How To Start A Franchise That Stands Apart
If you’re interested in starting a franchise, it is essential that you connect with a franchising system that aligns with your passions and goals and presents the best opportunities for success. Here are some things to consider.
Outline Your Goals
By reminding yourself of why you decided to start a franchise in the first place, you may be able to define both your short and long-term goals. Perhaps you want to be your own boss, maintain a better work-life balance, run a business with the support of an established brand and team of experts.
Ask yourself questions such as: How much money and time are you hoping to invest? What are your expectations for return on investment? What sort of role do you hope to play in the day-to-day operations of your business?
Be specific and honest, as this will help you choose the right franchise to partner with.
Follow Your Passion
Because you will be operating your business within an established franchise system, it’s of the utmost importance to focus on a market that will help you meet your professional goals, but that will appeal to your personal aspirations and offer you the opportunity to truly enjoy what you do. Across industries, the most successful franchises combine personal fulfillment with entrepreneurial growth.
The franchise world is vast and varied, so by defining your strengths and areas of interest—even if they are beyond your current range of expertise—you can develop a better sense of what industries to focus on when selecting your franchisor.
Narrow Your Scope
After considering your goals and interests, you can rule out a lot of options that don’t meet your needs. You can narrow down first by industry (retail, healthcare, or industrial, for example) and then by concept (restaurant, pet grooming, etc.). Once you have focused on a concept that suits your goals, you can start to search for the right franchise for you.
Choose Your Concept
For the sake of this experiment, let’s say you have decided to open a pizza franchise. (Great choice, by the way.) Pizza is one of the world’s most loved foods, with 350 slices consumed every second in the United States, alone. And because of its undeniable popularity, the pizza industry offers a broad range of opportunities and niche specialties for entrepreneurs hoping to enjoy a piece of the pie.
With such a broad range of options for pizza-loving diners to choose from, the challenge lies in finding the perfect franchisor to help you make your mark.
Make a Plan
Your business plan should describe your business, the service or product it provides, the target market it serves, and initial financial requirements plus objectives. Your plan should also highlight your mission. If your mission is to provide authentic, customizable brick oven pizza to a range of diners, you must be able to outline precisely how you intend on meeting that goal.
A major key to your success will lie in your ability to execute your plan. So be realistic and do the research. The more you know about what you need in terms of financial support, employees, products, marketing, and location, the better positioned you will be to start strong and steadily grow your business.
Find Your Match
The right franchisor will not only offer unique and delicious food, but provide all of the tools and support needed to help you run your business at its highest level of potential. When researching different franchise systems, study and compare what each brand has to offer in terms of initial training, advertising, technology, market analysis and location selection, grand opening support, and more. The more assistance franchisees receive, the more worthwhile the investment.
Consider Reputation
Just as you can learn a lot from franchisees’ experience with a particular company, public opinion speaks volumes about the success or possible pitfalls of a franchise. In addition to customer reviews, find out if a franchise (or its franchisees) have won any awards, and whether or not they may be involved in community outreach or cross-promotional programs.
Choose the Right Location
When selecting where to open your business, there are many details to consider. By studying the local trends and dining preferences within the area you’re planning on starting your business, you can get a better sense of which style of restaurant will bring you more business.
Think about the competition around your location. For instance, you may not want to open a pizza franchise in an area that is already saturated with other pizza concepts. If your location presents you the opportunity to be the only restaurant of its kind in a popular area, you optimize your chances for becoming a favorite dining option.
The right franchisor understands the importance of selecting the perfect location for your restaurant, and has a team of experts ready to assist with site selection using sophisticated market analysis tools and a comprehensive database of restaurant-focused brokers in your area.
Just as important as your franchise location is the type of environment it will contain within its walls. The ambiance and accessibility should match the food you’re serving. Each Your Pie location focuses on showcasing a warm and inviting dining area that showcases its signature food and friendly dining experience.
Next Level Marketing
One of the greatest advantages to opening a franchise, as opposed to an independent business, is the level of marketing expertise and support provided you all in the service of seeing your restaurant succeed. Marketing is crucial to the success of any restaurant, and a franchisor employs a team of experts, complex marketing tools and ongoing campaigns that allow you to focus on running your business instead of worrying about attracting customers.
Your Pie applies a multistage marketing approach with all franchisees, boosting community awareness and creating a buzz around your restaurant before, during, and after your opening day. This team of experts make it their business to analyze the competition and promote your business, ensuring that you continue to attract new and returning customers.
Training & Ongoing Support
One of the best ways to predict your future with a franchisor is to research the level of training and ongoing support they provide their franchisees. To stand out from your competitors, you must be able to trust and rely on the backing of a brand to be invested in your success.
Since Your Pie doesn’t require any prior experience from new franchisees, their success is a huge testament to the comprehensive and dedicated training and support system in place. Your Pie’s training approach applies teamwork and leadership empowerment, and the positive effects are undeniable.
There’s No Competing With Your Pie
Opening back in 2008, Your Pie was the first pizza restaurant of its kind, offering customers the chance to customize their own pies with fresh, authentic ingredients and watch them emerge hot and toasty from brick ovens. Other concepts may have joined the fray, but nothing compares to what Your Pie has to offer.
Your Pie is proud to stand out from the competition and looks forward to growing with franchisees who are passionate about serving delicious food in their communities with a brand focused on authenticity and collaboration.
If you would like to learn more about franchising opportunities in your area, please visit Your Pie today.
