What if it just took a few minutes for you to have a more successful franchise?
Every year, countless new ones open up. However, some of these are more successful than others. What, then, separates the lucrative franchises from those less fortunate?
In most cases, the owners knew how to hit the ground running. Want to achieve such success? Keep reading to discover our top 8 tips!
1. Do Your Market Research to Succeed with Your Franchise
One of the best things about starting up is that you can jump into it even if you have little managerial or entrepreneurial experience. If you want it to last, though, you need to start doing your homework, starting with market research on your local area.
Some of this research you may be able to do online. However, you may be surprised by how much you can learn from a conversation with another local small business owner. This also helps you build your network (more on this later).
2. Understand the Brand
Another thing the average franchisee loves is they don’t have to build a new brand from the ground up. Instead, they can simply step in and reap the success of having an already-established brand.
However, whether you succeed or not depends largely on how much you understand this particular brand. On the surface level, that means understanding everything about the products and services you offer. On a deeper level, it means understanding what your customers love most about the brand and what they need.
With this information, you can make small tweaks to your business model that make you more successful.
3. Determine Your Franchise Starting Costs
When it comes to starting a business, franchising is usually cheaper than building a business from the ground up. However, it still requires a significant investment for you to get started, and you may need to pay even more upfront for marketing and to otherwise get it running.
That’s why it is so important for you to know your exact starting costs. How much do you need to set aside for fees and startup costs? Keep in mind that it may be many months (if not longer) before your new venture is generating a profit.
When you better understand the costs at the beginning, you can plan for a better and more winning strategy.
4. Setting Up Your Franchise in the Right Location
Sometimes, those business cliches you learned about before end up being true. For example, nothing is quite so important to the start of your business as “location, location, location.”
You may have the option of starting your franchise in another state. Do you know which town will yield more business and what the demographics of your customers are in the area?
Aside from knowing these things, the real trick is finding a location that has high visibility, easy driveability, and, ideally, existing foot traffic in the area.
5. Networking Helps New Franchise Owners Succeed
Networking is important for all business owners, but it is particularly important for newer business owners. Fortunately, being part a chain makes networking very easy for you.
First of all, you should be able to get extensive help from the original franchisor. They may have special training, helpful resources, and unique knowledge about the local area. All of this can help you hit the ground running.
Second of all, you can always contact others in the network. Not only will they understand your unique struggles, but they may have solutions to the problems you have encountered.
6. Hiring the Right Team
One of the most difficult parts for new business owners is hiring the right team. After all, you need to find people that you basically trust to represent you even when you aren’t around.
Select very carefully from your initial job applicants. You want to build a core team of management and other employees that you can implicitly trust.
While you’re interviewing candidates, look into any training opportunities provided by your franchisor. This training can help your new hires learn the best practices related to their jobs.
7. Killer Customer Service Always Wins
What is it, do you think, that keeps people coming back to the same business over and over again? Believe it or not, the answer has nothing to do with what these businesses are selling or even what their prices are like.
Instead, what customers focus on is the quality of customer service. You can make this work to your advantage. So long as your own team provides top-notch customer service, you’ll be able to stand apart from other businesses.
Never forget that good customer service begins with a positive work environment. By creating a company culture of enthusiasm and encouragement, you can achieve killer customer service.
8. Be Cautious About Financing Your New Business
Earlier, we touched on the importance of knowing all of your startup costs and related fees. On a related note, it’s important to be very cautious about where you get the money.
For example, some lenders specialize in this type of financing and some do not. Either way, you’ll want to read the terms very carefully to get a better idea of how much you’ll be paying back.
Of course, before borrowing anything, you need to speak to your franchisor about how much you are paying upfront. Whether you have to pay everything or only a portion of the full amount may influence how much you borrow and who you borrow it from!
Start the Most Successful Insurance Franchise Today!
Now you know how to hit the ground running. But do you know where you can get more great tips? Check out our knowledge center for more helpful tips to get started.
Here at Confie, we specialize in helping entrepreneurs realize their dreams. To see what we can do for your own business dreams, just contact us today or give us a call at (714) 252 2500.
