Just out of curiosity, I’m interested in understanding the experience of running a franchise as an “owner” of the location. I have no intention or desire to run one myself, yet I find it interesting. From the outside, it seems like a weird relationship in which you are the owner and not at the same time. You own the location, but mostly everything major is decided and dictated by the franchise company. So, what’s it like?
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How do you view your relationship with the franchise and your employees?
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What do you label and describe your position as?
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What are your responsibilities?
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What is it like to manage your employees?
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What are the benefits of running it?
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What are the downsides?
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Is it a lucrative investment?
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Was it hard to get into and start up? Were there any major barriers initially?
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It is easy once you get used to it, or is it a lot of work?
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If you suddenly didn’t have the franchise, would you try to start it again?
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Anything else I might not have thought to ask?
Been there, done that. Would not recommend. Space Pirate has nailed the experience. I paid a lot of money for essentially a job, and ended up selling at a loss just to get my time and mental health back.
That was back around 2010 so I’m sure it’s an even more difficult situation for franchisees today.
Ask me anything, I guess?
I’m interested what kind of franchise you ran, so like was it a big national chain? Or a small thing with a few locations? I wonder whether either is better.
It was a national tech store, so had a few hundred locations around the country. I just had the one.
One of the big challenges was having little to no say in brand or supplier decisions etc. Specifically, we also struggled with paying inflated wholesale prices with the franchisee or then benefiting from volume rebates which weren’t shared. Really crushed our margins!
I suppose in a smaller chain you might be a little closer to the franchisor, and you might have some influence, but ultimately you’ll always be the little guy.