Buying a franchise can be a great way to shrink the timeline to success versus starting a business from scratch. While franchising can streamline the process, a lot of your time, plus a good deal of work is still required. Let’s walk through the two major phases and how long each takes.
Choosing Your Brand
Phase one is choosing the industry you want to be in and the franchise brand you believe will give you the success you want. This phase is labor and time-intensive. But, if you put forth a focused effort of 10 – 15 hours of research per week and enlist the help of qualified professionals to guide you, it’s very feasible to choose the right franchise brand for you in 60 – 90 days.
To make sure you’re making an informed decision, I encourage exploring multiple options. Look into different industries, including segments that differ from your corporate job or prior business experience. Consider younger emerging brands as well as more seasoned brands that have endured for many years. Young and mature franchise brands both provide benefits; those benefits are different so compare to decide which is the overall best opportunity for you.
A successful phase one involves choosing the brand that fits you best through a careful elimination process. (FACT – most people are surprised by what they are most excited about; it’s usually a franchise brand unrelated to their prior work experience or something they considered before.)
Opening the Business
Once you’ve chosen your franchise brand and signed your development agreement, you move into phase two. In this getting the business open phase, there’s a big x-factor impacting how long it will take you to open your doors and start generating revenue – real estate.
In industries like restaurants, fitness, and haircare, phase two involves choosing a prime location as part of your success strategy. This may take at least six months after signing your franchise agreement until you can fully operate your business if all goes smoothly. In many models, the expectation is more typically 9 – 12 months.
In other industries, retail or office space is not necessary. This is true for home-based or mobile franchise businesses, such as business consulting, pest control, and home improvement services. In these franchise models, you can typically complete franchise training and begin operating and generating revenue within 4 – 8 weeks after signing the franchise agreement.
Timing is Everything
There are two potential snags related to timing to take seriously.
One pressure point you might face is candidate competition. Strong franchise brands actively recruit franchisees in hot markets like Atlanta, Nashville, Charlotte, Dallas, and Denver. It’s likely a brand you are interested in is also talking with other potential franchisees interested in the same neighborhoods as you are. There are only so many licenses in a market that a brand will award, so there comes a time when they stop accepting new franchisees. At that point, the prime areas are claimed for development by the early adopters.
The second is the actual availability of the brand in your area. Just because you’re not seeing a particular franchise brand open near you doesn’t mean it’s available for development. Your neighborhood may be part of an existing franchisee’s development agreement. The best step is to reach out to your franchise brand of interest and confirm they’re open for growth in your area of interest before investing hours of research. This way you won’t waste time and effort looking into a brand that was never available to you in the first place.
