I am a current franchisee of a restaurant concept and have 28 units, as well as run a commercial/residential real estate portfolio in the US and Latin America. We recently helped close family friends of ours immigrate to the US. We are in discussions about some new business concepts. They would love to get into a powerwashing business and/or home/commercial cleaning.

I’m not opposed to franchising since I already have another brand, but any thoughts on (1) helping them start their own vs (2) buying into a franchise concept. For clarification, I plan to be on the business and provide back off support, marketing, etc (all the stuff I’m doing for my current businesses).

In my thoughts, benefit of a home service franchise is:

  1. Using an established name
  2. The buying power for products, insurances, etc. that many franchisors can negotiate on the national level.
  3. Back office tech support
  4. Customer lead generation through a central call center (while still allowing for local marketing, customer generation, etc. through B2B)
  5. A group of franchisees in other territories who have gone through it, can provide advice, etc.

Cons of a home service franchise (vs going it alone)

  1. Pay a marketing/royalty percentage of gross revenue to the franchisor (think, 10% total)
  2. Can be limited in additional services to provide (i.e powerwashing would only be powerwashing and not include ability to do commercial/residential cleaning)
  3. Generally, you lose some control.

Thoughts?