Candidates exploring franchises often worry about competition, but without competition, how great can an opportunity really be? Competition makes everyone better because it keeps you on your toes, it drives innovation, efficiencies and improved customer service.
If you are delivering high value and are always bringing your “A” game to your market, you don’t need to worry about your competition. Anyway, you don’t need the whole market to be the dominate brand.
For example, Starbucks is the dominate brand in coffee, and only 3 out of every 10 coffee drinkers even likes Starbucks coffee. Fear of not enough is a lie that will steal your dream every time. There are always enough customers if your business is relevant, offers real value and exceeds the expectations of your customers.
In a franchise, it is the franchisor’s job to define the customer and inspire the vision of a brand to capture a market and to create tools to help franchisees build that brand in each local market, but ultimately, it is up to the franchisees to execute on this plan and build the brand market by market.