Anyone who think that franchising provides you the easy answer to owning your own business needs to think again. It isincredibly rewarding, but still very hard work.

Our business efforts were rewarded with Silver in the British Franchise of the Year Awards, organised by the BFA. I was delighted to be asked to enter the competition by my Franchisors. Whilst it was hard work putting together the entry and then presentation, it was actually a great exercise for reviewing my business and seeing what we had achieved in the last five years.

The theme of the event was 'Managing your Business in a Recession' and it certainly made me reflect on whether we had made changes to the business within the economic climate and how effective those changes had been. I looked at the areas of Human Resources, relationships with our suppliers, our customer service levels, retention rates, marketing and obviously, our margins. Whilst I was making changes to the business, entering the competition really made me realize what I had done well and what I could have done better.

Working within a franchise organisation definitely has its advantages. There's a structure in place, products and processes have been tried and tested and the franchisor is always there to help.

When you first start out make sure you do your homework in terms of understanding your responsibility to the franchisor (and their responsibilities to you). It's also really invaluable to have spoken to existing franchisees. And a sure sign of a bad franchise is if the franchisor is not particularly happy for you to do so.

You'll need to put together a business plan, research your product within the relevant marketplace and the territory in which you plan to operate. Make sure you use all the free resources available to you, eg through Business Link, your bank manager and the BFA. There's a lot of excellent free advice available, such as help on putting together a business plan with Business Link.

Create a six month, one year and two year business plan for what you want to achieve, but don't be afraid to review and change them regularly. It's often true that you may want to run before you can walk and it is good to be ambitious, but do break your tasks into small chunks and systematically do them, one at a time.

It's also very important to recognise what your strengths and what you need to work at. Having done a personal business skills audit, you should plan to employ people who can fill in within the areas in which you are weak - bookkeeping is often a classic area where this applies.

However, you can't simply hand over all responsibility in this respect. It's vital you still understand every area of your business - and you must constantly work to ensure you do. And, if you're struggling with anything, never be afraid to ask - learning is a ongoing process for all of us, and vital in seeing your business grow.

Lastly, it's important to reward yourself. Give yourself a realistic business target and if you achieve it, make sure you reward yourself - it's likely that no-one else will! So often, you're so wrapped up in the daily stresses of running your business, that it's often the case that you never take the time to review all your achievements and then actually celebrate them.

Running your own business is much harder than you can ever imagine, but also incredibly rewarding. There's no boss to report to if you decide to nip off for a coffee with friends after dropping your kids at the school gate. No-one to mind if you decide to work a Friday evening instead of a Wednesday afternoon.

From my experience, running your own business within a close-knit franchise is possibly even better again. After all, it instantly introduces you to a group of like-minded people who all completely empathise with what it is you're trying to do, and share so many of your aspirations and business interests.

During the 5 years running my water Babies franchise, I would say that my greatest achievement is reaching my targets ahead of time and my greatest learning experience has been expanding my knowledge about child development.

Overall, when I look at my clients, my staff and my franchisor, I'd say that the best thing of all has been working with such great people and making new friends - however no-one told me the smell of chlorine would become my eau du parfum!

For more information please visit www.waterbabies.co.uk [1]