gives you a window into how the franchisor executes.
Category 5: The Future
17. Do you plan to renew when your term ends? And if you're comfortable sharing — why or why not? A franchisee who is planning to renew is implicitly voting that the investment is still worthwhile.
18. Are you planning to open additional locations? Multi-unit expansion is perhaps the strongest positive signal in a franchisee interview. People who are losing money do not open second units.
19. Are there any ongoing issues in the franchisee community that you think I should know about? Issues that multiple franchisees independently raise on this question are almost always real.
20. Is there anything I haven't asked that you think I should know before making this decision? End every call with this question. It's remarkable how often the most important piece of information comes out here.
Listening for Patterns
One franchisee with a complaint is an anecdote. Five franchisees raising the same issue independently is a pattern. Patterns are what matter.
As you conduct multiple interviews, track the themes that recur. If three separate franchisees, unprompted, express frustration with the same required technology platform, that's not coincidence.
A Note on Former Franchisees
The conversations with people listed in the prior-year departures section of Item 20 will often be the most candid. These are people who have already moved on. They have no ongoing relationship to protect.
Ask them simply: what led to you leaving the system? What would you tell someone considering buying this franchise today?
FranScout analyzes Franchise Disclosure Documents so you know what to look for before you make your first call. Our scored reports surface the system health metrics, earnings transparency grades, and franchisor financial data that should frame every franchisee conversation. Explore our franchise reports →