Franchise Success (or Horror) stories?

[dlstephenson12]

Various contributions have made me feel the need to look into the opportunity of investing in a franchise.

Relatively low income and long working hours - the office politics, the early starts and not spending enough time with my wife and family ect ect.....

Question is, does anybody have any success stories from running a small manageable franchise that can be run "Husband and Wife with small children?"

What is it that you do, what are the main benefits, has anybody made a big loss that so thay have had to "pack up and leave"?

Should I steer clear of the idea and continue on the stability of a monthly wage?

Please be honest, this is a serious step that I am currently looing towards.

Go on, see if you can slap a smile on my face!

[Peter Bowen]

I've never personally owned a franchise so this is heresay

The strength of a franchise is the systems that it provides - not generally the product or service. A simple example - you can get a better burger than from MacDonalds.

The downsides that I know about include: High startup costs, ongoing royalties, a requirement to contribute to a national advertising budget that might not be bringing local returns, lack of flexibility to adjust to local conditions - the list goes on.

"When a man with money meets a man with experience the man with experience gets the money and the man with the money gets experience."

I've heard more horror stories than good ones and I would never buy one or advice anyone else to do so.

Cheers

Pete

[dlstephenson12]

Many thanks for your reply Peter, I am a part qualified electrician to City & Guild standard - this looks tempting to me - initial investment stands at £17,500 - what do you think, too good to be true?

http://www.businessesforsale.com/uk/...Franchise.aspx

[squalid]

someone who runs one of these franchises advertises in our local paper - why not see if there are any in your area or surrounds and find out what they think ?
£17,500 would buy you alot of marketing etc - and you would own the whole business, but not being an electrican - i dont know if anything else they do is benefical or not.

[Peter Bowen]

From their site:

typical investment 27500 +vat

Now, what do you get for that - a vehicle,signage some marketing and branding, some systems etc

Requires a whole lot of thought

Cheers

Pete

[dlstephenson12]

It certainly does Peter, will need to think of a plan and see if £30k plus will be better spent maybe on my own business.

Reminds me of that ad on TV where they glamorise being driving istructors and "earning £30k a year" and how easy it is. They dont mention the fact that you need to work on average 60 hours a week 52 weeks a year including weekends and evenings for the rest of your life.

Now............. wheres that lottery ticket I bought last week????????????

Thanks for your help anyway guys!

[Peter Bowen]

it's a pleasure.

When you're ready to start give me a shout. We've developed a way of getting many of the advantages of a franchise without the huge upfront costs and the crippling ongoing payments.

Cheers

Pete

[CatherineL]

Hi there - I would definitely advise you to do plenty of research first. I wrote a blogpost about the type of franchisor you might want to avoid. And whilst not all franchisors are bad news, it should give you some idea of the type of problems you may encounter: The Ten Commandments of A Genius Franchisor.


But, why are you trying to choose between a job and a franchise? You could always take a business course and start up in business on your own.

[LisaTalkingTots]

Although we are very 'new kids on the block' ... we are very ethical franchisors and we want to be transparent at all times ... we never underestimate what a big leap our franchisees are taking. My main piece of advice would be to be very wary of a franchisor who 'selects' existing franchisees for you to talk to.

Good luck.

Lisa

[CatherineL]

Good point Lisa - you should always ask for the whole list of franchisees. But do be aware that many people are not going to slag off their franchisor if you call them. For all they know you could go back and repeat what they said.

Also many franchisors offer some type of financial incentive to franchisees who recruit new franchisees.