We have all watched it happen; politicians are actually pretty good at this. The leader of the opposition asks the Prime Minister about the fact that "the sky is not as blue as it was 3 years ago, under the control of the current government". This is true, both the questioner and the answerer know that it is true, but the answer that the PM gives is actually more of a statement. "May I remind the honourable gentleman that the sky was a lot less blue under the last government." And the questioning moves on!

The point of this exercise? Questioning is really important but the most important thing is getting answers. For example when you are preparing a list of standard questions to ask the franchisors that you are considering going into business with, you should remember that they will have answered similar questions many times before. We hope that they will be open and honest in addressing your enquiries and bfa members commit to practising full disclosure in respect of their offer. But if there is something that a franchisor does not want to go into detail on or would rather not answer, you may find that they avoid answering your question by actually answering another one.

Equally it is important to practice active questioning. This is a process of linking questions so that it is more difficult to be diverted from what you need to find out. So rather than "how many franchisees have failed?" try, "how many franchisees have failed?" followed by "why do you feel they weren't successful?" and "what have you done differently with franchisees since?"

Good franchisors will expect well thought out questions and will be judging you partly on the effort that you put into your research.

So back in PM questions remember the fact that the sky has been more or less blue is not the issue. What is, is that the question is answered appropriately.

For more information on disclosure and for lists of sample questions visit www.thebfa.org.