What it takes to be Successful Franchisee
Franchising in India is definitely booming, however not all franchisees experience financial security or success. What traits do the most successful franchises possess? Do they have any secrets? Read about the most vital characteristic to help you succeed in franchising.
1. Locate the right franchise opportunity: Like all seasoned franchisees would tell you, success is predetermined when you choose the right opportunity. This is the time that you should take to find out more about the business and talk to existing franchises. You cant be successful if you start off with the wrong franchise.
As Pavan Shah, the franchisee of Frameboxx at Surat says that we wanted to join hands with the market leaders, especially with those that have a long track record of success in franchising.
2. Get a mentor: Any franchise brand would have atleast more than 10 franchisees, would have a minimum of five to six star performing franchisees. Talk to some of these and find out if they would like to mentor you. Most successful franchises would be more than willing to join hands with you and help you gain some insight into the business.
3. Make the most of the training program: As a franchisee, you should look at making the most of the training program, the training program will individually determine, how successfully you will be. Take notes, ask questions. Whatever your doubts get them cleared, it may happen that you would get some of those answers only once you actually get started with the franchise.
Pallavi Aggarwal took up an existing Jetking centre at Ghatkopar, she mentions that Jetking has formulated its training programs and systems based on many years of experience. I attended it Following them prevents us from making mistakes and handling difficult situations. Jetking ensures that education delivery is uniform systemwide.
4. Slow and Steady wins the race: Grow slowly and gradually, some of the franchises experience early success and look at expanding with multiple stores, this may have a devastating financial impact, as the incumbent franchisee may not be able to cope up with the challenges of managing multiple locations.
Suryakant Ladi, franchisee at Cartridge World shares his experience that he started off with the Andheri Store and then later expanded to the Lower Parel store as well. He shares that, “It took us almost 2 years before we took up the Lower Parel store, the business of cartridge refilling is volume business and there is a limitation of the potential at a particular location, so to grow beyond it, we started looking at other locations, fortunately the existing store at Lower Parel was a good purchase.
5. Financial Planning: The right franchise is also the one that fits into your budget as well as your skill set. Not just franchises but a lot of entrepreneurs too fail in their business since they are undercapitalised, half way down they realise its a double whammy, they can neither turn back and loose all that they have invested, nor move forward. As a franchisee, one could be enamored by the brand or the business, but are you adequately capitalised.
Echoing similar sentiment, mentions one of the child services master franchisee, initially we thought that we should be getting a steady number of enrollments and we looked at expanding aggressively, little did we realise that it would be difficult should our payments not happen on time. We found ourselves trying to manage cashflows and it wasnt really possible for us to grow our business.
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