What You Should Consider Before Opening A Franchise

This is a guest post by Kevin Derella

Owning a franchise can be a fast, low risk and profitable way to become a successful entrepreneur – but that doesn’t mean rushing into a decision before first doing your homework. For any franchise opportunity, you should research all available information and learn as much as you can about the company and its franchises.

Unlike many new business owners, franchise business owners benefit by receiving continuous support from their franchisor. As a franchise owner you should have the support of the franchisor for training, marketing materials and key business strategies to attract new customers. Below we explore how a franchisor can provide a comprehensive level of support to its franchise owner base that is instrumental in making the franchise business a success.

Helping Franchise Owners to Avoid Common Mistakes

One of the most common mistakes that franchise owners make is not related to delivering the services, but rather to their failure to understand all that it takes to run a business. At Coverall Health-Based Cleaning System, our training focuses on making our franchise owners successful business owners. We emphasize during training that owning a franchise is not merely “a job,” it is a business. And the franchise owner’s customers are a part of their investment portfolio – the longer they keep that customer, the greater the return on their initial investment.

Another common mistake made by franchise owners is the failure to supervise and/or adequately staff their customer accounts. Some purchasers of franchises have grand ideas of sitting home and collecting the money while their employees service their customers. Many times, the franchise owners assume that their employees are doing a good job, when in reality they are not, and there is little or no communication by the franchise owner with the customer. Proper supervision of customer accounts is critically important. Without it, the attrition rate is very high.

Lastly, a major mistake that a franchise owner can make is not taking full advantage of training opportunities and materials available from their franchisor. At Coverall, our goal is to prepare our franchise owners for success. Franchise owners are a diverse group, so each individual is evaluated to determine the level of additional training that may be needed for them to succeed

Keys to Success

Hard work, commitment and dedication are key. You cannot go into this venture without a passion to succeed. Owning a franchise means you are the President or CEO of your own business. Highly prosperous franchise owners understand the importance of building relationships with their customers. Strong and frequent communication with the customer is the key to a long-lasting relationship. Going a little out of the way to add that personal touch is important in aiding account retention when service issues arise or a competitor calls promising a better price. If there is a face and personality to go along with high quality service, then you will have a Customer for Life.

Franchise owners also need to establish and maintain a good working relationship with their franchisor. The success of a franchising company is tied to the franchise owner’s success. The franchisor makes money when its franchise owners make money. If franchises fail, ultimately the franchisor fails as well.

At Coverall, we provide ongoing support and training to our franchise owners. By investing in continual research and development, we also provide the best tools and a unique selling proposition that sets us apart from the rest of the cleaning industry. The level of detailed training we provide to our new franchise owners is crucial to our and their success. In addition, Coverall makes available financing to its Franchise Owners so that they can get their new business off the ground. Once the franchise owner’s business is up and running, we continue to support them through marketing, an initial book of business and the experience and stability that comes from being a leader in our industry for more than 20 years.

Coverall is leading a fundamental change in the industry — cleaning not just for appearance, but also cleaning for health. Simple aesthetics just aren’t good enough anymore in our current age of antibiotic resistant pathogens and corporations losing significant dollars per year due to employee sick days and associated healthcare costs. Properly trained franchise owners, along with execution of our heath-focused cleaning program (including proper use of chemicals & equipment) are the secrets to driving account retention and higher levels of customer satisfaction.

As a franchise owner, it is important to remember that although you are running your own operation, you are not alone. Franchisee and franchisor alike, we both have the common goal of making happy customers through delivery of high quality service each and every time.

Kevin Derella is Senior Vice President for Coverall Health-Based Cleaning System. Coverall has provided cleaner and healthier work environments for a wide variety of over 50,000 customers through our 90 Support Centers and more then 9,000 Franchisees, making Coverall one of the largest global commercial cleaning franchising companies.

Photo by aloshbennett

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