Franchising is an attractive venture for women. Do you wish to know why franchising is perfect for women? This could be because the franchising industry provides an encouraging and supportive environment for women to establish and grow their own business. But this is just one of the many reasons why increasing number of women love franchising.
Globally, there is an increasing trend towards the number of women joining the franchising industry. In the UK there has been a drop in male franchisees from 78% in 2005 to 70% in 2019. While the female franchisees have increased steadily for the last 25 years. 30% of the 40,000 franchise businesses in the UK are now owned by women, which is higher than the 18% of female owned businesses across other small and medium sized firms in the UK according to the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. In addition, female franchise ownership in the U.S. has increased by more than 80% since 2010.
Equality at work and home
What if we tell you that buying a franchise can help you finally find equality at work easier than fighting for a place in the corporate world. Stats show that though there are legislations that have been recently passed in few countries to remove the gender pay gap at the corporate level. There has not been any favourable change in the pay scale for women.
Women need not have to be the secondary wage earner in the family. This is due to them being the primary caregiver for children or elderly family members. Because being your own boss also means more flexibility in planning and managing your time for your family.
There will still be some differences when it comes to the kind of franchises that are more successful for men and some that favour women. For instance, more men run the car service or mover sector. And more women run the children or educational franchise sector.
No glass ceiling
This means there is nothing to hold back women from being or achieving their best of abilities at work. Women, in general, are very skilled with networking, multi-tasking, communicating and building better bonds. All of these are crucial for being successful in franchising. The franchising community is built on trust and values, which are very similar to that of building a family.
Denise Hutton-Gosney, managing director and founder of Razzamataz Theatre Schools, says: “As a performing arts franchise, we have always had a high proportion of women in our network. What we are now increasingly finding is that there is no set route from where these women come from.
“On one side we have incredibly successful, multi-territory-owning young women franchisees who joined us straight out of college and on the other, we have women who have already had successful careers and are choosing us because of the flexibility and job satisfaction that we provide. It has always been our ethos that family and running a Razzamataz franchise go hand in hand and that is the environment that we create. For many women with young children or for those who are carers or who have a busy house to run, this flexibility and understanding gives them the confidence to step out of their comfort zone and run a business, many for the first time.”
Becoming an International franchisor
Suzie McCafferty is the CEO of Platinum Wave Franchising. She opened a refillable ink cartridge shop in Edinburgh soon after university. When there was an increasing demand for franchising her business, she found out how she could scale her business in the franchise model both nationally and internationally. Which lead her to 70 franchisees in six countries.
Later she took on a national recruitment agency franchise. With the experience from her previous years in franchising and inspiration from strong women in recruitment, she set up Platinum Wave Franchising to help people benefit from franchising.
Her advice to women who are considering taking a step as a franchisor or franchisee is “Just do it!” “There’s nothing to hold you back that won’t also hold a man back – some businesses shouldn’t be franchised, so get the best advice you can before franchising yours. Not everyone is a suitable franchisee for every franchise brand, so please choose carefully and take doing your due diligence very seriously. The importance of making the right decisions and working hard to achieve your dreams has no gender bias.”
Franchising is based on openness, mentoring, and collaboration. A process or journey, where the one who finds a great product or service to sell, teaches another to do the same with support and guidance, along with a community of people with the same goal. Now, why wouldn’t you love franchising?
Source: Global Franchise Magazine
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