Evidence shows franchising has extraordinary opportunities for family businesses, enabling them to grow into multi-million dollar assets. According to a recent PriceWaterhouseCoopers report franchises have seen average annual revenue growth of 10%.

But this is not a new phenomenon – one well-known beneficiary I worked with, Jim Penman from Jim’s Mowing, started by mowing lawns himself until he became so busy he put on employees. But that didn’t work because he then spent his time checking the work was done properly.

Jim chose to franchise – he chose franchisees who took pride in their work and his quality control issue was solved. As Jim no longer worried about the lawns, and was being paid by his franchisees to get the marketing and other franchisor work done, he was able to expand the franchise group indefinitely, making the money he needed to free himself and do other more important things in his life.

Jim had solved his riddle and was able to:

• Make the money he wanted
• Get good well-trained staff and systems
• Become more effective – allowing more time for himself

The key to Jim’s success was three-fold:

• He kept everything very simple
• He did all the marketing and quoting for his franchisees (he worked ON the business)
• So his franchisees just cut the grass (they worked IN the business)

Today Jim has 36 franchise systems and over 3,200 franchisees.

If Jim can do that as Uni student with no business background, what can you do with your business?