Prospects Rank Desirable Characteristics of Franchises, with Surprising Results

March 10, 2022 — In the February FranchiseInsights.com Small Business Startup Sentiment survey, respondents were also asked to rank eight franchise characteristics in order of importance to their ultimate selection, along with a “not important to me” option for each.

On the surface, “low cost of entry” and “higher earnings potential” were ranked highest, on a weighted average of responses. But looking below the surface, there were other insights apparent.

Gathering the most “top” rankings (a weight of 8, given eight options to rank) did not guarantee the highest weighted average. Example: note that “extensive training and support” had fewer of the highest rankings, but a higher weighted average overall – in other words, more respondents thought it more important than ranked it highest.

Also, while “systems and technology” and “pandemic resilience” were almost tied, “ability to work from home” was also very close in weighted average. But 26% of respondents said that “work from home” was not important to them.

Surprisingly, “well-known brand” was not important to 22.1% of respondents, who are open to emerging brands, or potentially more sensitive to the investment level required for the most established brands.

Since “low cost of entry” and “high earnings potential” were ranked highly by almost all respondents, and deemed “not important” by 3.9% and 2.6% respectively, it goes without saying that they are top considerations. But while that is useful for honing marketing messages, it means that they are less useful in determining information about what drives the decision process of prospects – and insight into their personas. 

That calls for looking more deeply at relationships between the characteristics, or clustering, which we will explore in the coming weeks.

FranchiseInsights.com compiles monthly the Small Business Startup Sentiment Index™ (SSI) of individuals who have recently inquired about businesses for sale.The most recent Startup Sentiment Index™ survey was conducted February 24-28, 2022. 

Download a copy of the February 2022 FranchiseInsights.com SSI report here. See excerpts from prior SSI™ surveys and subscribe to receive the Small Business Startup Sentiment Index™ monthly report when it is released.

The Small Business Startup Sentiment Index™ is based on a monthly survey of individuals who have recently inquired about businesses or franchises for sale on the digital assets of FranchiseVentures.

FranchiseVentures is the leading franchise lead-generation platform for potential franchisees to thousands of growing franchise systems in the United States and Canada. Its franchise lead generation brands include Franchise.com, Franchise Solutions, Franchise Gator, Franchise Opportunities, Franchise For Sale, SmallBusinessStartup.com and BusinessBroker.net, and together they provide the largest aggregation of prospective franchise buyers in the U.S.

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Published on Thursday, March 10th, 2022.