Franchise vs Starting a Business NZ | Hygiene Direct
Franchise vs Starting Your Own Business in NZ: What's the Difference?
If you've decided you'd like to own your own business, one of the first decisions is how you're going to do it.
Do you start completely from scratch?
Buy an existing independent business?
Or join an established franchise?
There's no single answer that's right for everyone. Starting your own independent business gives you enormous freedom, while joining a franchise means accepting that you'll operate within an established system.
But if you're comparing starting a business in NZ with buying a franchise, it's worth understanding what you're actually getting – and what you'll still be responsible for yourself.
Starting Your Own Business From Scratch
Starting an independent business can be incredibly rewarding.
You choose the name, create the brand, decide what you're going to sell, find suppliers, establish pricing, develop your systems and determine exactly how the business will operate.
You also get to make virtually every decision yourself.
But that's also the challenge.
When you start from zero, many of the things an established business takes for granted need to be created or discovered through experience.
You'll need to work out:
- what products or services to sell;
- who your target customers are;
- how to reach them;
- which suppliers to use;
- how to price competitively and profitably;
- what business systems you need;
- how to market the business;
- how to establish credibility with customers; and
- what works – and what doesn't.
There's nothing wrong with taking that route. Thousands of successful New Zealand businesses have been built exactly that way.
The question is whether you want to spend your time creating the business model as well as growing the business.
What Changes When You Buy a Franchise?
A franchise gives you a different starting point.
Rather than developing everything yourself, you're joining a business that already has a brand, products or services, operating systems and experience behind it.
Exactly what you receive varies considerably between franchise systems, so it's important to investigate any franchise carefully.
With a Hygiene Direct franchise, however, you're joining an established commercial cleaning and hygiene supply network.
The products, supplier relationships, business systems, brand and Head Office support are already there.
That allows you to concentrate much more of your energy on something that ultimately determines the size of almost any sales-driven business:
finding customers and looking after them.
You're Still Building Your Own Business
This is an important distinction.
Buying a franchise doesn't mean buying yourself a job with Hygiene Direct.
You own and operate your own business.
Your results aren't determined by a salary band or whether your employer decides you're due for a pay rise.
The customers you develop become part of the business you're building.
The more customers you win and retain, the greater the opportunity to grow your sales, income and ultimately the value of your business.
But that also means you're responsible for making it happen.
Hygiene Direct can provide the systems, products, support and experience.
We can't do the selling for you.
The Advantage of Repeat Business
This is one of the areas where the type of franchise matters enormously.
Some businesses have to continually find another customer to make the next sale.
Commercial cleaning and hygiene supplies are different.
A business doesn't generally buy toilet paper once.
It doesn't buy one carton of paper towels and never need them again.
The same applies to rubbish bags, cleaning chemicals, gloves and many of the other consumable products businesses use every day.
They use them.
Then they need more.
So when a Hygiene Direct franchisee wins a customer and looks after that relationship properly, there is the potential for that customer to continue purchasing regularly.
You can then add another customer.
And another.
Rather than continually replacing yesterday's sale, you're working to build a growing base of repeat customers.
What About Support?
Starting an independent business can sometimes be a lonely experience.
You're responsible for making decisions, solving problems and working out what to do when something isn't going according to plan.
One of the reasons people choose a franchise is access to people who have already accumulated experience within that particular business.
At Hygiene Direct, that includes something we're particularly proud of.
Our Sales Director was previously our highest-performing franchisee.
He built his own Hygiene Direct franchise, consistently earning approximately $180,000 per year while continuing to grow the business, before eventually selling his franchise back to Head Office.
Today, part of his job is supporting and mentoring Hygiene Direct franchisees.
That doesn't mean he'll build the business for you.
It means that when you're talking about winning customers, growing sales or developing your franchise, you're able to receive guidance from somebody who has actually done it himself.
What Does 10 Years Tell You?
Another thing we'd recommend investigating when comparing franchise opportunities in NZ is the experience of existing franchisees.
How long have they been there?
Our first two Hygiene Direct franchisees joined us approximately 10 years ago.
Both are still part of Hygiene Direct today.
They've experienced the business through changing economic conditions, changing products, changing customers and the everyday realities of owning a business.
We think longevity like that is worth considering when assessing an established franchise.
And What Happens When You Eventually Want to Leave?
There's another significant difference between simply working for somebody and successfully building a business.
When you leave a job, you generally stop receiving your salary.
When you've built a successful business, you may have created an asset that can be sold.
We've recently seen a real example within Hygiene Direct.
Our Northland franchise went onto the market and was sold within approximately two months.
Even more interestingly, the purchasers were two existing Hygiene Direct customers.
They had experienced Hygiene Direct from the customer's perspective and liked what they saw enough to buy the franchise themselves.
That's a pretty compelling endorsement of the business they had been dealing with.
Franchise vs Independent Business: Which Is Better?
Neither model is automatically better.
It depends on you.
If you have a completely new idea, want absolute freedom to develop everything yourself and don't want to operate within somebody else's system, starting independently may suit you better.
But if your ambition is to own a business and you would rather begin with an established brand, products, systems, supplier relationships and experienced support already behind you, a franchise may be worth investigating.
And if you're good at sales and customer relationships, there's another question worth considering:
Why keep using those abilities to build somebody else's business?
A Hygiene Direct franchise gives the right person the opportunity to put those skills towards building something of their own.
Explore Hygiene Direct Franchise Opportunities
We're looking for motivated people to help us continue growing Hygiene Direct around New Zealand.
You don't necessarily need cleaning industry experience.
We're much more interested in people who can communicate, develop relationships, prospect for new business, look after customers and have the motivation to build something for themselves.
If that sounds like you, find out more about what owning a Hygiene Direct franchise involves:
Own Your Business with Full Head Office Support – Explore Hygiene Direct Franchise Opportunities
He waka eke noa – we're all in this together.
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- Why Repeat Customers Matter When Buying a Franchise
- Are You Ready to Own a Franchise? 10 Questions to Ask Yourself
- From Salesperson to Business Owner: Could a Franchise Be Your Next Step?
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Interested in a Hygiene Direct Franchise?
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He waka eke noa – we're all in this together.