Work Schedule Flexibility is the Most Desired Franchise Characteristic After Financial Considerations
By: Michael Alston for Franchise Insights
September 24, 2025 – Consistent with over five years of survey data on characteristics that make franchises attractive to individuals, “low cost of entry” and “higher earnings potential” have consistently been ranked most important by individuals seeking business ownership.
Control over working conditions – including “flexibility of work schedule” and “ability to work from home” were often the two next most important characteristics since the onset of the pandemic in 2020. But in data from the summer of 2025, “ability to work from home” dropped to sixth place in importance.
“Extensive training and support” and “systems and technology platform” took fourth and fifth places.
In the monthly FranchiseInsights.com Small Business Startup Sentiment Index™, respondents are asked to rank eight franchise characteristics in order of importance to their ultimate selection, along with a “not important to me” option for each. The data presented are weighted averages of the responses ranked by individual respondents.
‘Extensive training and support’ and ‘systems and technology platform’ edged out “ability to work from home’ in recent surveys.
“Well-known brand” ranked lowest, and was indicated as “not important” to almost 20% of respondents, suggesting openness to newer concepts or lesser-known brands, or potentially reflecting the lack of capital for an established concept.
Similarly, “pandemic resilience” had the second lowest ranking, and 22% said it was unimportant (and therefore not ranked), as the economic and social disruptions of the pandemic fade from memory.
The percentages do not sum to 100% since most respondents gave at least some ranking to each of the characteristics.
Since “low cost of entry” and “high earnings potential” were ranked highly by almost all respondents, and deemed “not important” by 5.2% and 4.6% 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 individual decision processes of prospects, and insights into their personas, as Franchise Insights first explored in March 2022.
FranchiseInsights.com compiles the monthly Small Business Startup Sentiment Index™ (SSI) of individuals who have recently inquired about businesses for sale. Data for this analysis was from the period June to August 2025.
Franchise Ventures 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 Tuesday, September 23rd, 2025.