4 Subtle Aspects to Look at With Pet Business Opportunities

/in /by

When evaluating the opportunities available for your franchise purchase, there are many obvious factors that a person will look at. For instance, they may look at the brand recognition, the revenue potential of the pet franchise and any sort of niche aspects the company has that make it stand out from the competition. However, this is not all that you want to look at. There are a few more subtle aspects you want to consider before you make your decision on the pet business opportunities you have to choose from.

Talk to the Right People

shutterstock_227210071A common mistake franchise prospects make with pet business opportunities is not talking to the franchisor themselves, but rather just the sales team or franchisees. These people may have a basic understanding of the business but they will not be able to go into as much depth as the franchisor would. While you may not talk with them at first, you should be able to sit down and talk with them at some point in the sales process.

 

Talk to Dissatisfied Franchisees

Most people who talk with franchisees about how owning the franchise is working for them will only talk with happy franchisees. While this can give you an idea of the benefits and positive aspects of franchise ownership, you need to also understand the negative. Talk with franchisees who are not happy and find out why. Is it a lack of support from the franchisor? Are they in over their head and why? You want to understand this so you can either avoid the mistakes they made or understand if the pet care franchise is as good as it leads on.

 

Go for Discovery Daysbuying a pet franchise

Discovery day is the day you get to see the way the day to day operations work with the pet business opportunities you are considering. You can go to one but many times this does not give a complete look at average day. This is why it is helpful to attend more than one at different locations. This will give you a better picture of the franchise operations. While you are here make sure you ask plenty of questions to really understand what these franchisees go through. Find out their biggest challenges on a daily basis as well as how their relationship with the franchisor is. You can get a better understanding of the struggles you will face as a franchisee this way.

 

Know What’s in the Legal Documents

The legal documents such as the FDD are essential to understanding whether these pet business opportunities are right for you. These can be very difficult to understand. This is why you need to have a franchise attorney who can help you go over this information and understand whether this is what you are looking for or will just be more of a headache than profit in the long run.

 

The idea with these aspects is to look at the pet business opportunities critically. Do not be so caught up in the hype that you can only see the positives. Know the negatives of the business so that you will know if this is something you are ready to take on. Go into it with an open mind and think carefully about the good and bad aspects you find.

You Don’t Need an MBA to Own a Dog Grooming Franchise

/in /by

If you’ve ever thought about buying a business, but have stopped because you don’t have a college degree, hold up. You don’t need an MBA, MA, or any other college degree in order to have the skills and knowledge it takes to own and run your own dog grooming franchise. There is a high possibility that you already have the skills it takes to succeed in the pet industry through previous job experience. If you’re not sure about that, ask yourself the following questions:

Have You Ever Brought A Product to Market?

You may have done this in your first customer service job, you may have sold an idea you had to a friend. Perhaps you didn’t get money for it, but you said your idea and someone said they’d invest, your idea was smart, useful, etc. If so, you have sold your idea and inadvertently brought it to market. With this skill, you can succeed in a dog grooming franchise. One of the most important skills it takes to run one of these franchises is the ability to talk to others and sell them on what you’re doing. This is much easier when you believe in the product or service you’re selling. While MBAs give you the knowledge, working in an industry or job gives you actual experience and this gives you a leg-up on your competition.

Did You Survive a Layoff?

If you’ve ever been in a business that went through a layoff of some kind and you weren’t dropped, there’s a reason for it. Employers look for special skills and hard work in their employees and want to keep it around, naturally. If you survived the layoff in your business, you have already shown your excellent work ethic and skills to an employer and those same skills they see in you can actually be used to run your own dog grooming franchise.

Have You Survived Management Fads?

Whether you’re worked entry-level or deeper in a dog grooming business model or set up, you’ve probably witnessed different approaches to management, leadership, and how your upper-management decided to handle their people and while you thought the ideas weren’t the best, you made it through them. Just going through someone else’s management trial and errors give you the opportunity to observe what to do and what not to do skills that are at no real cost to you. These skills can later be used in your dog grooming franchise.

Have You Ever Worked in Customer Support or Service?shutterstock_203363152

Even the biggest entrepreneurs have worked in customer service at some point in their lives. While it’s grueling work, it gave them an understanding of how people work and think and how to sell their product and themselves in order to be successful. What more, if you’re currently working a customer service or support job successfully, you could take your people skills and run your own pet grooming franchise, making more money as you own your business as opposed to working in someone else’s.

You know how to interact with customers. You know how to problem solve on the fly. You know how to sell. You have what it takes to own a dog grooming franchise.