Turning your franchise into a multiunit territory

Who doesn’t like the tag of a multiunit franchisee? It takes immense determination and planning to take the count from one to five six and more. How many franchisees start with one store and then turn into Multiunit franchisees? What is the secret of their success? Let’s know more on the challenges and tasks involved in the process of transforming into a multiunit franchisee.

The best part of running your own business is that you are responsible for what you do. You are the boss. Unlike a corporate workplace you don’t have to report to anyone above you. Once you set up your own multiunit franchise world, your family members too come in and join you for taking the business ahead. So there are definitely more bucks from everywhere.

Challenges involved

• You have to put in your 100%
• Right staff hiring can be challenging
• All the money is at stake till you do not succeed
• Requires a lot of patience and time
• Choosing the right concept is most important

Anil Sharma, vice president, Retail & Franchise, Ferns N Petals guides our readers on how to transform into a multiunit franchisee. He says: ‘The expenses per unit will decrease as you're able to spread the costs over multiple locations. Once you are a multiunit franchisee, marketing and advertising will be more cost effective. It will help in increasing the buying power. There will be uniformity in product quality and design and overall a strong networking will be there in the market.’

Another advantage of being a multi-unit franchisee is that as you become famous, people will come to you directly to join hands with you or work with you. Your breakeven time will be much faster with passing time and opening any outlet in any location will be a child’s play for you.

Keep in mind to succeed:

- Have more money with you that you actually invest in.

- Discuss with the franchisor on the number of stores that you can open.

- Ensure that you have exclusive rights as multiunit franchisee for a specific territory. 

- Keep your hiring on high priority. Hiring right staff is very important.

- Do a market study and know about the competition brands around.

- Never forget to speak with existing franchisees. They might tell you more about the brand.

- Hire a strong person for all your legal and financial matters.

- Delegate work that you are weak at. Delegation will not only reduce your work pressure but also a right candidate will do the work more efficiently. 

If you really want to grow your business and expand, see yourself as a leader in the first place and do not be afraid of the challenges and circumstances. You will have lot many types of people to manage directly and indirectly too. Be ready for it. Take out enough time to talk directly to your staff. Guide them on what you expect out of them in the given time frame. For the first few months, not everything will be as you had planned but slowly with opening of new outlets, you will be real expert.