The world’s population is almost evenly distributed between men (50.42%) and women (49.58%). As such a huge force, and with their inherent talents, women are a force to be reckoned with and they require the right business opportunities to help empower them and through them, others. There’s various research on the topic of women in franchising. And while it shows significant progress made over the past few decades, it also goes to show that there’s still a lot to be done.
One example is the study commissioned by the International Franchise Association’s Franchise Education Foundation, which states that “the rate of female-owned franchises grew by around 10% from 2007 to 2012.” But looking at more recent statistics, we see a 24% increase in women-owned franchise businesses and what’s more is that of all the new franchises that opened in the past 24 months, 41% are women-owned businesses.
Setting the scene for a female franchise
Yes, an ever-growing number of women are entering the franchise space and this is phenomenal because it affords them a better work/life balance. It also empowers them to earn more through a tried and tested business model. It enables them to grow and scale at their own pace and so much more. However, there are certain challenges that need to be overcome.
Some of these challenges include the following:
- It is stated that women tend to invest in lower-earning business sectors. This is exemplified by the fact that many if not most women are found in the child services sector, followed by travel, boutique fitness, education and tutoring. Other sectors include health care, professional/technical services and others.
- Scalability can be an issue. One of the reasons for this is that women who may be juggling business and family life may find it more difficult to scale their businesses into multi-operation units, which require much more time, effort and dedication. As a result, women’s earning potential is impacted.
- A further challenge is the fact that women can have a hard time in securing funding. This coupled with lack of business experience, lack of access to capital and both formal and informal business networks plus the need to balance work and family results in lenders not empowering women’s franchises as much as they could.
Advantages of franchising for women
There are multiple advantages of franchise businesses for women. Some of these will be looked at in a bit more detail below:
- A proven business model: it must be remembered that a franchise is successful because of its business model. These have been tried and tested over many years and have also proven to be recession-proof. This gives women not only a level of stability when entering the business world but it also offers an opportunity for them to make their business ventures successful. Many franchisors also indicate that franchisees can earn high returns on their investment and this opens up a world of opportunities for women to take advantage of. With the necessary security and backing behind them, they will become a force to be reckoned with.
- Access to financing: many female entrepreneurs don’t realise that they can also have access to funding to help get their business off the ground. There are both small business loan schemes as well as government schemes for this. But in addition to this, many franchisors have established strong relationships with reputable lenders who can grant financing of up to 70% of the investment level required to purchase the rights to operate their franchise unit.
- Ongoing training and support: further benefits of a franchise for women include the training and support that they will receive from the franchisor on an ongoing basis. Training is essential to get to know the operations, systems and processes of the franchisors while support can range from IT to marketing, business development and more. This is ideal for women who may not come from a business background and the support from the network of franchisees who share advice and best practices can prove to be invaluable.
- Flexibility: the flexibility that a franchise business can offer is another advantage of franchising. There are multiple franchise offerings on the market and women are spoilt for choice in terms of the industries and sectors that they can enter and pursue. In addition to this, many of these franchise options offer flexibility, the ability to work from home and management franchises mean that in many cases, the work can be carried out by staff members while the franchisee manages the operations.
- No previous experience required: finally, although some franchise operations require a particular skill set, such as business consultancy or insurance and finance, in most cases, franchisors will look at the prospective franchisee’s personal and professional background as well as their attitudes, communication skills, drive, ambition and more in order to determine whether they would make a good fit.
In conclusion
There are many influential women in business and their number is climbing as more and more women enter the world of franchising as a business pursuit. However, more still remains to be done in this regard and opportunities for women need to be emphasised. While there is great support for women in franchising, and there are many franchise opportunities for women, there is scope for growth as franchising seeks to meet the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals of equal work and decent opportunities for all. At Franchise Fame, we’re proud to be an Empowering Women into Franchising ambassador and we’re ready to help any women in franchising with all of their marketing efforts.
