When the economy tanks, more and more of us find bargains at the local thrift store. Upscale thrift stores are all the rage. Unlike the salvation-army-style of thrift store, this new breed of franchise does not rely on donations, but rather pays their client for quality used clothing.
Uptown Cheapskate, Kid to Kid, Platos Closet, Once Upon A Child, these are just a few of the names of a new kind of thrift store franchise, stores that perform a service by re-cycling quality used clothing. Something everybody knows is that in order to run a franchise you must first have a plan that is going to work for you in order to be successful. What most people don’t understand in regards to running a franchise is that you have to create the plan yourself, not have the actual franchise create a plan for you to abide by. This is the biggest difference between the businesses that make it and those that fail, if you don’t create your own plan along with the one that the franchise gives you then you will have no idea what you are doing and where you business is going. The first thing you need to do prior to creating a plan is figure out where you want to be in 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 6 months and then in 1 year. The reason why you need to figure this out is because all of this will be in your plan so that you can set goals and tasks in order to get to where you want to be.
Another thing you need to do in order to run a successful franchise is to figure out what some of the road blocks are going to be and what you will have to do in order to get past them. This is very important because without know what kind of road blocks there are going to be then you will not have any idea of what kind of trouble you will be in once you get there. My advice is to not just figure out what kind of road blocks will be in your way but also figure out how you are going to get around them in order to keep growing your business and eventually making it as successful as it should be.
Tips to successfully run a franchise
Don’t grow too quickly – Something that a lot of franchises do is they try to grow way too fast and the problem with doing this is often times you will still be learning everything about the business and if you try to start a new business or grow to a point you are not comfortable then you may find your business in a lot of trouble as well as you being overwhelmed.
Get help – Whenever you get a chance you should get some help because it is never a good idea to wait until you have too much to do in order to get help because then it will be too late. What you need to understand is that the sooner you can get help the sooner you can do other things in order to build your business.
The last thing you need to understand is that in the end it all starts with you and how passionate you are about running your franchise. What most people don’t realize is that not all franchises are the same and that is why you need to treat each one with a certain amount of respect. Lets say you wanted to run a thrift store franchise, you need to treat I like it is a multimillion dollar business that just needs your help.