In about 60 days I am set to close on a small services franchise business. I am so excited to be able to get back to working for myself. I owned a small one man business doing a similar service/trade about 5 years ago. It was the happiest I have ever been to work. I accepted some jobs in corporate over the past few years, grew a decent nest egg, got married, had a kid, etc. But I am terribly unhappy with corporate management structure and generally all the blockers in such a large organization (current company = one of the largests in the U.S.). But more than anything I have grown tired of the work and just have a lack of drive and interest in it. A lot of people are actively trying to break into my industry and I want out lol. The scariest part of it is giving up something kushy easy and comfortable. The amount of effort into my current job it 10-20 hours a week and the rest of the time I am unstructured which lends itself to tons of reddit/internet time. Thankfully, my wife is staying employed, she actually makes a better income than me currently and we will get our family health benefits through her employer. The goal will to someday offer those benefits through the business and god willing the business can grow to be a sole family income.
The business as I have said is a services/home improvement business, selling 90% residential at a high (~40%) profit margin after all expenses. The current business has ranged from 400-600k/annually the past 3 years and really could grow to 6-800k in the next 1-2 years relatively easily, in my opinion. The reason it hasn't gotten there in the past I believe has to do with the current owner just wanting it to stay smaller/simpler. He is a retired army vet with a pension and generally has favored organic growth in a small geographic area. It is a franchise, but the territory is virtually unlimited, literally has the entire metro area and then some (usually services franchises are more narrow per county/zip code). I of course realize its unreasonable to cover this whole 100+ mile radius, but its also nice to know the scalability is not really limited by that. IE somebody calls with a project thats 2x our normal project up in the resort areas ($$$), I can service it... And the franchise can't just sell another franchise to an adjacent county. My growth strategy will be expanding marketing efforts into other high income areas and emphasize recurring revenue sales. Currently about 10-15% of the revenue is recurring. Recurring revenue and the enormous potential to continue to push this service is what makes me the most fond of this business.
Currently there is 1 full time employee who can independently do the work. This is also important as I will basically be learning the trade from scratch, albeit not overly complicated. As the busy season approaches, I will add 1-2 more part time seasonally, as needed. Administration is still a mystery, current owner's wife does the phones/books/scheduling. I have a couple ideas for having the phone monitored, first I was thinking of using Ruby assistant, but have heard mixed reviews. Franchisor has offered the admin at the corp owned location to answer my calls for a period, so I can hopefully figure this out as I go without hiring someone right away. I honestly don't mind doing phones, but also know in a competitive market, if you don't answer your chances of making the sell decrease.
So I have 60 days to prep for this transition, I am here to humbly ask for your experience and advice on things to read, research, prepare for, etc. The franchise will give me 1 week of on-site training, as well as ongoing support in design, sales, marketing and operations. So far the franchisor has been EXCELLENT to deal with and really believes in the market here and for the right owner is willing to invest as much as possible to see the business exponentially grow here. The current owner is an open book so far, and responsive to any questions I have. Post close he has agreed to a 2 week transition, which I could ask to extend. However, what makes this even better is the owner isn't going away, he is opening up the same franchise in a different state. This means he will still be relevant and involved in the overall organization... which gives him even more incentive to help me to success. Of course YMMV but its better than the owner running off to the sunset.
My transition plan is still a work in progress, but right now I have to focus on dealing with articles of incorporation and the bank for the loan. Once that is fully on its way, I will be able to focus a majority of my time on the transition. Again could use advice here from experience.
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