For many people, a franchise is the perfect alternative to starting their own business. How do you know franchising is right for you? The level of support and direction may work well for one person, but not the next. Today we’re asking, are you cut out to be a franchisee?
Franchising offers a direct route into setting up a business with an established and recognised brand, often setting up franchisees with an immediate customer base! The business model has been tried and tested and has proved to be successful which offers less risk. Franchisees have access to detailed operating manuals and training programs to support and help develop their business. What’s not to love?!
While it’s a great business model for some, the truth is that franchising is not for everyone. It really takes certain individuals with specific qualities to be a successful franchisee.
Some people like to be creative and experiment with the business model by changing business systems, methods, showroom design, staff uniform, brand colours etc. These are usually very entrepreneurial people who have their own vision of how things should be ran and operated. If this is you, franchising may not be the right route.
Franchising relies on consistency; the customers should get the same experience and type of service no matter which branch or territory. The secret to a successful franchise is when customers do not know whether the business is company-owned, or franchise based. This is achieved by following the same processes and systems throughout the network.
The Franchisor has the best understanding of their business, the market and consumer needs and experiences. They have researched the best working practice, made the mistakes and learned from them so you don’t have to. Why would you want to make your job harder than it needs to be?
As you’re following the franchisors business model, there are more elements of controlled management, which will limit your creativity as a franchisee. Therefore, entrepreneurial personalities may clash as they might want to do things differently – causing inconsistencies or conflicts of interest.
A franchisee should be able to take the existing model and adapt to make it better – but this is not the same as changing how the model works! By following the guidelines and improving performance, the customers experience is enhanced, and the brand becomes stronger. An example of adapting the model is rather than change the showroom design, cleaning and dressing the showroom better to enhance the presentation and showroom delivery can only benefit the customer experience.
Being a franchisee, you are still the owner of a business and in charge of running the day to day operations. You have the full responsibility of ensuring the business runs effectively and efficiently.
You need to be responsible, with a can-do attitude and business savviness!
What makes someone the right fit for a franchise?
- Following operating manuals and processes. The franchisor wrote them for a reason, follow their guidance!
- Leading by example. Be the first to clock in and the last to clock out.
- Comfortable with hiring and firing. This is your business, if someone you’re paying is not pulling their weight, you need to be strong enough to tell them.
- Grunt work. Just because you’re a manager doesn’t mean you’re too big to do your employees work. You may have to fill in if someone calls in sick!
- Late nights and missed weekends. As with any driven business owner, you’ll be working longer hours, but that feeling of success and achievement when your hard work pays off is priceless.
These are all important factors to consider as you are likely to come up against them when running your own franchise. Of course, the benefits of this is that you are reaping the rewards and calling the shots! You essentially are seeing the full benefits from the effort you are putting in – the return on investment is greater.
Just because franchising is not for everyone, doesn’t mean it won’t work for anyone – if it was easy, everyone would be doing it! A franchise is more likely to succeed than a start-up, and with the support offered from a franchisor, you can experience all the highs of running a successful business without the sleepless nights, wasted time, and avoidable mistakes.
If you want more help deciding whether a franchise is for you, get in touch with us today for a no-obligation chat, or take a look at our Free Franchise Brochure.
