Franchising a Concept: The Five Biggest Obstacles to Growing a Successful Franchised Brand

You own a company and you’ve decided that the concept is reputable and sustainable enough to start selling. But while you may have a plan ready to go to take your brand from one to 100 units, there are inevitably going to be obstacles along the way—because, rest-assured, brands like McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Subway did not just waltz their way to the top of the franchise world.

After speaking with a couple of franchise development experts, we got the details on five key obstacles that are likely to happen. The good news? There are certifiable solutions to make sure your brand can become successful with sustainable growth.

One of the biggest problems that companies incur when they begin to franchise is having a weak development marketing strategy. This occurs when the company does not clearly communicate why they are a great opportunity. And in todays’ digital age, such messages can be easily muddied.

“As the internet and other forms of social communication continue to evolve, it’s imperative that franchise concepts utilize these new forms but also that they utilize them correctly,” 1851 Franchise Chief Development Officer, Sean Fitzgerald said. “They have to use the right form of media and communicate a clear message to their target market, otherwise the company is going to miss the mark of appropriately communicating what their brand is and does.”

A second obstacle companies often have when trying to grow their brand is not having an in-depth sales process. Often times, when interacting with potential franchisees, companies don’t work to keep the party engaged.

“A lot of times during the sales process, companies forget to keep the potential buyer engaged, because they don’t keep the buyer informed on their process and where they stand in the pipeline,” Fitzgerald said. “Similar with the aforementioned obstacle, communication with the buyer needs to be persistent and engaging. If a buyer is not constantly held in the loop, the franchisor is going to lose that lead because they weren’t informed and may have even felt lost.”

Sports Clips, the premier hair-cutter for men, is one of the most recognized concepts in the nation thanks to their far-reaching commercials and unique concept. However, even with the unique concept, there were obstacles for Sport Clips* as the brand worked its way up to 1,500 locations and beyond. This started with ensuring that the brand wasn’t growing sporadically throughout the country.

“What we saw with other brands when they were growing is a ‘shot-gun’ approach, which means that the brands were adding locations anywhere and everywhere,” said Sports Clips Vice President of Franchise Sales, Pete Lindsey. “By seeing that approach, we knew that to attain sustainable growth, we had to plan expansion market-by-market.”

By planning their growth according to each market, Sports Clips not only grew steadily, they were able to provide the proper amount of assistance to each franchisee who was opening a location. The brand was also able to properly vet each candidate and be selective of who was opening a location so the corporate team could be assured that each owner wholly aligned with the values of the brand.

A fourth obstacle for sustainable growth mentioned by Lindsey is that although a company may have a great onboarding process written out on paper, they may not totally support their franchisees through the sales process up to their opening.

“For us at Sports Clips, we wanted to make sure that each owner had the proper support in place. This helped us ensure that not only is the owner successful when opening, but that every little detail was up to our standards,” Lindsey said. “The coaches in each market were hands-on during every opening process to make sure every requisite of the process was met.”

Lastly, if a company does not get validation from their owners, potential candidates will not continue through the process to become a franchise owner. This means that during the onboarding process, if a candidate does not receive positive feedback from current owners, the candidate will question whether or not the concept would be the best to invest in.

“The current franchisees are a vital part to the recruitment process for a company,” Fitzgerald said. “Current franchisees need to shed positive light on the company and show the candidates why opening a location with their company is in their best interest.”