We’re Not in Kansas Anymore: Why a Franchise that Takes Off in Topeka might Tank in Tampa

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We’re Not in Kansas Anymore: Why a Franchise that Takes Off in Topeka might Tank in Tampa

It is essential, as part of your franchise education, to compare your franchise territory to other territories in the system. Here are some particular areas to investigate.

Total population numbers

The majority of franchises are sold by territory. The franchisor sets the territory size asked to support that particular franchise. Diligent franchisors will not knowingly sell a territory that doesn’t have the population numbers to support their franchise. But they will sell territories that fit their minimum criteria. If you are purchasing one of those marginal territories, you want to find out that up front, and you want to determine if the territory size is expected to increase or decrease in the foreseeable future. Ask the franchisor for the names of franchisees whose territories are similar in size to the territory you are considering. Call them and find out how successful they are.

Population density

Ask the franchisor for the standard radius for appealing customers. Is it 2 miles? 10 miles? Then ask for the names of franchisees who have population densities comparable to the densities in the territory you are considering. Call them to find out how successful they are.

Demographics

A futurist named Andrew Zolli summarized the importance of demographics:

“You can’t understand the future without demographics. The composition of a society – whether its citizens are old or young, prosperous or declining, rural or urban – shapes every aspect of civic life, from politics, economics, and culture to the kinds of products, services, and businesses that are likely to succeed or fail. Demographics isn’t destiny, but it’s close.”1

When you analyse the demographics of your territory, you will be weighing a number of factors, potentially including gender, race, age, income, disabilities, education, home ownership, number and value of single-family homes, and employment status.Will your franchise draw  a broad demographic or does it have specific appeal? If the franchise attends to a market segment – say students, wealthy homeowners, or small business owners, for example, does the territory you’re looking at have enough of those customers? Is their average income and education level in-line with the franchises typical customer’s income and education? Ask the franchisor which territories are similar in terms of demographics. Call them and find out how successful they are.

Do Your Own Research to Get the Best Franchise Information

In addition to talking to  existing franchisees, do your own research on current and projected population totals, population density, and demographics, including economic trends. You should be able to find information on line. Go to  your local reference librarian to check what s/he has available. Additionally, your state may offer free services.

Don’t do the mistake of establishing a franchise purchasing decision on your level of enthusiasm or on what you personally believe will work. Make certain you have a market, and that the market is expected to stay the same or improve over the next 10 years (10 years is a common franchise contract term).

If you are disposed to work hard, becoming a franchise owner can help you attain your financial and lifestyle goals. Just be sure to eliminate as much risk as possible. Do your research before you sign on the dotted line.

1 Andrew Zolli, “Demographics: The Population Hourglass,” Fast Company Magazine, March, 2006.

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The Educated Franchisee is dedicated to franchise education through the sharing of franchise information. Our objective is –

‘To create educated franchise buyers that have clearly defined objectives and are able to recognize the right, or wrong, franchise when they see it.  An educated franchise buyer will move into the franchisee role with their expectations properly set and will have a heightened potential for success within the franchise system creating a win/win for all involved.

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Pip Android – We’Re Going Live!

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Pip Android – We’Re Going Live!

On February 9, the highly anticipated Pip Android is going live.

If you’ve been waiting for the “real deal” then mark your calendar and make sure you are first in line for this one…

Here’s why I’m so excited about Pip Android –

It’s been built by some of the most successful Forex traders in the business.  Pip Android has been trained to exactly mimic these guy’s trading strategies.
It’s a Ninja at finding successful trades in every market condition – Currency Pairs don’t matter….volatility doesn’t matter….it profits no matter what!
It’s tailor made for beginners that don’t want to fuss with complicated algorithms and installation hassles
It’s easily configured for “large scale” trading – making Pip Android a must have forprofessional traders

Here’s the deal though…

This is going to be a big-time launch.  Hundreds of the most influential Forex experts will tell their people about Pip Android.  So thousands will be checking it out on February 9.

It will be debuting at great introductory price, but I bet that price will get increased pretty quickly.  So I strongly recommend that you plan on camping out on this site on February 9, and hitting the refresh button until it goes live.

==> Visit Official Pip Android Website

Pip Android has a pretty impressive live trading record.  You’ll be able to examine the proof for yourself on launch day.  The rumor is that it’s doubling account balances every single month.

==> Read Full Pip Android Review

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Yahoo: Actually, Search Is Still Popular (We’re Just Confused)

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Yahoo seems to be a little confused about its prospects these days. Now that their search deal with Microsoft is approved, they’re suddenly not that interested in search, because people aren’t interested in search. (Odd how that one’s not generating the same interest as a couple years ago when Ask.com did/didn’t say they were getting out of search.) And yet at the same time, they’re releasing research that shows just how important search really is.

SEO by the Sea reports on a study, to be presented today, that shows search is responsible for more than 1 in 5 pageviews online. Search itself saw 10% of online pageviews, and indirectly lead to 21% of the pageviews and about the same proportion of purchases online.

They tell us that main web search accounted for 6.2 percent of all pageviews, multimedia searches take up 1.4 percent, and item searches another 1.4 percent. They followed browsing trails from these searches to the pages that searchers followed from the searches, and tell us that those pages browsed as a result of searches result in another 12.4 percent of pages visited on the Web. . . .

The study also looked at “checkout” pageviews to see how often people arrived at ecommerce checkout pages, and tell us that approximately 20 percent of people making a purchase online eventually arrived at that page directly or indirectly from a search pageview.

Based on >50M pageviews collected over 8 days in March 2009, the study reaffirms the importance of search. Over the last year, social networks have continued to grow—but the two categories play very different roles. Meanwhile, if Yahoo really thought that search was on the way out, wouldn’t they have their employees sit on this research?

Naturally, Yahoo is right that people are using social networks and recommendations from friends to find new websites and places to hang out—and possibly even answers to questions. But if they really think people aren’t searching, 1.) they need better internal communication, 2.) the search deal is a waste of time and money and 3.) they don’t understand how people find information in the first place—a cardinal sin in the IR industry.

Even in the reports this morning, Yahoo acknowledged that people spend about a sixth of their online time searching. While they also cited stats that said they spent another third of their time communicating and half their time browsing, I think that showing that people spend a significant amount of time—but not a majority of it—searching shows how successful search engines are. Would anyone want an Internet where we spent half our time searching for something, and a minority of our time actually reading what we’d found?

With these stats, it sounds like Yahoo’s trying to have its cake and eat it to: search is important, but it isn’t. It drives pageviews, but social is the wave of the future. Buy search ads, but buy display ads. What do you think? Is Yahoo trying to attack this from both sides?

This looks like a case of

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