Put your franchise recruitment terms in writing

Recruitment is often the stage where expectations are formed, but not always documented clearly. If the terms around fees, next steps, confidentiality, brand use or candidate obligations are vague, problems can start before a franchise agreement is even signed. A dedicated recruitment document can help set the ground rules for how prospects engage with your franchise system. It is especially useful where you have a repeatable recruitment process, charge upfront amounts, or share sensitive operational information during discussions.

They commonly cover the recruitment pathway, eligibility or approval steps, any application or onboarding fees, what information is disclosed to candidates, confidentiality around manuals or business information, limits on use of your brand during recruitment, and what happens if a candidate does not proceed. Depending on your model, the document may also address deposits, interview or assessment stages, cooling-off style commercial expectations, and who bears certain pre-signing costs. The exact wording depends on whether you are acting as franchisor or reviewing terms from the franchisee side.

Important details include how you recruit franchisees, whether you use brokers or internal staff, what documents are shared before signing, whether any upfront payments are taken, and how much control you want over brand messaging during recruitment. It also matters whether candidates are given access to confidential know-how, training previews or site selection support before the main franchise agreement is entered into. Those practical points shape the wording, because recruitment risk usually sits in the gap between early discussions and the final franchise deal.

A generic template may be too broad or may miss the way your franchise actually recruits. For example, it might not deal properly with candidate screening, refundable versus non-refundable amounts, use of trade marks in promotional discussions, or the point at which confidential material is shared. If your process includes interviews, territory discussions, disclosure material or staged payments, a more specific document is usually the safer option. Tailored drafting can also help avoid overlap or inconsistency with your franchise agreement and related onboarding documents.

Once you provide your instructions, we review the recruitment setup and prepare the document around your proposed process. Timing depends on how settled your commercial position is and whether there are existing franchise documents we need to align with. If key points such as fees, disclosure steps or approval stages are still changing, that can affect turnaround. The service includes the drafting work described on this page and amendments within scope, but not ongoing representation after the document is completed.

Just submit an enquiry via this page or click the 'get started' button on our website to submit an enquiry. After you've submitted an enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review your enquiry within 1 business day and get in touch to get a better idea of exactly what you are looking for.

Then your legal consultant will send through an email with a bit more information about the services you need, along with a fixed fee quote setting out costs, scope of the service and timing. Have a read through it, and if you're happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online - easy!

Once you've formally accepted, we'll connect you with a specialist lawyer and they will work with you to complete your project. They will contact you by email or phone if they need to get in touch.

Sprintlaw works on fixed-fee pricing wherever possible, so you can review the scope and cost before you decide whether to proceed. For the Franchise Recruitment Terms service, pricing starts from $900.00.

After you enquire, a legal consultant will confirm what is included, the expected timing and whether any extra work is needed before you engage us.

We operate completely online, which means we can help you wherever you are in New Zealand. We have office spaces in Sydney, and in Melbourne, but our use of technology allows our team members to work remotely from around the world. Our legal team are mostly based in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. We also have a London office for Sprintlaw UK.

Our legal team is made up of experienced lawyers, who are specialists in various areas of law and hold an Australian legal practising certificate. None of our Sprintlaw lawyers are New Zealand qualified lawyers and they do not currently hold a New Zealand practising certificate.

They provide legal services working remotely from Australia via our 'legal consultancy' model, through which (under section 6 and section 35 of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006) our Australian legal team are permitted to provide legal services to New Zealand businesses provided they do not provide services in certain 'reserved' areas of law. You can read our FAQ page to learn a bit more about our 'legal consultancy' model.

Given the strong similarities between Australian and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (being small business and startup law), we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Our legal team have all trained at leading firms, but have left the traditional corporate law world to join us on our mission to create a new and better way of delivering legal services. They have specialist expertise in technology law, intellectual property law, contract drafting and review, corporate law and commercial law.