A Home Staging Franchise

A home staging franchise is not for everyone. Franchises, in general, aren't for everyone. But, they are perfect for a certain type of individual and in certain circumstances.

When people ask us if they should get a home staging franchise, our answer usually is "it depends". If you're the go-it-alone type, the structure of a franchise might drive you nuts. If you've never owned a business before, then the rules, structure and procedures might be comforting because they mitigate some of the uncertainty and risk in owning a business. Only you can assess your comfort level and how much structure you would like to have.

Whether you are interested in purchasing a hot dog franchise, a window replacement franchise, or a home staging franchise, you need to ask certain questions that pertain to all franchises. Here's a list of those questions, and why you need to get very good answers before you put down a significant sum of money on a franchise:

• What is the franchise selling, i.e. what exactly are you buying? Are you paying for an exclusive territory? The right to sell a certain company's products? If you are a McDonald's(R) owner, you don't want another McDonald's(R) down the block. You are paying for the traffic in a certain geographic area.

  If you are buying a formula (how much to charge, what forms to use, specific procedures to follow) make sure these are proprietary to the franchise. If others have similar formulas, make sure the one you are buying is worth the franchise fees.

• Are you paying for the right to use a trademarked name? This is important if you are selling a distinguishable product, such as Subway(R) sandwiches with a recognizable brand name.
• How unique or unduplicatable is the product you are selling? How unique are home staging services? Could someone else sell them without a franchise and compete with you? If the franchise name helps you get business or allows you to charge more, then the investment might be worth it.
• Are you paying for national advertising and marketing that will feed you a certain dollar amount of billings each year?

  If so, then you can determine a return on investment (ROI) on your franchise fees and decide if buying the franchise is worth it. Referrals aren't dollars - you need to make sure you understand the difference.

• Are you paying for trade secrets, exclusive sources?
  

  We're not sure staging has secrets that are so proprietary and valuable, but make sure you know what these are before you pay for them. Exclusive sources need to be vetted out. Do you have to use approved suppliers whose prices may or may not be higher than you can get on your own?

• Are you paying for on-going support? Will you get one-on-one business help and retraining should you need it? What if you run into trouble, what form does support come in?

  Be sure you understand what kind of help the franchise offers. Will they send an area manager to help you sort out problems? Or is on-going support an occasional phone call or email? One might be worth a franchise fee, the other isn't.