By Cindy Sheller
For many people, the American Dream means owning your own business and making it a success.
And, in order to do that, more professionals have opted to forego the uncertainty of starting their own business and have decided that the franchising life is best for them. According to the International Franchise Association, the overall number of franchise establishments will likely increase by more than 15,000 units in 2024 and add nearly 221,000 jobs.
But if you’re planning to build generational wealth and scale your growth, owning multiple units can be preferable to simply growing one location. There are three things you should consider before you purchase more territories if you want to be a successful multi-unit franchise owner.
Hire the Right Team
When most new franchise owners start out, they often spend their time doing all the jobs. In the senior home care industry, for example, it’s not unusual to see an owner handling everything from operations to marketing to caregiving.
But if you want to have any success, you have to learn how to hire the right team and trust that they will be able to delegate and handle responsibilities. When I purchased my first Caring Senior Service location in Tucson, Arizona, I did everything. If I was in the office, I tended to start handling everything instead of delegating responsibilities.
Everyone says that you should “work on your business and not in your business,” but this is hard advice to follow without a plan. That plan should include hiring the right people so you can make the transition from a simple franchise location owner into more of a CEO-type role.
Having one office is easy, having two offices is easy. It gets trickier when you own three locations, and, by the time you own four or more, you have to ensure you have a great leadership team. You can’t continue to be the owner and do all the jobs.
One of the best ways to ensure you hire the right team is to have a process. If you’re part of a good franchise organization, sometimes the process is already in place for you to follow.
At Caring Senior Service, our processes are well defined and are in place because they work. One of the positive attributes of buying into an established franchise is that they already have most of their processes in place. From operations to sales and marketing to hiring your team, franchises are successful because of their processes.
While you may need to consider the local workforce and other factors unique to your location, taking your main cues from your franchise’s operations manual will help you put the right team in place.
Using a Dynamic Infrastructure
There are many reasons you may opt to choose one franchise over another when making the choice to buy into a franchising system. But one thing you should never overlook is how dynamic the franchisor is when considering infrastructure and technology.
One of the reasons I chose to buy into the Caring Senior Service model was CEO and founder Jeff Salter’s commitment to ensuring his franchises had access to updated technology and the infrastructure to run a streamlined franchising operation.
This becomes even more important when you begin operating multiple locations. If your franchisor isn’t committed to developing proprietary technology or ensuring that franchisees embrace innovative platforms, it becomes more difficult for your locations to communicate with one another and with the franchisor.
Technology helps the multi-unit franchise owner automate compliance checks, enhance and support new employee and ongoing training, analyze data to capitalize on trends and streamline their ability to operate their business using the franchisor’s standard operating procedures.
Innovation is also important in attracting new customers to your businesses.
In the non-medical home care service industry, technology is used to help family members who aren’t near their aging loved ones stay in touch with both their family members and with their caregivers. It also streamlines our ability to schedule caregivers so that the right caregivers are assigned to clients at the times their families have requested care.
Having the innovative platforms that help us deliver our GreatCare® service makes running several locations more profitable, efficient and ensures a high-quality customer experience.
Infrastructure is also important in how a franchisor supports their franchisees. Sales and marketing support, ongoing training, bookkeeping and operational tools, and innovative technology are all important infrastructures you’ll need to successfully run a multi-unit franchise.
For a multi-unit franchise owner to be successful in the modern era, their franchisor must see the value in developing an innovative infrastructure that can support growth.
Having the Right Capital
We all want our businesses to grow. Whether you want a single location to grow exponentially or you want to be able to operate your franchise in multiple locations, you have to have the right amount of capital to ensure your business meets demand.
In the home care industry, if you want to start running 24-hour non-medial service, you have to hire enough people to staff that goal. And, since payroll is one of the biggest costs a franchise owner faces, you have to be committed to hiring enough personnel to meet growth.
This isn’t always easy.
While you must always calculate the costs and benefits of growing your organization, making decisions that affect your brand reputation is always a risk. Having the right amount of capital is king when it comes to sustaining growth.
Having multiple units is demanding of your time, but it can help you secure the capital you need to take those risks. Owning multiple units offers the owner the diversification necessary to overcome the impact of economic downturns or regional fluctuations in various local markets.
It also helps entrepreneurs enhance their operational efficiency with bulk purchasing power, centralized management and shared resources.
So, while there are certainly some headaches associated with having multiple territories within your franchisor’s system, the benefits are great if you do your homework. Making sure you pick a franchisor that supports their franchise owners with an innovative infrastructure, understanding the extent of your capital outlay to scale your business and, above all, hiring the right team to carry out your vision should give you the tools you need to become a multi-unit franchising success.
Cindy Sheller has been a Caring Senior Service franchise owner since 2015, when she opened the Caring Senior Service of Tucson, Arizona, location. She now owns Caring Senior Service of Dallas Northeast, Caring Senior Service of Dallas Mid-Cities, and Caring Senior Service of Las Vegas. Sheller has more than 28 years in the healthcare industry and was working in the industry when she opened her first Caring location. She strives to give seniors the control needed to live safely at home and to give their families peace of mind.