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When you are a franchisee, you are not at the bottom of the corporate food chain. Far from it. You are the eyes and ears of your business, responsible for instituting the innovations that will drive the franchise forward.

This is not just corporate cheerleading. These are established lessons. Consider the story of Subway franchisee Stuart Frankel, which was recently featured in Business Week magazine. You wouldn’t expect a man who owns two South Florida franchises to institute one of the biggest eating crazes in America, but Stuart had a big idea.

He’s the guy, who realizing that business slowed substantially on the weekends, cut a dollar off the foot-long sub at his restaurants. He tells Business Week it’s because he likes round numbers. Whatever the reason, you can now buy a $5 foot-long sub in every town and city in America these days. It has generated $3.8billion for the company. For this genius innovation, Subway has to thank not its armies of market researchers nor its well-paid corporate executives, but a franchisee at a grassroots level who sensed a new niche for his business and had the courage and inventiveness to satisfy it.

“The whole thing took on a life of its own,” Jeff Moody, CEO of Subway’s franchise-owned advertising arm, the Subway Franchisee Advertising Fund Trust, told Business Week.

Business Week’s story is quite insightful as to how franchisees can bring about huge profits for a franchisor – sometimes in the face of skepticism from the franchise itself. It’s essential reading for any franchisee looking to make a greater difference in their franchise organization.

These days, every penny counts. The days when a business could throw money down the drain are long gone. If anything, businesses must strive to make their money they go further than ever before, which is why we’re offering a very simple, but essential money-saving tip today to franchisees.

Franchising Times has a thought-provoking story on an unexpected place to save money: the post office. Did you know that the United States Postal Service offers discounted rates on pre-sorted mail? Mastery of this seemingly-trivial subject can save a business lots of money down the line, according to Joel Vogel, the author of the piece.

Vogel provides this obscure tip on ‘saturation mails’:

  “A saturation mailing needs to meet certain requirements set by the USPS. For example, the mailing must be addressed to at least 90 percent of residents or 75 percent of all mailboxes on a route.”

But the beauty of a saturation email is that you don’t have to carpetbomb neighborhoods with your post. You can specifically target a range of demographics including ZIP code, route number, city, average income, average home value, average age, and percentage of homes with children.

And best of all you can do this for as low as .139 cents per stamp. Certainly franchises that rely on mass mailings need to implement this advice to save their business money. For franchises looking to draw in new customers, this is certainly an attractive, and cheap, advertising tactic. Mail is still a hugely reliable way to reach new markets.

It’s seemingly a simple tip, but for many franchisees the mail can deliver big results.

Guides to buying a franchise are fairly common these days, as the internet allows almost anyone to declare themselves a business expert. But when a newspaper as highly-regarded around the world as the New York Times publishes its own guide to purchasing a franchising, it seems like a notable event.

The business section of yesterday’s Gray Lady published ‘A Guide to Assessing Franchise Opportunities’. It’s a level-headed approach to challenges of franchising divided into the following 9 questions:

1. Who are you?
2. Should you hire experts?
3. What is best business opportunity?
4. Who is your franchisor?
5. What do other franchisees say?
6. Can you afford it?
7. What are the legal terms?
8. Could you do better as an independent?
9. Can you negotiate?

Experts from the Blue MauMau website, the Dunkin’ Donuts franchise system, consultants and the author of the ‘Franchising Dreams’ all contribute their own considerable insight to the story .

The Times ask you to deeply consider each of these questions. There are always risks to purchasing a business, but if the process is done meticulously, it’s likely you might the right business for you.

Yesterday, we blogged about new signs of a migration from the financial sector to the franchising industry. But who does go about getting that business off the ground? There are preliminary steps that a prospective franchisee needs to make to get their franchise rolling, but there are also psychological steps that one must take to prepare themselves for this big leap.

With signs that more and more young people are also considering franchising because of the state of the economy, Enterpreneur.com blogger Scott Gerber has provided 10 tips for the first-time business owner. The timing was so good, we couldn’t ignore it.

We’d like to single out a few tips that we thought we’re particularly insightful:

2. Know what you do. Do what you know.
Don’t start a business simply because it seems sexy or boasts large hypothetical profit margins and returns. Do what you love. Businesses built around your strengths and talents will have a greater chance of success. It’s not only important to create a profitable business, it’s also important that you’re happy managing and growing it day in and day out. If your heart isn’t in it, you will not be successful.

6. Act like a startup.
Forget about fancy offices, fast cars and fat expense accounts. Your wallet is your company’s life-blood. Practice and perfect the art of being frugal. Watch every dollar and triple-check every expense. Maintain a low overhead and manage your cash flow effectively.

7. Learn under fire.
No business book or business plan can predict the future or fully prepare you to become a successful entrepreneur. There is no such thing as the perfect plan. There is no perfect road or one less traveled. Never jump right into a new business without any thought or planning, but don’t spend months or years waiting to execute. You will become a well-rounded entrepreneur when tested under fire. The most important thing you can do is learn from your mistakes–and never make the same mistake twice.

Work in a field that you love, work at a minimal cost level, and cast those business bibles aside and learn while you work: it sounds like the best way to make a good start with your franchise.

The straight-talking Franchise King weighs in a Youtube video on franchise research.

Long story short from the King: it’s not as difficult as you think.