There comes a time in every franchisees life when it’s time to sell up and try something else, or maybe retire, either way the thought of selling their franchise starts creeping up again and again until eventually it’s an itch that must be scratched! Maybe that itch comes from:
1) The franchisee has run the business for a while and simply wants a change rather than commit to another 5, 7 or 10 year term – this is very common,
2) The franchisor and the franchisee don’t agree with the direction the brand is taking – this may or may not be an issue for a buyer.
3) The franchisee wishes to sell to release capital for something else
4) The franchise is profitable stable and doing well, and the owner thinks this is the right time to realise it’s full value
5) The franchise isn’t working for the franchisee – but it might do for someone else
6) The franchisees personal circumstances have changed, maybe through divorce, or a partner’s work situation, or the arrival of a young family etc etc and the business no longer fits with their situation.
7) The franchise is failing and the owner has lost the will to fix it – in which case a new owner is often the only fix required
8) Some franchisees have found their skill set isn’t ideal for the business and need to do something else
9) The Franchisee wishes to retire
10) The Franchisor owns the franchise and wishes to appoint a franchisee to run it
Either way, there’s a lot of demand for established franchises, or franchise resales as they are often called. It’s a big deal for the franchisee but all part of the cycle of life in franchise land. It’s actually a bigger issue for franchisors but thankfully with a bit of goodwill from all parties there is a real win win that can be achieved.
Selling an established franchise needs a bit of marketing spend for the key business transfer websites, a few hundred quid in most cases, some search engine time followed up by energetic prospecting to chase interested parties, and shameless social media and forum work, along with filtering out nosey parkers and tyre kickers. When that’s combined with a franchisors database and that of our own which now has 28,000 franchise buyers on it there’s a very good chance that enquiries will come in and a potential buyer will be found.
When we coordinate franchise resales we work closely with all parties so that the franchisor also has the opportunity to benefit from the leads coming in resulting in additional start ups being sold. This isn’t a contentious point with the outgoing franchisee because all enquiries will have to meet the franchisor at some point anyway so we may as well embrace that now and have reigns on it from the outset.
Here’s a little animation about Lime’s franchise resale service.