3 Mistakes that Can Drive Your Potential Franchisees Away – Tips on Franchising a Business

What can attract potential franchisees? Most people ask about this when franchising a business. Well, it’s a legit concern you should have when franchising your brand. Reports show that the success rate of franchising is 90% when 16% of existing start-up businesses fail within 10 years. And thus, more people are choosing franchises rather than building a business from scratch. But regardless of how famous and successful your brand is, you must hire the right people to run your franchises. It’s a must for franchising. Well, the process isn’t easy, as there’s lots of market competition. To attract potential franchisees for your brand, you need to ensure that your brand is lucrative enough. But is that everything? Well, NO!

And we’ll discuss that in detail in the following blog post.

Potential Franchisees Away

Why you may not get potential franchisees for your franchise units?

Even if your brand is one of the hot shots in your niche, a slight mistake can drive your franchisees away. Featuring a profitable brand image isn’t the only thing potential franchisees care about. As they’ll be the ones to run and invest in your franchises, they’ll look for more. And thus, you must ensure not to make any mistakes, especially the following ones,

1. Not featuring the awards, press exclusives and rankings your brand has received over the years.

One of the most vital reasons franchisees invest in a brand is because of its popularity. Hence, featuring all the rankings, press exclusives and rewards can be a huge green flag. Display your success rewards on your website in a separate section. Besides that, you should also include them in your franchise ads.

But you must know that having tonnes of rewards can’t guarantee you good franchisees. Because most businesses are doing their best nowadays and most of them have some sort of testaments. Hence, you need to put your brand in a good place to get/retain potential franchisees.

2. Not giving enough freedom to your franchisees or mentioning too many rules in your FDD.

Most people choose franchises because they love the idea of ‘be your own boss.’ But it isn’t the actual scenario. Even though your franchisees will manage their own businesses, they’ll be bound to your franchise model. And it contains rules and restrictions for your franchisees.

Drafting the FDD (Franchise Disclosure Document) and FA (Franchise Agreement) is a must to sell franchises to anyone. Review your legal documents and stick to the rules you’ll need to maintain the brand standard and quality. In this way, your franchisees will get more freedom when doing business with you. Besides that, you should also include the all support and benefits of being your franchisee in your FDD.

3. Not resolving online complaints of your existing and former franchisees.

Do you have other franchisees for your respective brand or other brands? If yes, then ensure that they’re happy working with you. Allow them to get in touch with you whenever they’ll need your help. In this way, you won’t end up getting online complaints on various review sites. It’s common for potential franchisees to check that when they think about investing in a franchise unit. If they find unresolved complaints from your franchisees, they may think of avoiding your brand.

Hence, always check if you’ve got any online complaints from your existing/former franchisees about your franchises. If there’re any, resolve them as soon as possible. It doesn’t only help you get more potential franchisees. Besides that, it can also portray you as a thoughtful franchisor.

Bottom line,

Franchising a business isn’t easy. Even though franchising has a 90% success rate, it isn’t the same for everyone. Thus, you should hire the right franchisees for your brand. And for that, you must ensure not to make any mistakes that can drive the potential franchisees away. We hope this blog post will help you to understand that.