If owning a business is one of your main goals, you may have questioned which is the best route to business ownership – franchises vs. startups. After all, outside of family succession, these are two of the most common ways entrepreneurs become business owners.

Potentially, you can have great success in business with either route your take, but the franchise route does have advantages. For example, those who franchise actually have a better chance of succeeding and producing higher incomes than their startup counterparts. Their path is also much more predictable, and when they run into obstacles along the way, they typically have a support system in place to help them overcome challenges.

Let’s compare franchises vs. startups in two areas, to give you a better idea of how they differ:

Business Framework: Franchises vs. Startups

Franchises — With a franchise system, the business framework — which has been tested, honed, and proven to work — is provided to you. You are presented with the guidelines for launching the business, running it day to day, and growing it. Training and information on how to run specific areas of your business, such as bookkeeping and accounting, are usually covered, and software and technology to perform such tasks are often included as well.

Startups — When you build your own business from the ground up, you must develop the framework yourself. This involves determining and documenting processes and guidelines for each area of the business: daily operations, marketing, bookkeeping technology, and so on. You’ll have the freedom to fully control each process, but unless you’ve run a business before, you will not know whether your framework will produce the desired results. This means you’ll have to learn from trial and error. And you’ll have to experiment with existing software and technology to find systems that can help you run the business.

Branding & Marketing: Franchises vs. Startups

 Franchises — Franchise brands are often easily recognized by potential clients. This affords you instant credibility, as well as consumer confidence in your products and services. You will not only enjoy rewards of all the franchisor’s marketing efforts to build their brand name and reputation, but you’ll receive detailed guidelines from your franchisor on how to best market your franchise business to get customers.

Startups — When launching a new brand, you can expect to invest heavily, first to make consumers aware of the brand, and second, to earn consumer trust in the brand. This usually requires considerable marketing effort and expense. You will likely want to experiment with different types of marketing such as social media, email campaigns, direct mail, and promotional events to find out what works best in your area and your type of business.

Want to Learn More About Franchising?

We’d love to speak to you if you’re interested in learning more about the franchise route to business ownership or the MaidPro franchise brand. Contact us today to get started.