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Two new reports on franchise funding give mixed feelings on the present state of the credit markets for prospective franchisees. We know the IFA had projected small gains for the franchising sector for 2010, and this reports more or less confirm that forecast.

Medill Reports has an insightful profile of SBA loans, describing the boost that some of them have gotten from President Obama’s stimulus plan. It examines Tony Rackstraw, president of SkyTech, a Chicago-based small security business. Rackstraw needed $300,000 of capital and found it via the SBA.

Marianne Markowitz, regional administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration cast a generally positive look at the industry.

“Now that the bigger banks are committing more, we are in good shape going into 2010,” she added.

Meanwhile, speaking strictly about franchising, the Kansas City Star has an interesting take on the industry. Their view of franchising in the Midwest is that franchising remains an outstanding business concept, but hurdles still remain for achieving funding.

The piece profiles Anna Gepson, who just bought an Aussie Pet Mobile franchise.

Aussie Pet Mobile franchise in 2006. Gepson worked with an accountant and an attorney to set up a self-directed 401(k).

The franchise fee, three months of marketing expenses, a van and equipment came to around $100,000 — which was a surprise to Gepson.

“I thought you had to have a million dollars in the bank to start a business,” she said.

The story reminds aspiring franchisees to keep in mind that every entrepreneur must pay a franchisee fee. But if you can get the funding you need, there’s a lot of different franchises to choose from.

We’ve published a range of exciting studies on franchising in the last number of months here at Franchise Direct, but our latest one marks a sort of milestone.

Franchise Direct has just released the definitive study on food franchising. After conducting some exhaustive research, we are excited to announce the publication of six brand-new reports on various food franchise sectors. Add these to our reports on pizza, ice cream and coffee franchising that were released last year and we’re proud to say that Franchise Direct has now produced the internet’s most comprehensive and insightful examination of food franchising.

Here’s why this matters- when people think of franchising, they think of food. Franchising has spread as a global economic concept thanks to the likes of Subway and Domino’s. Investors will always be excited by restaurants. Many people want to know how to how open a food franchise and how much it costs. We can now give you a snapshot of this whole diverse industry.

We have broken the industry into a number of sub-divisions and published brand-new studies on full service, fast food, fast casual, retail food, health food and take-out and delivery food franchises. These reports are based on the Franchise Disclosure Documents (FDD) of numerous franchises in each sector, plus some additional research.

These reports will give you all of the essential information you’ll need before investing in a food franchise. You’ll find up-to-date financial statistics on each sector, plus reporting on the rise of the health food restaurant and the enduring popularity of retail food distribution. There is also invaluable franchise-specific economic data taken from FDD’s that will tell you how many franchises are currently faring.

All entrepreneurs are told to do their homework before purchasing a franchise. Franchise Direct’s exclusive food reports take the hassle out of this research and make finding out about food franchising easier than ever before. There’s a lot of unique material here. Dig into these repots today.

Lists have been probably the biggest trend in blogging over the last few years. Especially if you’re a fan of small-business related topics, a day rarely passes without encountering ‘The 50 Things You Need to Know About Social Networking’ or ‘92 Tips To Make Twitter Work Better For You.

Now, we’re all grateful to receive sound business advice, but today’s franchisees and small business owners are strapped for time. But what if you could pool a number of small business experts and get the one piece of advice that every entrepreneur needs to make profits this year?

Anita Campbell, founder of the Small Business Trends website has thankfully done exactly that in an article for the Open Forum website. There’s lots of insight here as she solicits everyone from an SEO expert to a software executive for wisdom. Of course, everyone offers quite different advice, but it’s refreshing to see small business advice distilled and focused as it here.

Ultimately, we really liked the advice that Campell herself offers at the end of the story;

“In 2010 develop and use an executive dashboard, with key metrics, so you can work ‘on’ your business instead of ‘in’ your business. Stepping back and examining your business through numbers will make you focus on problem areas, and find opportunities to improve. Some of the key metrics I am going to pay better attention to are: gross margin; customer acquisition (or in my case, reader acquisition) cost; cost of goods sold; and marketing expenses.”

Not many were expecting Republican Scott Brown to sweep to victory in the senatorial election in the staunchly liberal state of Massachusetts last week. But, as the dust clears, it seems Brown’s election could have unforeseen ramifications for small businesses and franchises up and down the country.

Brown’s election means that there is one less Democrat in the Senate, which reduces the party’s ability to pass legislation without filibuster. With President Obama’s massive new health care plan facing a vote in the Senate, Brown’s election means that many strands of the bill will have to be renegotiated. The IFA thinks this is good news.

“Our message all along was to start over,” said David French, vice president of government affairs of the IFA, told Nation’s Restaurant News magazine.

“We believe the White House and congressional leadership have crafted a package that is profoundly unpopular and damaging to small businesses. But we see the Massachusetts result as an opportunity to finally get Congress’ attention.”

Now regardless of what side of the political aisle you fall on, it was obvious that this new health care bill was going to make operating a small business even harder than it is already. Perhaps the voters of Massachusetts have done franchisees a favor by electing Brown.

We’ll be following the developments with the health care bill in detail. Here’s hoping that a bill that better meets the interests of America’s small business owners reaches the President’s desk in the Oval Office.

How will the pet franchise sector fare in the changing business waters of the new decade? It’s a question on many minds, as pet franchises have rapidly grown in the past decade.

Laura Bennett has written a very detailed forecast of the 11 trends that will shape the pet franchise sector in 2010 over at the Small Business Trends website. The prognosis seems to be that economy will still, of course, play a major role in the development of the sector. As a result, franchisors and franchisees will have to be more self-critical of how their business operates.

But just because times are hard, it doesn’t mean that people will abandon their pets entirely. In fact, as America’s pet population ages, Ms Bennett predicts that there will more money spent on supplies and medicine and that pet insurance will become more common. Ms Benett also suggests an interesting phenomenon called ‘pet health care’ that might be the next pet big franchising sector.

She also predicts social media outlets like blogs and Twitter to play a greater role in defining the pet services and businesses that will survive this hard economic moment.

These are interesting times for pet lovers. We’ll be watching how the industry fares in the coming months.