When it comes to expanding your business, there are two options that you have: opening a new store yourself or to franchise my business UK. The latter has several, significant benefits but many business owners struggle on how to franchise or worry about whether they will have any success with their new expansion model.
So, here are some suggestions on how you can franchise your brand for better success.
1. Ensure you have the right core concepts in place
The most important element of any franchise venture is to make sure that you have the core concepts in place for the brand. If you’re entering the education franchise market, what is it that makes you different from all the others that are around? That core message, the concept, is what people are going to buy into, and you have to be able to replicate it again and again.
You should also be able to explain the core concept in just a few words. The longer it takes to explain, the harder it will be to find someone who will match it or understand it. And if a potential franchise partner can’t understand the concept, how will customers?
2. Choose franchisees who care about your brand
You might want to collect as many franchisees as you can from the very beginning, but that doesn’t mean that this is a good idea. A bad franchisee can ruin your brand’s reputation and bring you in no revenue. Therefore, you want to make sure that you’re choosing franchisees who have the same vision, goals and values as you.
This means that you should invite them to your headquarters and interview them, like you would for any job. Only if they agree with your sentiments should you actually allow them to join your team.
3. Invest in training
While you have franchisees come onboard who have the skills or the knowledge to complete the job, your own brand will have unique ways in which they service customers. These little touches make the difference between your brand and that of other franchises. And these little differences are the ones that franchisees don’t realise or know about.
Therefore, you will need to have rigorous training for your franchisees before they start owning their own workload. At the same time, you should offer training for all their staff (if appropriate). Having a consistent training program from one source. Standardising how staff should speak to customers can be very important for brand recognition across the country.
4. Have brand policies in place and set in stone
Another key aspect is to keep control of your business as much as possible. You don’t want a franchisee from running their own style of business contrary to how you want to run the business. So, for instance, you should want to offer marketing campaigns, branding signs, accounting systems, staff policies, terms and conditions and more.
Having these brand policies in place maintains a consistent approach for all customers, so they know that as they move around they will get the same service no matter which outlet they’re dealing with.
5. Ensure you have a reasonable pricing strategy
When it comes to pricing your franchise, you need to be sure that you’re making it a worthwhile investment for your business. This includes ensuring that you’re not charging too much to invest or asking for too much of a cut of the profits.
Think carefully about how much each franchisor needs to pay upfront. You should be able to demonstrate exactly what this money is used for and it should cover the costs of setting up the franchise. Some experts state that you should consider having the upfront fee to be about 40-50% of the startup fees.
Service fees also need to benefit both you and the franchisor.
6. Offer continuous support
When it comes to making your franchisees a success, they need to have continuous support from you and your team. Ideally, as you grow, you should employ a team that is there to specifically help all your franchisees to be successful.
Some of the things you can do for them is to have regular workshops, offer corporate training for all staff, have online communities for success and offer discounts on software/marketing plans that they can use. In addition, communications should be regular from your head office and there should be a dedicated line they can contact at any time of the day for help and support.
It is important to remember that their success is your success. So helping them is just helping you.
Conclusion
When you want to expand, there are so many advantages of franchising your business, that there are few brands that wouldn’t benefit from this model. However, to make a success of it, you need to think of how you can help your franchisees with their success. This starts with the recruitment of the right franchisees and includes the continued support of their businesses. The tips above should help.
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