From Salesperson to Business Owner | Franchise NZ
From Salesperson to Business Owner: Could a Franchise Be Your Next Step?
If you're good at sales, stop for a moment and think about what you actually do.
You find opportunities.
You approach prospective customers.
You build relationships.
You solve problems.
You follow up.
You win accounts.
You look after those accounts so customers stay.
Then you go and find some more.
Over the course of a successful sales career, you could help build an enormous customer base.
But there's an important question worth asking:
Whose business are you building?
For most employed salespeople, the answer is simple.
Someone else's.
What If You Used Those Same Skills to Build Your Own Business?
There's absolutely nothing wrong with a career in sales.
Good salespeople can earn excellent incomes and play an enormously important role within successful companies.
But if you already know how to find customers, build relationships and win business, you possess many of the skills needed to build a business of your own.
That's where a franchise can provide an interesting alternative.
Starting completely from scratch means creating the brand, finding suppliers, selecting products, developing systems and working out how the entire business should operate.
With an established franchise, much of that foundation already exists.
Your job is to build upon it.
For the right salesperson, that can mean spending more of your energy doing what you're already good at:
winning and retaining customers.
Imagine Winning a Major Customer
Think about one of the best customers you've ever won as a salesperson.
Perhaps it took months.
Several phone calls.
Meetings.
Quotes.
Follow-ups.
Maybe you had to keep contacting them while they were perfectly happy with their existing supplier.
Eventually, your persistence paid off.
You won the account.
That's a fantastic feeling.
But if you're an employee, that customer ultimately belongs to your employer.
The revenue belongs to your employer.
And the value that customer adds to the business belongs to your employer.
You receive your salary and perhaps a commission or bonus.
Now imagine applying that same persistence to a business you own.
That's a very different proposition.
There's No Salary Band When You Own the Business
One of the frustrations for talented salespeople can be that their income doesn't always reflect the value they're creating.
You might outperform targets.
You might bring in significant new accounts.
You might build relationships worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to the company.
But ultimately, somebody else determines your remuneration structure.
With a Hygiene Direct franchise, there is no predetermined income ceiling.
You're not applying for a salaried sales position with us.
You're building your own business.
If you want to grow it further, keep prospecting.
Keep following up.
Keep winning customers.
Keep retaining them.
Then keep going.
Your earnings will depend on your sales, margins, expenses, customer retention and how effectively you operate your business. There is no guaranteed income.
But there's also no artificial salary ceiling imposed by Hygiene Direct.
Persistence Becomes Even More Valuable When the Customers Repeat
There's another important part of the Hygiene Direct model.
Many of the customers you win have the potential to become repeat customers.
Hygiene Direct supplies businesses and organisations with products they continually consume, including:
- toilet paper;
- paper towels;
- rubbish bags;
- cleaning chemicals;
- gloves;
- hand hygiene products; and
- other commercial cleaning and hygiene supplies.
A customer uses them.
Then they need more.
So the effort you put into winning an account today may potentially generate orders well beyond the initial sale.
That's important.
Your persistence doesn't necessarily just create this month's commission.
It can help build the customer base of your business for the future.
Win Them. Keep Them. Then Find Another.
The basic model isn't complicated.
Prospect.
Win a customer.
Provide great service.
Keep them.
Then go and find another.
For somebody with a sales background, that probably sounds very familiar.
The difference is what you're building.
Every good customer you add can potentially strengthen the business you're creating for yourself.
Keep doing that month after month and year after year, and you have the opportunity to build a substantial base of repeat customers.
You Don't Need to Know Everything About Cleaning Supplies
A salesperson considering Hygiene Direct might reasonably think:
“But I don't know anything about commercial cleaning products.”
That's not necessarily a problem.
Products can be learned.
Systems can be learned.
Industry knowledge can be developed.
Hygiene Direct can help with those things.
What we're far more interested in is whether you can deal with people.
Can you approach a prospective customer?
Can you ask good questions?
Can you listen?
Can you identify what the customer needs?
Can you follow up?
Can you build trust?
And when somebody says no, are you persistent enough to keep going?
Those abilities are much harder to create from scratch.
You'll Have People Behind You Who Understand Sales
One of the advantages of joining Hygiene Direct is that the person responsible for helping our franchisees grow their sales has actually done the job himself.
Our Sales Director was previously our highest-performing Hygiene Direct franchisee.
He built his own customer base and consistently earned approximately $180,000 per year while continuing to grow the business.
That wasn't an income ceiling.
It was simply what he'd built at that point.
He eventually sold his franchise back to Hygiene Direct Head Office and became our Sales Director.
Today, part of his role is helping our franchisees develop their own businesses.
That means when you're talking about prospecting, winning customers, handling setbacks or growing sales, you're receiving support from somebody who has actually built a Hygiene Direct franchise himself.
We can't do the selling for you.
But you don't have to work everything out alone.
What Could 10 Years of Building Your Own Customer Base Look Like?
This is worth thinking about.
Where will you be 10 years from now?
If you remain in sales, you could spend that decade winning hundreds of customers for different employers.
You could be very successful.
But what will you personally own at the end of it?
Our first two Hygiene Direct franchisees joined us approximately 10 years ago.
Both are still with Hygiene Direct today.
They've spent that time operating and developing their own businesses within the Hygiene Direct network.
That doesn't mean every franchisee will achieve the same result.
But it does demonstrate that we're interested in building long-term franchise relationships.
You're Not Only Building Income
This may be the biggest difference of all.
A successful salesperson can earn a very good income.
But when they leave their employer, they don't normally sell their job.
A successful business owner potentially has something different.
An asset.
Build a strong franchise with repeat customers, ongoing sales and established relationships and you may eventually have a business somebody else wants to buy.
We've recently seen that happen within Hygiene Direct.
Our Northland franchise went onto the market and sold within approximately two months.
And the buyers weren't people who knew nothing about Hygiene Direct.
They were two existing Hygiene Direct customers.
They'd experienced our business from the customer's perspective and ultimately decided they wanted to become franchise owners themselves.
That's a significant difference between building a career and building an asset.
Do You Have the Persistence?
Salespeople know something that people outside sales don't always appreciate.
Success isn't simply about being charismatic.
It's about persistence.
The prospect who doesn't answer.
The quote you have to follow up.
The customer who tells you they're happy with their existing supplier.
The meeting that gets postponed.
The call that goes nowhere.
Then you make another call.
And another.
And another.
That's often where success comes from.
And when you're building your own business, that persistence is being invested in something you own.
Perhaps the Question Isn't “Could I Own a Business?”
Maybe the better question is:
“Why couldn't I?”
If you already know how to prospect…
If you already know how to build customer relationships…
If you already understand that hearing “no” is simply part of sales…
If you're self-motivated…
And if you're persistent…
Then you already possess some of the most important abilities required to build a Hygiene Direct franchise.
We can help with the products.
We can provide the systems.
We can provide the established brand, supplier relationships, Head Office support and mentoring.
You bring the sales ability and persistence.
Stop Building Someone Else's Customer Base?
You don't need to.
There comes a point in some sales careers when the question becomes less about the next promotion and more about what you're actually building for yourself.
Owning a business isn't easier than employment.
It brings responsibility and risk, and there are no guaranteed earnings.
But it also gives you something employment generally can't:
the opportunity to use your ability and persistence to build a customer base, income and potentially a valuable business asset of your own.
And there's no predetermined income ceiling telling you when you've gone far enough.
Could a Hygiene Direct Franchise Be Your Next Step?
We're looking for motivated people around New Zealand who are good with customers, prepared to prospect and persistent enough to keep building.
If you're already successful in sales or account management, perhaps it's time to explore what those skills could achieve when you're using them to build your own business.
He waka eke noa – we're all in this together.
Related Articles
- From Customer to Franchise Owner: Why Two Hygiene Direct Customers Bought the Business
- Our First Franchisees Are Still With Us 10 Years Later – What That Says About the Hygiene Direct Franchise
- Franchise vs Starting Your Own Business in NZ: What's the Difference?
- How Much Can a Franchise Owner Earn in New Zealand?
- What Should You Look for When Buying a Franchise in NZ?
- 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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Ready to Build Your Own Customer Base?
If you're already good at winning and retaining customers, consider what could happen if the business you were helping to build was your own.
Own Your Business with Full Head Office Support – Hygiene Direct
He waka eke noa – we're all in this together.