I have the resources to purchase a franchise, but no directly relevant experience or education (played poker for the past several years / BA in unrelated field). Two questions:

1) what kind of experience and/or education are franchisors typically looking for in their applicants? Most of the applications that I've looked over have "business experience" as a required field, and I'm not sure if "none" is an acceptable answer.

2) what can I do to improve my application and prepare myself for owning a franchise? I'm not interested in doing another degree, and my prospects of finding a management role in any industry are very low due to my (lack of) work history.

Thanks!

I think the restaurant franchise route will be difficult with no industry experience. You might try looking into other industries. For example I looked into Supercuts a while ago and they had no requirements (they even encourage you not to quit your day job), but they were only selling new locations to existing owners in my area.

NJK-

From my read on this you and your partner are both working 8-10 hours daily 7 days-and if I were you my first goal would be to get a few days for you and your partner to not be responsible for pulling shifts-this also gives you the opportunity to train one or several GM candidates while still under your close scrutiny. You are going to need to pay these people more than your highest regular crew members-I would suggest 20% above-from our experience-but you have to make your own call here.

As far as our structure and pay rates go, no one in our system makes minimum wage-we start everyone at .25 above and give raises to regular crew as they progress to about 20% over the minimum as an hourly-and we also have a bonus program that many of our people earn another $1-1.5 hourly on average. Our management structure starts with crew leaders, moves to assistant manger, manager and general manager. Crew leaders are essentially managers in training-they seldom run shifts on their own-but can be looked to when schedules demand. We have 15-16 required minimum management shifts (1 open and 1 close 7 days and a 11-8 on Saturdays or Sundays or some stores both) Our crew leaders and assistant managers are hourly, the managers and gms are on salary-Assistant manager and manager are bonused on secret shopper scores and gm on store profitability(based on a blend of things like labor cost, shopper scores, store audits and food costs)

Oh-and keep your standards high, you will get from your crew what you demand from them. Things like eye rolls and excuses for why they can't do things the way the system demands are just signs that you don't want them around-they will be a cancer that infects the rest of the crew. We have been very lucky and we have a core of our system that has worked for us for several years on average-a few since day one. I believe strongly that if you take care of your people that they will take care of you. We do our best to pay and provide the best we can (i.e. everyone eats for free at our locations if they work a 4 hour shift) and we do little things like trade for tickets to minor league sporting events for crew to utilize with their families. All of those things being said, we still struggle with turnover, I work on it constantly but when you offer starting jobs, some people just don't get it and need to go, some move, and their seem to be a million reasons for the churn.

BJBALLS - budget for maintenance. we kept ours high for the first year bc we took over an older store at 20K and our actual came in below this number (don't have the numbers in front of me)

POKERHACK- thanks for the detailed response - very thought provoking. You're right I can't run shifts 7 days and still grow a business. Changing this is #1 priority. But I'm not confident my current roster is right to take the responsibility from me. Maybe I'm expecting too much, maybe I need to keep finding the right people. Not 100% sure.

Can you elaborate a little bit about the bonus structure for your hourly's? How do they manage to earn 1-1.50 more per hour. Is it based on ticket average or certain upsell items, etc?

Also what does your hiring process look like? What recruiting resources are you using and then what does it take for an invididual to become part of the team. And then training? Everyone starts at minimum + .25 and bottom of the totem pole? Or do you occassionally hire for a position?

Thanks

Not very much...I once did a 6 month study with 3 college friends bc my family was thinking about making the venture...I feel as if its an industry that favors the super rich...need to have 3 minimal to start making bank or the franchise fees cut inot alot of your profits.

I am surprised I have not seen anyone bring up Salad Creations. I am not aware of the specifics but a bit shocked nobody has mentioned it. I know they aren't that well known but as a customer I have only had good experiences. Any thoughts on Salad Creations?

not very familiar with the concept - tell us about it. Where is it based out of and where did you come across one?

Our crew bonus program is actually through FG. I talk about it in my AMA, but essentially all FG stores are audited by outside diners twice weekly (once during the lunch shifts and once during dinner) and if the crew scores perfectly they split a bonus payment of around $300 per shift. This audit is very comprehensive and includes the guest experience from the time they approach the store, to cleanliness of everything, crew attitude, efficiency (ticket time), accuracy, and it does include the only real upsell in the system, "Fries or Drink?". This is a fantastic program, and works well on many levels.

Our hiring process could improve, as primarily we hire from those that apply in the store. Store GM's do most of the interviewing, although we also include the Manager in this process, both as training, and because it helps with buy-in on new hires by the entire leadership team when they feel like decisions are shared. We also tend to get referrals from our existing crew members to their friends and family members. This can be a double edged sword, but generally as long as you make people aware that their recommendations are a reflection on them, they tend to tell the truth about their potential. We bring most in at the bottom rate, but have on occasion made exceptions. As we get bigger we have had some situations where we have looked outside for filling some positions, but we really try hard to find people internally that we can train. We have been able to keep good bench strength in our system, but it continues to be our biggest challenge, especially as we grow our store count.

This is the truth. I own 1 local franchised business. Make about 30k/yr from it. If I actually worked their I might make an extra 12-14k/yr. But I also work a full time job and have another side business. If I could get 2 more going, I could end up saving a lot by doing bulk orders and other things. Could probably do 200k+/yr w/ 3.

It doesn't seem like they have very many locations yet, and I'm not sure where they are based out of but this is their website: http://saladcreations.net/

I ate there once, it's basically just a build your own salad place. You have a few sizes to choose from and can add whatever ingredients you want (and they have a large selection of ingredients). I'm not a salad person at all but I was able to add enough toppings that I like to make it seem like a meal. I can see it appealing to females and people on a diet, but not the average guy. I'm not sure how busy they are on a regular basis but they were pretty busy the one time I went.

I would go again (if I was with women that really wanted to go there), but due to personal preference would never be a regular thing for me. I can see how those who enjoy salads on a regular basis would like it though.

Friend of mine opened a Chick Fil A in a subburb of Cincinnati called Bridgewater Falls in 2011. This guy is making well over $200k profit a year probably closer to $400. Obv nobody knows exact numbers but him, but I know from the volume they are doing. I guess it depends on the store. I know a friend commented that they had become a million dollar store in like 3 years. So I guess i depends on what the place can profit off $1 Mill Rev a year. I think they must do $5k days, so...

$5k x 6 days (closed on Sundays) = 120k month , 1.44 mill a year gross

I used to go to a little sandwich shop down the street from my house in Chicago when I was a kid. It was the only location. Man I freakn lived off their subs. Place got bought out Now they are all over the USA on every corner and they kinda went to ****. Played is called Jimmy Johns. Must get into a good franchise system for sure

Chick-fil-a crushes but I've been told only way to open a franchise is to be an employed there, move up the ladder, and maybe you'll be considered as a candidate for a franchise operator.

That sounds like a great incentive plan. Now just so I understand properly, where are the funds for this program coming from? You mentioned it's from FG. Is FG simply conducting the mystery shops / inspections or is the corporate actually funding the 300 bonuses as well? And at twice weekly that's potentially 600 per store per week??

And thanks for the details on your hiring process. we recruit similarly except we've been experimenting with online tools as well, Craigslist, zip recruiter-- but those employees that lasted the longest were walk-ins and family referrals

Can you elaborate? What's the concept? Walk us through this math. You net 30K a year but you don't work the business. How long have you owned it? Are your sales mature or do you still have room to ramp? How are your sales and profitability compared to averages? Are there corporate stores and how do you compare to them? Do you have a manager and are you saying he/she only makes an additional 12-14k a year? I assume no so wondering where your numbers are coming from when you say 12-14k more if you worked there. Also wondering if your 30k is a number poised to grow or if it's stagnant.

And can you explain how a 30k net would jump to +200k by going from 1 store to 3? Are the economies that great from expanding-- if so what is holding you back from location number 2 and 3?

you have to join the cult-

that said, cfa is a fantastic model and Ive heard their franchisees do very well-most only own 1 location, and the reported nets are excellent. Its not the 35% implied a couple of posts earlier, but I think the AUV for cfa is closer to 2-2.5 M.

There are others here with more knowledge than I about cfa, perhaps they will share.

FG hires a third party company that sends people in to do the surveys-people essentially get free meals for being the auditors, the results are reported to FG. The funding comes from our marketing funds and then FG corporate adds to those funds to come up with the budget. The budget for the program is lower to mid 8 figures annually for the entire system. Some stores can earn as much as $1000 weekly based on volume. The payouts are paid to us as gross amounts with payroll taxes added actually.

Hi guys, anyone here actually know what a average little ceasars joint makes yearly in profit? What a busy location yields vs slower ones? Anyone have experience with one or know a franchisee?

Thanks in advance, I'm looking at my options at starting a location but doing my due diligence first.

Cheers!

No idea, but I don't like their business model. I used to work at a competing pizza place and a Little Caesars opened 1/2 block away. They were busy for about 3 months and then heavily died down. They offered $5 large pizzas so for a period of time we offered $6.99 large 1 topping pizzas. The ones I've seen do not deliver either.

I don't like having to sell high volume at low margins to make profit in pizza.

pretty sure he never worked there lol. he was in financial industry and politics before he opened it. maybe he worked there for like 2 months or something before it opened