Beth Haselhorst: Small business comes in many forms and many of these enterprises are franchises. 2007 research reveals franchising produces one out of every seven jobs in the United States. While franchising is successful for many, there are some challenges. Our guest today knows them first hand. Franchise expert Dick Rennick is an award winning founder of a 360 unit franchise system and former chairman of the international franchise association. Dick is recognized as one of the leading experts in franchising. Welcome to sbtv.com Dick.
Dick Rennick: Thank you.
Beth Haselhorst: I like you just to go ahead and start with the pros, what would you say of some pros of franchising for our perspective small business owner?
Dick Rennick: Well, there are several. But probably more of the leading one is that you don’t have to go through learning the entire process, let’s say that you wanted to be in the landscape business. Well, maybe you would buy a lawn care type franchise work, they’ve already done all the work for you and they’re ramp you up with through several weeks of training. It’s kind of like—you’re not in business by yourself, but you got somebody there with you.
So the positives of franchising is that you’re together with all the other franchising that are out there working to build the brand, and everybody is looking for that golden ring at the end of the rainbow. You know they’re looking for their retirement pays. So why not get in with somebody that’s already growing, has brand recognition, has a good process, and get in with them, and go to that end.
Beth Haselhorst: What are some challenges or cons?
Dick Rennick: Well, some of the challenges are—if you’re very entrepreneurially driven and can’t really take direction, franchising may not be for you. And when I talk about taking direction, I’m talking about, you know, that you’re going to be asked to display the brand and not change the brand. If you’re buying a food or fast food types franchise, they got certain menus that you have to abide by, they got certain soft drink products that you have to purchase and you may like one soft drink over another, but it if you buy that brand, you’ve got to use what they recommend and there’s a reasons behind all of this.
So the challenges are staying within the boundaries. I call it the freeway franchising, there’s the far left side of the freeway and the far right side of the freeway. You’re job is to stay within the bounds of that freeway and work to enhance the brand and grow it so that everybody flourishes in the system.
Beth Haselhorst: Okay now, the help works through some of these pros and cons and make the decision for yourself. I want to ask little bit about you’re company. Are you a consultancy company or how would you describe your company?
Dick Rennick: Well know, I consider myself a mentor, I’ve got a lot of years in franchising, going in to the 35th, 36th year and I started the nine or 10 different businesses. So I’m a mentor, I don’t profess myself to be a consultant. I like to mentor people. I taught to give them options on how they can grow their enterprise whether they are wanting to get into franchising, whether they are an existing franchise company that’s just struggling to grow—I’d like to go in and help them and make some suggestions to them and give them some options that they can utilize and make their own decisions on what to do next.
And I would give them options on legal, give them options on who they should hire, options on accounting, options on HR, all the things that—my hair got grey over for many years in business. I’m able to package that and help people through those steps so that they don’t have to go through all the heartaches of getting there over 10 or 20-year period, get them there much quicker.
Beth Haselhorst: Okay. You talked about, with the franchising, you’d be able to take direction, that makes me think of I’ve heard the phrase “buying a franchise is like buying a job.” What can you add to that?
Dick Rennick: Well it depends on the franchise. If you’re buying some kind of small home-based franchises, it’s surprising how you could sell in two or three different places in town, a home base franchise, whereby one may just be going like crazy and one may not be. Sometimes there are people that aren’t business literal enough to really make a goal in business whether it’s franchising or doing their own business.
So the idea of getting into a franchise is that you’re in business not by yourself but with someone, and these people give all you the help and all the direction to get you over that hump to where you can truly be a successful entrepreneur on your own.
Beth Haselhorst: Alright. Well thank you very much for joining us today Dick, I appreciate it.
Look for other segments on franchising and small business from Dick here on sbtv.com. You can also learn more about Dick Rennick’s company by going to www.teamrennick.com. This is sbtv.com, small business is our only business.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services