If you’re in the mar­ket to buy a busi­ness you can either buy a fran­chise or buy an exist­ing busi­ness. Or you can just cut to the chase and start your own. If you’re a busi­ness owner and want to sell, then you can place your busi­ness on the mar­ket and either sell your stock or mem­ber­ship in the com­pany or you can sell its assets.

If you buy a fran­chise, you con­tact the fran­chisor, get a fran­chise dis­clo­sure doc­u­ment, and nego­ti­ate a fran­chise agree­ment. When the deal is done you’ll have a license to use the franchisor’s trade­marks, oper­at­ing man­u­als, adver­tis­ing rights, exclu­sive geo­graphic rights, and train­ing ben­e­fits in exchange for a fee which is nor­mally a per­cent­age of the gross prof­its. Nor­mally, a buyer sets up an LLC or cor­po­ra­tion to run the fran­chise. If you’re a buyer and want to pur­chase an exist­ing busi­ness, then you nor­mally sign a con­fi­den­tial­ity agree­ment, research the busi­ness, some­times sign a let­ter of intent with the seller, nego­ti­ate a pur­chase and sale agree­ment, then close the deal.