What You Should Know About Your Franchise Investment

If you are wondering how to start a franchise with the right brand, you should be researching how much they cost and what they provide for the initial investment. One of the key differentiators between investing in a franchise and starting a business from scratch is that you can see how much it is going to cost to get started before you invest. Every franchise investment is broken down either on the franchisor’s website, in the franchise disclosure document, or both, so you can see what your money goes towards. Here is what our franchise investment comes with so that franchisees know how to start a landscaping company with us.

Franchise Fee

Every franchise investment incorporates a franchise fee. This one-time fee covers everything you need to get started – the brand name, the training and support, the tools and resources, equipment, marketing, and more. The total varies from company to company, but a low franchise fee may indicate less training or support and a high one may indicate that there are unnecessary costs associated with the franchise. This is why it is important to look into what the franchise fee covers to show you how to start a franchise.

Something to also note about the franchise fee is that if you are converting your business into a franchise, oftentimes the fee is lower. When we have someone converting to a U.S. Lawns, they already know how to start a landscaping company, so they don’t need the same amount of resources than a person who may not even know how to start a franchise.

Training and Support

Training and support are very important when it comes to a franchise investment. Some opportunities may just give you a manual and send you on your way with your new business, but we do it differently. We recognize that a franchisee’s success is our own success, so we put extra time into making sure you know everything there is to know about how to start a landscaping company through us. For the initial training, you will fly down to our headquarters in Orlando and for five days you will learn about the business model, best practices, the industry, and more. This helps prepare you for your new business and everything to expect in the beginning. Learning how to start a franchise is just a small part of running a U.S. Lawns franchise, so we made sure we cover everything.

Beyond the initial training, we will come out to your location to help you in the first year as well. We would never leave our franchisees out to dry with no support to help them see success. We will work with you on things like marketing, sales, bidding and estimating, and operations.

Equipment

Depending on the franchise opportunity you chose, there may be required equipment to provide a service or create a product. The initial investment should also incorporate those. We made sure our investment accounted virtually all of the equipment you need. These include things for the office and to get jobs done, and even a service vehicle to help you carry what you need.

Tools and Systems

We also made sure our investment covered specific tools and systems that are exclusive to our franchisees. We have systems that can help with many different aspects of your business. One that we pride ourselves in is the intranet that we use to connect all of our franchisees. By fostering this network, our franchisees can share their best practices with one another, which makes our brand and the services we provide that much better.

Working Capital

Something that a franchise investment should also account for is working capital for when you get started. This is money that you need to keep your location up and running while you are trying to grow your business. Odds are, you won’t have customers right there when you start, so you need to make sure you have funds to help with the first few months of expenses. While you are researching opportunities, make sure to be wary of companies that have low working capitals factored into their investment. This could mean that there are things that there are hidden costs involved.

These five points are imperative to a good franchise investment, which is why we made sure all of them are covered in ours. We want to encourage investors to consider how to start a landscaping company with us, so by showing them everything we cover and provide to help them along the way, they feel more confident in us and their new investment.

Find out how to start a franchise with us by checking out the next steps in the process.