I'm not really minded to take it on at the moment, I've more than enough on my plate as it is, but it was an interesting read nevertheless, comprising slick presentation and a sales pitch to be taken with a large pinch of salt.
Look at the a day in the life page. It is clearly an idealised situation, designed to appeal to Mums who are desperate to work from home and fit their life around school hours, but is heavily qualified by;
This timetable is for illustrative purposes only and your actual working hours will depend on how you decide to run your own franchise.Or put another way, your day will usually be nothing like this really. Nice as it sounds, there are 1001 everyday problems that will stop you from living your life like this...
The your earning potential page is another good example. It contains a table which shows the earning potential of the franchise, but those statistics are heavily qualified by;
...we show some example numbers for your first year only to give you an idea of the sort of money that you could earn with a localpeople franchise. These numbers are built on very basic assumptions and are for illustrative purposes only...Or put another way, the statistics in that table do not reflect the real world, where business are cautious about advertising in the midst of a recession.
And of course the one very important thing that they don't tell you on this website, is how much the licence and monthly royalties costs. That sort of omission immediately tells me to steer clear of the idea.
My observation, partly from the response to the adverts that appear on this blog, is that in the real world there is a significant risk that the cost of a franchise might prove to be more than you can earn via the income from local advertising revenue.
So don't be tempted by the slick presentation and the sales pitch. Having personally contributed a lot to the HedgeEndPeople website over the last few years, my advice is to venture into this sort of franchise with great caution.
My top tip is if you want to get rich quick, don't become a franchisee. Be inventive and become the franchisor instead...
5 COMMENTS:
Well said Ray, I find a few things cofusing about the site, one is you do not seem to be able to register under your own name, and two loking at the figures it only gets 1000 hits a month which does not mean vistors it could mean 250 people clicking on four stories.
These sort of figures would not attract advertisers, they contacted me once and I think the price was £160 a month, not good vaule when I can get 18,000 for £25 in the Informer pull out.
I did contact them re this just out of interest in the price but some three days later they are yet to reply.
So I would agree with you stay clear.
The silly thing is, I would love to give up the van driving and spend my days writing for Hedge End People (as well as Eastleigh News), but the business model that Local People are pursuing is loaded in their favour and is unattractive from where I am sitting...
I guess that is why Local People haven't found anybody to take on the Hedge End People franchise over the last 14 months or so...
Some financial institutions in Canada may be more willing to lend money to a start a business franchise not a franchise. Blogs Nice and amazing information to me dear.
canadian franchises
I've never understood franchises.
In a previous life I owned a village shop and was offered a franchise.
It seemed to be that you handed over the business to them, ran it to their requirements, paid them a sum to do it but continued paying all the bills as well!
Just didn't make sense to me
Thanks Gary. You are right. The Franchisor has the upper hand in most franchise arrangements.
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