Getting franchisees signed up in year one is thrilling, but many emerging franchisors also make expensive errors. That right number is not as many as possible. The number you can do right by and properly shield your brand from.
For most, a small pilot franchisee group is a very reasonable goal. Consider how many franchisees you can realistically help to open, in the first year anyway – 1 to 5 or maybe more, depending on your business complexity and ability for support. Until your model doesn’t require heavy training, site visits, or hands-on help, stick closer to one or two. And if it is easier and documented well, you might do more. For Franchise My Business, visit https://www.ashtonsfranchise.com/franchise-my-business/
Ask yourself three practical questions:
Is the model proven? So, if you haven’t tried your own hands with the systems, hire fewer and let year one be a learning phase.
Can you support them? Onboarding, training, marketing support, and assistance with day-to-day questions are necessities for any franchisee. Quality will slip off, and unhappy franchisees are difficult to recover!
Do you have the infrastructure? You should have operations manuals, training documentation, supplier contracts, and a defined quality control process in place before you start to scale.
It’s also worth considering geography. It takes a little pressure off from the outset to have one or two franchisees recruited in an area that you can manage and build local momentum with.
Year one is building the pillars and creating success stories. Give franchisees the time-supported tools to learn how you want them to expand, and it will, at worst, lead to some well-performing outlier franchises doing a better job overall than an ill-conceived rollout killing brand trust.
