How do I map out more franchise territories for my business?
If you’re a franchise network owner, you may be wondering how to map out more franchise territories for your business after having sold some already.
You know that there is likely to be interest in you making more franchise territories available, but don’t know where these should be or how to create them without harming the existing territories you have previously sold.
It’s a question that many businesses have so we’re going to outline a few key factors you need to consider.
The first thing to understand is that although your existing franchise territories may seem to be thriving, they may not actually be designed in the right way.
Typically when a business decides to grow through franchising, they select a location to start with that is commonly based on existing geographic boundaries. These boundaries could be county or state lines, or regions, that may sound logical on paper but in actual fact are not based on business intelligence and data.
Instead they are often based on historic definitions of an area, that made sense at the time but have little relevance to today’s modern world.
For example, although the territory could be large in size and include an established town or city, it could be sparsely populated with your target customers or have poor transport links or even contain numerous competitors that make launching a rival business there difficult.
This means that although your existing franchisees may appear to be doing well in territories based on traditional geographic boundaries, they are unlikely to have the same chances of success as one another, ultimately leading to frustration, dissatisfaction, and mixed financial results.
The second thing to consider when planning new franchise areas after having sold some territories already is that you already have some data that can help you make better, intelligence-led decisions in the future.
This information – be it sales figures, sales conversion times, average spend, and much more – can be integrated into a Location Intelligence System like Tech4T’s Territory Runner solution alongside specialist data that makes it easy to see where to launch next.
This data could include population demographics, transport information, customer buying habits, the location of competitors, and much, much more.
Best of all, sophisticated systems like Territory Runner present all this vital information in easy-to-use fully interactive zoomable maps that can be interrogated from postcode / zip code level all the way through to national and even international level.
And heatmaps can be produced that show prime locations for future franchise territories that don’t infringe on already sold areas.
Many businesses use a Location Intelligence System to initially map out their franchise territories in a country during their planning phase, or after they have launched a small number of territories, to maximise their future success.
It’s important to know that it’s never too late to speak to location intelligence experts like Tech4T, even if you are an established business with a number of existing franchise areas.
The expertise and intelligence available means that as the network grows, it is based on solid evidence and data that results in franchise owners having an equal chance of success and the same opportunities to generate revenues for their franchise and the parent business.
And when existing territories come up for renewal, there is also the opportunity to redesign these so they are optimised for greater success in the future, further benefiting the business and the franchise owner.
Tech4T | Quality Franchise Association (franchise-association.org.uk)
