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When you buy a franchise business and employ family to help you run it, the business operation can be a lot smoother. Notice how I said can! When you buy a franchise opportunity, in the initial stages business cash flow can be tight. This is where sometimes family members can help out. In the initial stages some family members might be prepared to help you out at either zero or minimal wages.
Longer term their demands could grow to the point that they ask for more money than regular employees or worse still ask for a share in the business! This is not as bad as it sounds because often you can expand the business a lot faster by keeping it in the family.
When you run a franchise business it is imperative to employ people who you can trust. This is where a strong family unit comes in extremely handy. Having a loyal and trustworthy workforce gives you the opportunity to spend more time on business expansion.
Most children are now very computer literate. They can help you out, punching in data and general book keeping tasks. By involving your children in some of the children friendly tasks in the business, they will pick up skills which will be useful to them in their future business life or employment.
Your partner will be able to assist in the management of the business and take some of the stress and strains away from you. Now you both have something in common if you did not before!
So in a nutshell, the business unit can be stronger when you have family working for you. The positives far out way the negatives. But, running a franchise business and employing family members can create its own unique type of problems.
What if one of your family members, be it brother or sister is not pulling his own weight? What if he or she is not up to the task? What if he or she does not get along with other family members? This can lead to all sorts of problems. For a start, you can't just sack them due to the emotional attachment. This is where the skills of the franchise owner really comes into play.
Another potential area of disputes is when you are employing a younger brother or sister, and the time comes to hand over the reins of the business franchise to your son who happens to be younger than both of them. Whilst your brother or sister was happy taking orders from you, they might not feel the same way towards your son.
In these situations, counselling can help. Another weapon that you could use is to make the transition gentle and over a longer spell, so that the other family members have a time and the opportunity to adjust to the new business relationship.
You will have to be careful that you all make time for yourselves. Working with people, and the day to day hassles can become tiresome especially when you all go home together. You do not want to carry on with the business disputes at home. A simple rule might be that business is not to be discussed around meal times, thereby allowing the family to discuss family issues.
When it comes to expanding your business by buying another franchise unit, the strengths of the family unit can really come into play. This is when you can give the opportunity to the strongest family member the chance to be a manager of the new unit.
In recent times there has been the prevalence of conversion of independent businesses in same industry into franchise units. This has fostered the rise and growth of a number of franchise systems. Now the question that arises in the minds of all businesspersons is that whether considering franchise is gainful. While venturing into franchise the pros and cons of it need to be adjudged properly. Only then can you, the businessperson, proceed towards conversion of your independent businesses to franchise. There are both advantages and disadvantages of conversion of your business into a franchise.
By this conversion you may get a considerable marketing advantage if you are associated with an established brand. This is especially so if the brand has a national or regional significance. Leading brands automatically drive in more customers and thus more profits. Again, a significant purchasing power savings is obtained by being associated with a large system having a much better bargaining power than a single independent operator. Besides, by changing over to franchise the benefits of an operating system of a concern of choice, which is tested and proven by many other operators to have produced the highest possible level of success in business, is obtained.
There are also some disadvantages lying in converting independent business to franchise. Fees and operational flexibility pose as important drawbacks. A converting franchisee requires paying both initial and ongoing fees. These are the fees that represent the expenses, which are not incurred by an independent operator. So, it is pointless to opt for the franchise unless the increased projected revenue, cost savings and profitability will more than offset the fee costs. Again, a franchise system has many rules based on which a franchise business is to be run some of which may seem uncomfortable. This is not the case in independent business.
In order to evaluate the prospects of conversion the franchisor may conduct a business review of the existing operation and inform the prospective franchisee of the key charges required in conversion. In this way the benefits that will accrue to the operator upon converting can be listed. Thus, a wise decision can be taken upon consideration of the profitability prospects.