Reasons Why You Should Invest in a Franchise

Budding entrepreneurs are often met with the decision to either create their own business or invest in a franchise. This can be a difficult choice, but the benefits of becoming a franchisee are undeniable.

Rather than starting a company from scratch, franchises allow motivated individuals to build upon a brand that’s already established. This simple fact is enough to attract many who want to start their own business, but that’s not where the advantages end.

By understanding the key reasons to invest in a franchise, you can make a more informed decision on what’s best for you. Franchising might not be right for everyone, but the following information will help you understand if it’s right for you.

Hit the Ground Running

When the question of ‘why invest in a franchise?’ comes up, the most common answer involves how quickly everything can get started. You aren’t tasked with figuring out aspects like promotional campaigns, necessary tools and merchandise inventory. In some situations, like WIN Home Inspection, not even a storefront is necessary.

The whole point of the franchise business model is that everything you need is provided. Franchisors succeed only when their franchisees are successful. This means they have a vested interest in making sure you accomplish your goals. To this end, they give you all the necessities to hit the ground running.

Mentorship

Recent studies found that 92 percent of small business owners say the growth and survivability of a company are directly impacted by mentors. Enthusiastic individuals who believe they’ve got everything it takes for success often overlook the importance of mentoring. Unfortunately, this leaves them to learn everything on their own.

The benefits of mentorship are not just anecdotal. Sadly, half of the new businesses don’t make it past five years, but with the proper mentorship, we see this number rise to 70%. When you invest in a franchise, like WIN, you don’t have to seek out mentorship, instead, it is happily provided.

Franchises that promote collegial relationships and camaraderie within their ranks create an environment where mentorship is encouraged. This gives you access to professionals who have already experienced many of the ‘growing pains’ of running their own business. Insight of this kind can be invaluable for your success. At WIN Home Inspection, we promote a culture of camaraderie and support to help our franchise owners learn and grow.

Power in Marketing Scale and Expertise of a Franchisor

When you start your own brand, you’re the new kid on the block. No one knows who you are, and this won’t change until you get your name out there. Unfortunately, this typically means large marketing costs. In fact, the average expenditure for marketing can take upwards of 20% of a company’s annual budget in industries that are considered competitive (most any industry in this day and age tends to be competitive). According to a more granular survey published in the Wall Street Journal, companies in the consumer services sector can spend upward of 15% of their budget on marketing, and that is for established companies.

That’s a significant portion of your profits, but if you’re building a business from scratch, it’s a necessary expense. When you invest in a franchise, however, you’re becoming part of a brand that already has name recognition. Every bit of promotion done on their own behalf directly benefits your marketing strategy.

And the cost of marketing when starting from scratch does not tell the full story, because the other side is the expertise and keeping up with the trends in marketing and technology and social media, to name a few.

Additionally, most franchises provide marketing and branding kits to help you build a local presence. There are even companies that go the extra mile, like WIN Home Inspection – WIN is the only home inspection franchise in the industry to provide end-to-end marketing support at no additional cost.

Independence with Help

As an example, the home inspection industry is very attractive (high margin, multibillion-dollar, relatively stable) to build a business. Veterans, contractors, Realtors®, mid-level executives and contractors make up a significant portion of those who invest in a home inspection franchise. This is because these individuals tend to seek independence and flexibility.

When you invest in a franchise, you become an independent business owner. While you’re provided with the tools necessary for success, day-to-day operations still rest on your shoulders. Having the infrastructure, intellectual property and other tools of a national brand is undoubtedly beneficial, but it doesn’t mean that you aren’t your own boss.

Lower Overall Risk

Starting from scratch typically means you’ll need to figure out everything on your own. Unfortunately, the simplest of mistakes can be disastrous when building a brand. By having an infrastructure and entire community behind you, you can reduce the risks faced by traditional business owners.

When you invest in a franchise, you’re buying into a business model that’s already been proven to work. There’s no having to figure out the best way to build the brand – there’s already a successful track record to follow. Fortunately, the statistics bear out this logical fact.

Studies from the U.S. Census found that franchises in some industries have twice the average payroll of ‘made from scratch’ counterparts. This means they’ve been able to bring on more employees and pay them a more respectable wage.

You can also judge risk by looking at specific companies. The average gross revenue of established franchisees can be substantially higher than their initial investment. If you’re properly motivated, you can minimize the risk that small businesses face.

Less Need for Experience

A bit of experience can go a long way when you invest in a franchise. The type of experience you think you need, though, is not always the type you actually need. When you consider the extensive training and foundational assistance you’re receiving from the franchise itself, other traits become far more important.

Veterans, for instance, have the leadership qualities, strong work ethic and teamwork mindset to make a franchise successful. Contractors have a solutions-focused mindset and are versatile, which are important traits to own and run your franchised home inspection business. Corporate professionals bring operational experience, a collaborative approach and an ability to quickly adapt to the table. Realtors® exhibit likability and enthusiasm, and knowledge of their local community, which can prove valuable in starting and growing a franchised home inspection business.

Even if you’ve never worked within a given industry, the experience you bring to the table is often more than enough to achieve success. Focus on your drive for success, and let the franchisor focus on providing you with the skills necessary to attain your goals.

Impressive Buying Power

We’ve all witnessed the success of bigger companies across the country, especially when it comes to buying power. Instead of purchasing 50 units of a product for inventory, they can order 1,000, and their price per unit is exceedingly low.

This buying power with a franchisor is a huge benefit received when you invest in a franchise. You’re no longer shopping around for the best price on a single item. You gain the buying power of a business that’s part of an industry employing 9 million American workers.

The benefits of this type of purchasing power cannot be overstated. A full 65 percent of individuals with failed businesses cite financial mismanagement as the main reason for the demise of their businesses. It all comes down to money, and when you have the financial power of a franchise behind you, you’re in a much more comfortable position.

Why Invest in a Franchise: Success

There are two primary roads you can travel to become a business owner. When you understand the benefits of franchise investment, it’s hard to claim that it’s not the best path forward. An established brand having your back is never a bad thing.

Why WIN is a best-bet investment

Training, technology and marketing support help WIN franchise owners establish loyal relationships in the real estate industry that lead to a steady influx of customer referrals. WIN’s proprietary software platform, WINspect, was a breakthrough for the industry when it debuted in 2001 and has radically sped up the process of conducting an inspection and providing a finished report. WINspect provides WIN inspectors with a system-by-system checklist for homes enabling them to make quick notes as they perform their inspections. Those notes, as well as photos taken by the inspector feed into the WIN Home Inspection report, which is delivered to the buyer. The software allows an inspector to quickly generate the final inspection report — sometimes the report is delivered before the inspector even leaves the home!

WIN’s comprehensive training covers different types of marketing techniques, sales and public relations strategies, target audiences for franchisee messages and ways to clearly differentiate WIN from competitors in messaging. In fact, WIN is the only home inspection franchise to offer year-round training for 35+ essential services.

Behind the scenes, WIN provides many other tools that help a franchisee become profitable and grow their business, including customized websites that are optimized for search engines, mobile sites optimized for smartphones, and social media marketing support and PR. And WIN home inspectors arrive at customers’ homes in a professional and uniformly branded white crossover or SUV.

James Price, a Strategic-Partner in Lubbock, Texas, is just one of many successful franchisees benefitting from WIN’s rapid growth.

“I did a business plan and made a three-year projection that figured I’d be getting a set number of home inspections a month by year three. Well, at six months I started hitting my monthly goal, and I haven’t stopped hitting it since. I’ve jumped far past all my projections for my first year. It’s really exciting to be part of a fast-growing business.”

If you’re interested in starting your own franchise and for more information, please call (800) 967-8127 or email us at franchising@wini.com and one of our experts will contact you promptly.