If you’re looking to expand your small business, then buying multiple franchises could be an ideal solution.
Although juggling multiple businesses is difficult, the financial and personal rewards are well worth it.
Here are just a few pointers to keep in mind when expanding your small business with multiple franchises:
Research Potential Franchisors
Choosing the right franchisor could be the different between success and failure when buying multiple franchises. This is why it’s so important to do plenty of research before buying into a particular franchise.
If your small business is already part of a larger franchise, consider sticking with that franchise and buying more units within that company.
Familiarity goes a long way when it comes to running a small business franchise, let alone multiple franchises.
With that said, if you’re heading into uncharted franchise territory, it’s important to find a franchisor that not only allows, but supports multi-franchise owners.
Many franchisors offer ownership discounts and reduced operating fees to multi-franchise owners.
Take Your Time
A successful franchise will oftentimes make anyone want to expand his or her small business as soon as possible.
However, as the article “Buying Multiple Franchises: A Path to Success” states, experience in the franchise industry has its advantages.
Before you make the move to multiple franchises, it’s important to run your franchise long enough to work out the kinks. This could take anywhere from two to five years, but it rarely happens within twelve months.
By running your current single franchise for a couple years, you’ll have a better idea of when the busy months and slow months occur and you’ll know exactly what it takes to meet customer expectations.
All of this experience will help you better run multiple franchises when the time comes.
Build an Efficient, Reliable Team
When you’re ready to buy multiple franchises, make sure you staff each franchise with teams you can trust. Many multi-franchise owners build staffs from within by choosing top employees at their original franchise to run their other franchises.
Hiring from outside your current franchise is also an option – just make sure candidates have experience working in a franchise environment as it is different from a traditional small business.
To ensure your franchises are running as smoothly as possible, it’s wise to rotate from one franchise to the next during the first few months.
Overseeing each franchise during the infancy stage will help you streamline your multiple franchises and turn them into one cohesive unit.
Mistakes to Avoid
Whether you own one franchise or multiple, it’s easy to make mistakes at the beginning.
For starters, don’t assume your franchise will succeed just because it’s franchised. Like any other small business, it takes hard work and dedication to successfully run a franchise.
In addition, avoid signing any franchise contracts without having a franchisee attorney look them over first. There is a lot of specific language that goes along with franchise contracts and an experienced attorney will help explain it all.
Finally, don’t choose a franchise or base your decision on buying multiple franchises solely on hype.
If a franchise seems successful, do your research, run the numbers, talk with a financial expert, and make sure the opportunity is everything it’s cracked up to be.
Before you take on multiple franchises, first consider the franchise advice above.
About the Author: Adam Groff is a freelance writer and creator of content. He writes on a variety of topics including small business and franchise ownership.