If your business is growing strong and you feel it is time for the next step, why not consider franchising as a great opportunity for expanding your concept. But before you try to open franchises outside your local area, be sure to have a good position and vast share of the market you are already in. If you fully penetrate your home market and you can see it straight from the numbers in your gym management software, you can gradually grow your base and expand outwards from there.
Do not rely on your gut feeling that your business would be a bestseller across the country.
One remark before going too optimistic and frenzy with franchising, always look for and validate hard data. Collect data and do a careful market research to confirm there are potential customers for your product beyond your home city and there is a room in the marketplace for a new competitor.
A strong product or service will defend itself and if good enough, it should easily find followers eager to buy it. The concept has to appeal to both end consumers and prospective franchisees – win-win situation as potential buyers will be confident about quick growth of their business. You can present a detailed analysis pulled from a management system as a strong and convincing argument during business talks.
There should be an expectation that more units will create economies of scale and therefore increase profits. Take your time and work on building your brand image and reputation. This will ensure steady organic growth that is much safer in the long run.
Additionally, the business needs to be something you can systematize and replicate, not something that needs your personal touch to be successful. You have to make sure your concept is scalable and economically feasible. It should also have wide appeal, easy to market in many places and different environments.
As a future franchisor, you will now deal more with other activities than just running your own gym. Prepare yourself for the role of a salesman and franchisee support. It will require for you to gain new skills plus start looking at the business in your software from different perspectives. And one important issue:
let your franchisee run their business as they feel
They need space and room for their improvements and certain adjustments. If you cannot live with it, you have to ask yourself if this is the right strategy for your business.
Getting ready to launch your concept requires setting some rules and standards that will be carried over and become your foundation. As an example, let me name a few: term of your franchise agreement, franchise fee and royalty percentage, whether franchisees must buy products or equipment from your company, how you will market the franchises etc. Once you set them all, you need to fit it in your gym management system in order to make it easier for you to manage your chain.
Flexible and modular gym software is of a big value and needs to be universal for every franchise to ensure the same quality of data. It also guarantees that franchisers and employees can share knowledge and experience gathered from working with the same tool.