What Makes Successful Micro Franchisees?
Before delving this topic, let us take just one step back and start from defining micro franchising. With its increasing popularity, a lot of confusion is going around in terms of describing the terminology.
What Is Micro Franchising?
In essence, micro franchising is nothing but a replicable business model that helps foster economic self-reliance at a micro-level. It applies the same concepts and elements as traditional franchising but to smaller or individual enterprises or entrepreneurs.
The concept works in resource-poor contexts and aims to solve more significant problems while empowering the local enterprises to create an impact that counts. Fundamentally its power lies in the ability to allow the impoverished to lift themselves from poverty.
Some big names, including Supply Hope nonprofit organization, are making a difference in eradicating poverty and hunger. They provide the operators or franchisees with a reliable and strategic framework to develop on. The entire value chain, marketing strategies, and other techniques are all pre-designed. One simply needs to work upon those approaches and make for themselves a stable income source.
Characteristics of Successful Micro Franchisees
Coming to what qualities contribute to a micro franchisee’s success in serving BoP (bottom of the pyramid) consumers, here are five of those:
- Proper training
Besides the desire to learn along with the willingness and ability to follow the procedures and process, one also requires some hard skills.
Proper training imparts the needed skills for the operators or franchisees to feel more confident and independent in their work. Training and coaching the operators into being committed, dedicated, self-motivated, and lead, communicate, and sell, makes up for the success of the franchise model.
- Sufficient education
Recruiting operators with basic educational qualifications work in favor of the business.
The operators are better able to convince the consumers, handle various business operations, and thoroughly understand different markets.
In Nicaragua, women are more educated than men but adapting to the context is necessary, especially in places where education is not accessible to all.
- Supportive network
Operators who are uber-connected in their communities are the key to the success of the micro franchise. This helps the operators lay a powerful and personalized customer base which makes building and extending the supply chain much more manageable.
- Goal orientation
A true micro-entrepreneur is the one who works for their goal like their life depends on it – because it actually does.
Such micro-entrepreneurs work to level up and keep improving themselves and the community. They value the opportunity given to them and ensure that whatever they engage in has their blood, sweat, heart, and soul.
- Native language skills
Being able to speak the native language increases the trust between the end-users and the micro-entrepreneurs. Such people are better able to reach out to the local communities.
According to Elizabeth Valente, Supply Hope, language skills with basic education also helps franchisors in training the operators on a wide range of associated topics.
Micro franchising is coming out as the next big thing for achieving a more significant socio-economic impact for the people at the bottom of the pyramid, especially in low-income regions.
In Nicaragua, women micro franchisees are more preferred – although they are harder to recruit because of cultural and family influences, the female operators still tend to perform better.