Launching Your Restaurant.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle in his classic book Politics quoted a proverb – “Well begun is half done.” The launch of operations in the restaurant business epitomises this saying. Reputation matters more than anything else in the restaurant business. Reputation is built on how past performance is perceived by people. The success of your restaurant greatly depends on how the experience of your early customers makes them into your strong supporters and advocates. Today, the power of word of mouth has been multiplied many times through social media networks – be it restaurant review sites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter.

A useful analogy is to look at your restaurant launch as the staging of a theatre performance that is scheduled to run for years. Staging a theatrical performance calls for intensive preparation so that the opening day performance is perfect. Think of the Republic Day Parade held every year since 1950 on 26^th January. Has there ever been a less-than-perfect performance? Your launch has to be well planned and well prepared.

In terms of a broad checklist your launch plans should not be finalised until you have the big three elements of your restaurant in place – great concept, great location and great food. To this add sufficient financial resources to run operations till break-even point is met. Finally, it is recommended that the main team should be in place at least 4 to 6 weeks before the launch date so that the team can be trained in all operations. All menu items should be tested out. Systems and processes for all customer-dealing situations need to be worked out and drilled. Think of this in terms of conducting rehearsals before the opening day.

It would be useful to think of launching your restaurant operations as a project. The final objective of the project is to create stable operations generating enough revenues, which will help you meet the break-even point on schedule.

The first project task would be to start promotions as soon as you can lock onto a final launch date. Training schedules need to culminate into a soft launch that can be viewed like a final dress rehearsal. Invited non-paying guests should be welcomed to your restaurant for a full service meal.

The launch project should look beyond the launch date and design a process of getting the house in order by ironing out the minor issues that will emerge in the early days of operations. Finally, you should target on ways to increase revenues to ensure you meet your financial targets.

After operations and revenue flows stabilise at acceptable levels, you can explore how to maintain the excitement in your restaurant by building novelty, innovation and improvement.

What do you think about the launch of the restaurants? Write in to Quitters and share your views.

Family Businesses Now Take A Way Forward Through Franchising.

The phrase “family business” is not hard to understand. By definition, any corporation that is run by members of a family, immediate and/or extended is eligible to be called a “family business”. But today, more and more businesses today are making their operations less dependent on the owner entrepreneur. But everything, like in a monopoly situation, depends on the owner and the dynamic of the family and the member-partners. Some of the top family run businesses in India are Reliance Industries, Tata Consultancy Services, Bharati Airtel, Wipro Technologies, Jindal Group, Wadia Group, etc. But aside from these giant conglomerates, the mom-and-pop stores form the basis of a country where family culture and business go hand in hand.

The Indian “bazaars” are full of these stores, often stacked and surviving generations one after another. The successes and failures of such kind of organisations, though, get difficult to deal with after a couple of generations, suggest industry experts. It is important for FOBs to devise a system to iron out the conflicts and maintain a balance, to keep the personal separate from the professional, to have well structured guidelines and company policies and to keep thinking about creating a legacy, whose onus is taken on rather responsibly by the generations to follow.

For that to happen, the business has to undertake the process of “disengagement”. It will free the owner to take a more on-the-business role and enable him to focus attention on getting together resources for growth. The growth can either be achieved by the FOB owner himself or by collaborating with others. But the former will have its own limitation in it that the business from a single unit will soon reach its saturation point.

This is where collaborating with others come in handy to build growth. The path of collaborating to build growth is the path of franchising, one of the fastest growing business methods in the world today. Licensing your business franchise means offering others on payment of fees the rights to sell your products and services, through processes created by you, and using bands and trademarks owned by you. This route calls for investment to be made by the franchisee into the franchise business. You, thus, share the revenue without necessarily investing your own funds. Your funds stand limited to making you ready for stage through documentation and the costs of recruiting franchisees, which are way less than the typical costs involved in opening another branch on your own.

The times are changing! A lot of people are opening up to the concept of franchising and that is where Franchise India comes into picture. Franchise India is Asia’s largest integrated franchise solution company since it started its operations in 1999, with a record of helping hundreds of investors in selecting the right franchise, and, in turn, assisting numerous organisations in international and domestic franchise expansion. Franchise India provides and-to-end consulting and that’s how it’ll help the entrepreneurs take a well-informed decision.

Franchising Fit for Retired Professionals.

Retirement is never an ending but a new beginning. It is the best time to put all the wealth and wisdom that you have acquired during your professional journey to the best possible use. Franchise route offers various opportunities for retired professionals to invest in their money with limited risk and reap valuable returns.

Why hop onto franchise after retirement?

Established brand name, extensive support in the form of training, operations, advertising as well as marketing and the advantage of a proven business concept makes franchise model a viable investment opportunity especially for government officials and corporate executives who wish to have their own business. Age is never a consideration for the franchisor but the skills possessed by the prospective franchisee. The corporate ladder offers a clear cut path to increase ones earnings. But franchising is an unrestrained route where time and age have no barriers. It is totally upon the will of the franchisee when to start and when to quit.

Rising Prospects Colonel Harland Sanders was in his mid sixties when he devoted himself to expanding the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise. According to a recent report “Franchise ownership falls in the list of top twenty best paying retirement jobs.” In the recent years India too has seen rise in the number of franchise owners who are over fifty years of age.

Points to ponder :-
• The retirees should not make decisions in haste but carefully analyse the industry before taking up a franchise.
• First and the foremost, health factors should be carefully evaluated.
• Businesses that involve long and tiring hours should be avoided.
• Stress and anxiety due to work can prove to be disastrous at this age.
• Physical strength, mental stamina and endurance should form the basic standards against which prospective business options should be measured.
• Secondly, money matters play an important role. Franchise that involves lower up-front costs and minimal ongoing overhead is what retired professionals generally look for.
• The entire earning of your life needs to be invested in a franchise that has the potential of offering hundred per cent success rate.
• At this stage you definitely cannot afford to lose money.

Thirdly, more important than front-up investment is the return on investment. It requires a certain specific time period to break even, which varies from business to business. Therefore selecting a franchise demands careful scrutiny and exposure to brands that are credible. The credibility of the franchise brand and quality opportunity can be done by the retired professionals by visiting the franchise expos pan-India held by Franchise India. Also the consulting team at Franchise India supports the investors in verifying the brand’s for investing their hard earned money. If these concerns are intelligently attended to, then indeed franchising is the best suited mode of earning for retired professionals and a perfect way to begin their new life.

Tips for the New Franchisee.

Gaurav Marya’s first book, which is currently available in its fifth re-print edition, The Science of Reproducing Success, talks about how franchising has emerged in India as a growth industry with great potential. It further tells us how franchising provides the last-mile connect in the world’s largest consumption market. Written below are parts taken out from the best-seller book’s preface and inside chapters.

Some words of advice for the new franchisee.

Remain Focused: When you are new to the franchising world and are setting about your first franchise, you might have dreams of expanding it into the next billion dollar business venture. Dreaming is good, but it is also good to remain focused on the task at hand – which is of establishing your first venture and making a success of it. The rest of your dreams will find their place once the one on hand is taken care of.

Be True to Your Word: Credibility is the most important thing that you need to build and command when you are in the franchise business. Be it your word t your customers or to your franchisor, you need to keep your promises and deliver all that you have committed.

Be a Part of One or Several Networks: This is an era of networking. The world is not the limit and the Internet and the social media networks have made access to anyone and everything simple and easy. However, being a part of a network and meeting people in person goes a long way in helping you maintain and expand your business.

Have a Sound Online Presence: It is the age of instant news and smart phones. The online market sells and the social media has a tremendous influence on trends. It would do any entrepreneur, new or established, a big push to have a good online presence through their own company websites and also through the various sites such as the Facebook, Peer Power, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter and so on. Having a blog or two and a fan page too are some of the things that you might want to look at for business and network building.

A Word on Franchising.

Gaurav Marya’s first book, which is currently available in its fifth re-print edition, The Science of Reproducing Success, talks about how franchising has emerged in India as a growth industry with great potential. It further tells us how franchising provides the last-mile connect in the world’s largest consumption market. Written below are parts taken out from the best-seller book’s preface and inside chapters.

Though franchising may not be suitable for all forms of businesses, or for the fiercely independent entrepreneurs, it can offer numerous opportunities to those willing to work hard for a common goal. If you take the time to do the necessary investigation and analysis, your chances of success both as a franchisor and franchisee are assured.

But the important question remains: Why Franchise? The answer is: To reproduce success. Rather than just selling a business, what franchise companies really do is sell an idea. They sell the formula that they have developed and have been successful with. This formula can come in various combinations, but generally it comprises a trademark, a uniform operating system, training and consultation, and promotion. The franchisee has to follow that formula for success for its own success. And all that it has to give in return is an initial franchise fee, and ongoing royalty payments.

So apart from acquiring the formula of a proven and efficient method of conducting business, which is provided by the franchisors, the franchisee also benefits from the management assistance and training, as well as marketing assistance, which is provided by the franchisors. Franchisors normally conduct national or regional marketing campaigns developed by professional advertising agencies and help franchisees run local ad campaigns. The acquired cumulative experience of the franchisor is available to the franchisee at a nominal cost, which further helps making his business ready for success.

Sometimes franchisees are helped by their franchisors not just in preparing business plans and strategies but also in obtaining financing for their outlets. Financial institutions too may be more willing to lend the necessary fund to the prospective franchisee if a well-known franchisor is backing the applicant. It would be easier to obtain the funds when approached as a franchisee with a well-established franchisor, than as an entrepreneur with a new business concept. In the end, franchising provides an ambitious business aspirant with the benefit of the skills, knowledge and best practices in management, from people who have run a successful business over many years.

In Gaurav Marya’s, author of Franchising and Take Charge, third book, “It Takes Two To Tango”, which builds a case for how we have emerged into a customer dominated, shape-shifting world, there’s a mention of Karl Fisch’s “Shift Happens” video that sets up the premise behind the changing world demographics and the technological shift. Let’s read what it is all about:

Go to your favourite search engine on the Internet and type out the words “Shift Happens”. Amongst the first five items will be a presentation with the same title. Watch it! The moment I first saw it I liked it. It was this that inspired the foundation of this book. Let me tell you the story behind this presentation. In 2006, Karl Fisch, a schoolteacher in the United States was invited by his school administration to address the beginning-of-the-year faculty meeting. He decided to take the help of a friend and prepared a presentation that confronted his colleagues with dramatic, thought-provoking facts. A copy of the slideshow was placed on Karl Fisch’s blog on August 15, 2006, and it went viral.

By June 2007, five million people across the globe had seen an improved version of the original slideshow. Over the years, many versions of the audio-visual have been made. David S. Rose, who is the Chair for Finance and Entrepreneurship at Singularity University, and is also the Chairman of the New York Angels investment association, did version 6.0 in January 2012. By that time, more than 20 million people had viewed one or the other edition of the presentation. The structure of the AV is very simple. It starts with a simple question: “Did you know?” And then it presents facts based on a theme. This structure is repeated across various themes. In the original slideshow, though, the first part pertained specifically to Karl’s school, it has been removed from the versions available on the Internet.

One of the themes dealt with is changing world demographics. The case is made that in the foreseeable future, a majority of educated English-speaking population in the world will be from India and China. Looking back at history, we are reminded that the leading country in the world in 1990s was the United Kingdom. The implication is that USA need not always be the leading economy or paramount nation. The inference that viewers draw is that soon Asia, led by China and India, will be the centre of the economic world. The message is reinforced by facts showing that the US is lagging behind other countries in Internet penetration. This is a significant point as world over the Internet users are growing to become communities even larger than most nations. With 800 million accounts in December 2011, a nation of Facebook community is now the world’s third-largest country.

Technological change is making the twenty-first-century world witness exponential change. The first text message was sent in December 1992; the number of text messages sent and received today exceeds the population of the planet. The years it took to reach a market audience of 50 million in the era of radio was 38 years, for TV – 13 years, for the Internet – 4 years, for the iPod – 3 years, for the Facebook – 2 years and for Google+ — just a year!

The conclusion of Karl Fisch’s message is a simple yet profound one. He takes the American slang version of the philosophical French phase c’est la vie! (Such is life), which is “Sh_t happens!” and adds an “f” to it, saying, “Shift Happens”.

We have for too long measured customer impact in terms of demographics and market share. We need to focus deeper into the impact we make in the lives of individual customers. This calls for a more intimate knowledge of our customer. Write in to us in the comments’ section for your opinions on this.

Entrepreneur Cafe.

New Delhi, 8^th April, 2014: Franchise India Holdings, Asia’s largest franchising solution provider and a retail consulting firm, launched first-of-its-kind Entrepreneur Cafe on April 8, in Okhla, Delhi. A retail offering of the entrepreneur marketplace, Entrepreneur Cafe will look forward to serving food for thought for hot start-ups and entrepreneurs, helping them interact with consultants and industry experts to get advice on issues, including, but not limited to financing, loans, trademark registration, licensing, company incorporation, says Gaurav Marya, Chairman, Franchise India. It will also assist in writing business plans, business modelling and even provide real estate solutions.

What’s more? The cafe has been conceived on the lines of creating a perfect environment for businessmen: like a co-working relaxed outfit with the best coffee/tea, gourmet food articles and Wi-fi, coupled with meeting rooms, conference rooms and networking opportunities. It will gradually also hold programs to help people from the same industry connect and explore the right business opportunities in the domestic as well as international markets.

“After the launch of the first cafe in Okhla, Delhi, Franchise India plans to set up cafes in at least two more metropolitan cities by the end of this year. As an entrepreneur, you might need different solutions at a different stage of business growth, but at the start-up stage one needs broadly three critical tools: Finance, Real-Estate and Company Incorporation. Entrepreneur Cafe is the only platform in the world that can get you all the three by just walking in. We’re in it for the last 16 years and no one does it better than us. I look forward to an interesting discussion,” says Marya.

The mid-market-centered cafe provide services such as – Advisory Services (Strategy Building, Legal and Documentation support, Fund-raising support, Expansion strategy, Revival strategy for Sick Units, Exits and Resale Strategies), Operational Services (Operational Plan, Productivity, Optimisation Planning, Staff Training, Accounting and Tax Services, Export and Trade Promotion Plan and Execution, Technology Consulting and Set-up) and Incorporation Services.

About Franchise India

Franchise India is Asia’s largest integrated franchise solution company since 1999, with an absolute authority on Franchising, Licensing, Retailing, Real estate and Marketing. The company has consulted several major brands over the years: HCL, MGF, Quality Walls’, Tata, Gitanjali, HSBC, Levi’s, JK Tyres, Lakme, D’damas, Adidas, Euro Kidz, The Apollo Clinic, Chhabra 555, Kidzee, Motilal Oswal, Rosebys, Next, Welhome, etc., through media, advisory and exhibitions.

With its strategically-formed divisions, Franchise India has created its own niche as the pioneers of franchise industry and a small business authority. For more details, log on to www.franchiseindia.in.