Opening up franchise businesses is a great way of improving your income flow because existing franchises provide you with a strong branding opportunity to make good money. However, if you plan on opening up multiple locations, it’s not uncommon to run into issues.
After all, running multiple companies at the same time can seem challenging, particularly when you’re trying to maintain consistency between each of your franchise locations.
Thankfully, it’s possible to keep your different options open if you use intelligent business decisions and the following best practices. By understanding these steps, you can give yourself shops the best chance of staying open and minimizing your risk of closing down.
Read through each of these different points to ensure you grasp them fully. Doing so could just give you the financial boost that you need to take your business to the next level and improve your franchising.
Know What Franchise You Want
The best thing you can do before investing in franchise options is to choose one that makes the most sense for your experience. For example, if you have restaurant experience, something like Mcdonald’s, Burger King, Olive Garden, or other franchises would work well for you.
Try not to go too outside your box when you’re finding a franchise to ensure that you feel comfortable. Once you feel comfortable with this process, you can potentially expand to other types of businesses, but you should stick with what you know to avoid complications.
Keep Your Brand Consistent
Branding is everything in a franchise, and you need to stick with it to ensure that things go smoothly for you. For example, if you start a supermarket franchise and have multiple locations, they all need to have the same kind of signage and the same deals, etc., to ensure that your branding remains strong.
Don’t vary from any of the branding rules or guidelines set forth by your business team. For example, you can’t change a recipe for a restaurant franchise because this can actually cause the franchiser to take away your licensing! So, even though it might seem tempting, stay consistent to avoid any issues here.
Create a Strong Team
This tip might seem obvious, but you need to make a team that you can trust. The best idea here is to find people with experience in your franchise who have similar personalities and who know how to work together well. Try to pick people not just on their skills and experience but on those intangibles.
For example, if one of your franchise locations is more laid back due to a smaller customer base, don’t put people there who prefer high-paced work. The same is true of those who like slower but steady work. Balancing your team in this way can ensure everyone gets the satisfaction that they want. It also helps cut back on training costs for restaffing needs.
Produce Consistent Standards
Remember what we said about staying close to your branding and your franchise rules? That applies to setting up consistent standards for each of your locations. For example, if you set up performance standards for one of your businesses, the others should have similar standards.
That said, it’s important to be reasonable and to vary based on various factors. For example, it’s not likely that a franchise in a small town is going to make as much money as one in a bigger area.
Set up various measuring sticks for your teams, such as the amount of money that they make versus your spending, to ensure everyone is evaluated fairly.
Pay Attention to Time Zone Differences
Are you planning on spreading your franchises across multiple time zones? Well, it’s important to keep these differences in mind when operating each of them.
For example, you need a system for managers in later time zones to contact those in early zones when they might be off duty or if they’re working during rush periods, etc.
Sometimes, it’s simply enough to put up multiple clocks in a management room that reflect each time zone and label each of these clocks with the name of the appropriate franchise location.
That should give your crew a better understanding of when they should message these spots. Just as importantly, you should make sure you have hours set up consistent with your time zone.
Set Up Strong Communication Channels
Even if your different franchise destinations don’t communicate with each other frequently, it’s still a good idea to set up strong communication channels. For example, all of your managers should be in direct contact and share their phone numbers, texting details, and other contact details.
That’s because you might need to share inventory or even swap employees between different locations from time to time. Furthermore, you might also need to verify new changes to schedules and franchise operations, so keep everyone in the loop by setting up meaningful communication options.
Balance Your Financials
Lastly, we can say it’s important to balance all finances by finding a professional like a franchise bookkeeper. While it’s tempting to try to handle all these steps yourself, it’s rarely a good idea. Just hire someone to handle it for you and save yourself a little money by spending cash on proper accounting.
These professionals are trained to handle the unique financial elements of franchises and know how to balance things like your costs and income and minimize unnecessary expenses. These steps should give you the high-quality and stable finances you need to avoid economic disasters.
Do What You Can to Stay Open
If you follow these simple guidelines, you can get the high-quality support that your franchise destinations need to stay open. By carefully balancing your budget, you can ensure that all of your operations stay open and financially strong.
It takes a little extra work to achieve this balance, it’s true, but when you own multiple franchises, you need to do what you can to ensure that each gets the financial support that they need to overcome budget shortfalls.
