Are you ready to ride the wave and take your franchise brand overseas? Before you do, here are three considerations you should make before taking the plunge.

1. Evaluate your current franchise structure. You need to make sure you have a system that is healthy and profitable. You must be supporting your unit owners with training, marketing and brand development. You should have systems in place to quickly resolve operational and distribution issues that arise. Overall, you should be very confident your system can work anywhere.

2. Have a development plan. Conduct the research and develop a plan that will position your brand for success in a foreign market. First, make sure your concept is wanted and adaptable to other cultures. Also, have a concrete expansion plan, based on targeted regions and countries. Much like domestic expansion, you may want to consider targeting a region and growing from a central point, as opposed to scatter shooting across the globe.

3. Be aware of all the capital requirements. Planning to expand overseas requires more resources than expanding domestically, in most cases. Travel costs, international legal fees, communications and translation fees are just a few of the added expenses to go overseas. Additionally, interpreting the various franchise laws around the world will require additional expenses when you are conducting research. Make sure you know what your complete costs are; it’s more than just lead acquisition.

While developing overseas can open new markets, make sure you take into account some basic factors before making the decision to move ahead.