Are Building Inspection Franchises Worth The Outlay

Written on the 16 July 2013 by Peter Duncan

So you're asking yourself, why should I pay for a building inspection franchise!

Why wouldn't I just do-it-myself and save money or put that money into my own business?

That's such a valid question and a fair point but, I think you've got to look at the fundamental question of why you're looking at buying a franchise in the first place. I'll explain why in a moment!

Firstly Is it because you think the franchise model has some merit and you need to know why other people are buying them? or is it you need to weigh up whether to go-it-alone, or go the franchise way? or do you simply want to find some information that could benefit you if you do go-it-alone?

Either way, lets do some comparisons and then you can make up your own mind.

Firstly lets talk about the franchise way as no-doubt, you've obviously had a good think about going it alone.

Why are Building Inspection franchises so popular?

It mostly comes down to the success and survival rate of franchisees. You have to compare the overall success rate of starting up your own business versus buying into a franchise. It's widely known that building inspection franchises have a 95% success rate you can be the judge, there are plenty of articles on Google about that. So I want to take you through a common sense approach to this.

I think the reason behind that is because of the turnkey aspect. I've started two businesses from scratch, so I know the road of going-it-alone.

So what I mean by turnkey is that the risk element has been reduced by the franchisor. They've spent money on developing a system that works and is successful. And then turned around and developed templates for other people to use, so as to replicate that success. So all of the trial and error, testing and tweaking has been reduced.

When I say systems, I don't just mean software systems that allow you to operate more efficiently, although this is another benefit of a franchise. What I mean, is the actual 'successful business model' itself that's been tested and developed around Quickly Producing Leads, Converting Sales and Making More Profit.

A motivated and driven franchisor usually has a vision right from the start to have the best, smoothest and most profitable operation in the business and being profitable is an absolute requirement before franchising any business. He's spent at least 4-5 years testing, tweaking and developing it to realise his original vision.

So when you step into a franchise, you know you're walking into a well-oiled machine that's been proven and tested and can easily be replicated from day one.

Lets compare that to starting off on your own, in 3 main areas; -

Quickly Producing Leasds
Converting More Sales
Making More Profit

1. Quickly Producing Leadsleads-for-building-inspection-franchises

Going it Alone

You start with approaching your own network to get you going quickly, which is the most obvious place to start.

You know what you have to do to get leads and you've spent a good amount of time thinking about it.

So you try a few things to start with to see what sticks, as well implementing some of the things other people in the industry have told you and you see what happens!

You spend a bit of money here and there and you see what works best for you.

The Franchise Way

You'll have on day one, a plan and the right marketing tools for producing leads right off the bat. Franchises can guide you quickly to drinking holes. You'll know exactly what you have to do to produce that first sale, because the plan you're working from has been tested and proven over and over by the franchisor as well as other franchisees in the group.

2. Converting More Salesconversions

Going it Alone

You've now got new customers ringing you and you spend time on the phone chatting to them about your service and price, you try and get them to know, like and trust you, so they'll spend their hard earned dollars with your company.

You also spend time trying to figure out, why customers you spent time with on the phone don't ring you back! You ask yourself questions like: Am I too expensive? Is there something I'm not telling them that my competition is? Is my customer service not up to scratch?

It takes you time to work out what your conversion rate is as well as how to improve it.

The Franchise Way

Things to Say, Questions to Ask, People to See!

Converting more sales is more of an art form, which requires trial and error, you need time, information and volume of sales to work out how to increase it.

A franchise should know what their conversion rate is from their marketing efforts and direct sales.

You'll know exactly what to say, the questions to ask when qualifying new leads and the questions to ask in your after sales system. You'll know how to generate repeat business and create more referrals with the systems created by the franchisor.

You'll have a list of the best prospects to see and a list to stay away from.

3. Making More Profit

Going it Alone

Time or Money?

You'll generally have to spend time in the trenches to find out exactly where you can make more profit and this usually comes with volume of customers and a good knowledge on the way you run your business and the efficiency aspects of your service.

You'll have to have hands on experience to discover where all of the pot holes or sand traps are, which could cost your business money and in this game, there are lots of them.

The Franchise Way

A good franchise has a framework around making more money or profit for example...

The 3 ways to make more money

Convert more
Sell More
Increase your prices

1. Convert More

This is the most effective way and it's all in the numbers. I'm not going to go into detail with this because it takes too long to explain. I'll explain in another post.

I hope the following example sums it up well enough for you to get the concept:

You make more profit by converting 8 customers in 10 rather than spending more money and time on converting 2 customers in 10. Said another way, you're wasting profit on not converting leads.

To sum that up with Parato's 80/20 rule. You only have to spend 20% of your resources (time & money) as opposed to 80%.

If you're still not sure

You can work the numbers out on how much time and resources would go into completing 500 inspections per year

I'll help you start off

To get 500 inspections with an 80% conversion rate you'll need 625 leads
To get 500 inspections with a 25% conversion rate you'll need 2,500 leads

That's 1875 more leads to spend more time and money on to get the same result!

Franchisors have already figured that out and make sure you're getting the highest conversion rate possible.

If you multiply that number by your hourly rate as well as adding a budget for marketing and sales over 3 years and then compare that cost alone to the investment in a franchise, you can probably now see the benefit, which I've summarised at the end.

2. Sell More

If you want to sell more of your services you need to be able to scale efficiently in terms of time and money.

Because franchisors have already done this, they have the information for you to replicate this.

3. Increase your prices

To be able to increase your prices you have to be in a good position to do this. Franchises will be able to tell you what the best time is for you to do this based on their experience and other members in the group.

Conclusion

An investment in a building inspection franchise arms you with the information, systems and tools, coupled with your own ideas and input, is designed to get you off to a quicker and more profitable start than if you were to go it alone.

By the time you have worked out how to optimise the most important areas in your business of Producing More Leads, Converting More Sales and Making More Profit which normally takes at least three years you will have been better off investing the same money at the beginning to get off to a quicker and more profitable start.

A franchise is not a silver bullet and will not do the work for you, you still have the same grind of normal business, but it does give you the keys to a safer, quicker and more profitable business with on-going development as well as exclusive group knowledge and support.

So I hope this gives you an, all-be-it brief summary, on the advantages and disadvantages of going it alone or investing in a franchise system.

You can find out more by visiting our site here at www.teamhabit.net or you can email me at peter@thehabit.com.au

Or call me on +64 021 713714