Читать книгу Franchise Management For Dummies - Mazero Joyce - Страница 7

IN THIS CHAPTER

❯❯ Assessing whether franchising is right for you

❯❯ Understanding the advantages and disadvantages of investing in a franchise

❯❯ Recognizing the differences among franchisees, entrepreneurs, and employees

You need to define who you really are and what you want to do. Self-evaluation may be the most difficult thing for anyone to do when they are caught up in the excitement of striking out on their own. However, at this point in your evaluation of franchising, it is essential that you be brutally honest with yourself. Your future happiness depends on being able to make an honest assessment about yourself.

Most individuals looking to invest in a franchise will have an emotional reaction to the process of selecting one. That should not be surprising because when we train franchise salespeople, part of the training is to make certain they build an emotional bond between the candidate and the opportunity. But remember, you don’t need to become a franchisee and you should stay above the emotional fray and only make your franchise decisions based solely on the merit of the offering.

Every franchise salesperson or franchise broker is going to tell you that you are perfect for their franchise opportunity. Their job is to sell you the opportunity they are offering because that’s how they make their living – they’re only paid their commission when you sign the franchise agreement.

This chapter will help you define who you are and whether you’re the type of person who should be investing in a franchise. Your decision needs to focus on you: your lifestyle, family, likes and dislikes, work rhythms, values, ethics, and even dreams. If you’re not absolutely comfortable – for any reason – with one franchise opportunity, remember that there are hundreds more for you to consider. And you should. Franchising will not make you a new person, and it is not a self-help tool.

Starting Your Own or Joining a Team

Franchising is not the right choice for some people. Although franchisees manage nearly every aspect of their businesses on a day-to-day basis, and how they establish their human resource policies and supervise their employees are 100 percent in their hands, they still need to operate and deliver on the brand promise set by their franchisor. This duality of business ownership and not being in control of the brand standards or what products and services can be offered to consumers can cause difficulty for some individuals.

A franchisee is not buying a franchise. They are investing in the right to use the business system of their franchisor. The only thing they are buying is the hard assets necessary to start and support their business.

New business owners have a choice to make: They can choose to become an independent business owner and steer their own course, or they can invest in a franchise opportunity. If they choose the latter, the products and services they will be selling and how they sell them will be decided by someone else. As discussed in Chapter 1, successful franchisees are not entrepreneurs yet still need to exhibit entrepreneurial qualities. In franchising, that preferential profile is called a formula entrepreneur. Deciding on whether to start your own business or becoming a franchisee depends on a lot of factors – most important is your personality.

If independent decisions and your needing to make the decisions on every detail of a project are essential to you, you likely should start your own business and not become a franchise. If it’s essential to you to create every element, and deep down you know you will have difficulty following someone else’s direction – especially when you may not agree with them – franchising is not right for you.

Maybe you might make a better franchisor than franchisee if you have an innovative product or cutting-edge service that is currently not being offered to consumers, or you have a better way than what’s currently available in the market for providing an established product or service, you may be better off striking out on your own. You might even want to start your own franchise system, and if you do, giving either of the co-authors of this book a call would be a logical path for you to take. However, the point we are trying to make is that although franchising can be an outstanding way to get into business, it’s not right for everyone.

Consider the Pros and Cons

You may occasional see franchisors or franchise brokers using generalized statistics about the success of franchising. These statistics were based on studies by the U.S. Department of Commerce or the U.S. Small Business Administration conducted in the 1980s and 1990s that misled potential franchisees by making them think franchising was a surefire, safe investment, regardless of the franchisor. The International Franchise Association has asked its members and the press to no longer quote those statistics.

Most franchisors will publish statistics about their own franchise systems, and that information can be instructive and very beneficial because a well-designed franchise program can be an exceptional investment. But cookie-cutter franchise systems that are poorly managed are not good investments and need to be avoided. If any franchisor or broker quotes from these out-of-date and misleading industry success statistics, our best recommendation is for you not to do business with them and move on. Most franchisors are legitimate businesses looking for qualified franchisees. These franchisors don’t mislead prospective franchisees by quoting discredited industry statistics.

Let’s instead consider some of the advantages and disadvantages of your making a franchise investment.

Advantages of making a franchise investment

Your chance of success in franchising can only be as strong as the franchise system you select and how well you manage your business. Well-structured and managed franchise systems that support their franchisees generally offer the benefits discussed in this section.

Overall competitive benefits

The public has become accustomed to a certain level of quality and consistency when shopping at any branded locations (see Chapter 2 for more on this phenomenon). What we mean by branded location is a business that the public thinks of as a chain because each location has the same name, décor, products, services, menu items, and so on. In a branded location you expect that the customer experience will be the same regardless of the location.