In today’s world of Amazon, Delivery Everything, fast paced life and over-crowded schedules the world of mobile franchises has grown and seems to be continuing to expand every month. Mobile businesses have made a significant impact in virtually every industry and have essentially established an entire market segment defined by their ability to be on the move. Our firm, Franchise Marketing Systems works with a wide variety of mobile franchises and has seen first hand the impact of the transition to mobile service and product offerings.
One of the most direct and obvious benefits of the mobile franchise market segment is the investment and potential return on the initial investment. With a low up front expense to open a mobile business, the opportunity to realize a ROI is stronger as a franchisee. In addition, mobile franchises typically operate with a lower overhead and no fixed expenses making every dollar in revenue much higher margin adding to the financial attractiveness of mobile franchises. What Franchise Marketing Systems likes in particular about mobile franchises is the ability to go get the business and avoiding the age old scenario where the wrong location is chosen by a franchisee opening a fixed location business and the business never has a chance to be successful. A mobile services franchise puts the franchise owner in the driver’s seat and lets them go get business whenever and wherever they choose to.
The beauty of mobile businesses is that they fit today’s consumer. Today’s consumer is just busy. Virtually everyone who has the means to pay for services that are brought to their doorstep in today’s market is happy to pay a premium for convenience if it saves them time. Simply Done is a new franchise brand which makes healthy, quick and easy meals for people and delivers them right to their door. The model’s convenience has proven to be extremely well received by consumers and Simply Done in only a short time frame has become a leader in this market segment. Wheels for the Wise is another new brand that provides non-emergency transportation services for seniors based out of the Toronto market. The convenience of service and necessity to be mobile for these customers makes the model not only value-oriented, but also critical for the customers they serve to be able to live their lives.
One Call Junk Haul is another new franchise system which as the name says, handles junk and trash, comes to the customer’s home or business and takes care of everything professionally and easily while the customer doesn’t have to go anywhere to get great service. The food truck business can be an excellent example of this scenario, brands such as SMOOSH Ice Cream Sandwiches are bringing the treats to the customer in mobile operations and making the food service accessible and easy to access anywhere they can get the SMOOSH truck to.
One aspect of mobile franchises that buyers need to be aware of is that you lose the traditional retail concept of pick a good location, open the doors and take care of customers as they walk in the door. Now, you need to be more marketing, sales and business development oriented and go out to get the business. It can be a blessing and curse in that the franchisee has no limit to how much business or how far they might go to get new business, but if they aren’t comfortable with marketing and sales, it could create a dilemma. Generally, mobile franchises can be operated from a home office location and require a bit more discipline from the franchise owner to create consistent results and drive business. The schedule is your own in a mobile franchise marketing system, but you need to be driven to fill it. At Franchise Marketing Systems, we’ve also found that mobile franchises tend to be a better fit for owner-operated businesses where the franchisee is also the primary operator of the day to day business.
Regardless of your interest in industry or business segment, there are most likely some excellent mobile franchise systems which could be a perfect fit.
My advice: put mobile franchises at the top of your list for consideration; there are too many good ones not to give this category a hard look.
Christopher Conner is the President of Franchise Marketing Systems and has spent the last decade in the franchise industry working with several hundred different franchise systems in management, franchise sales and franchise development work.