Some of the most common questions our clients ask us are “What is the hottest franchise?” and “What is the hottest industry?” Today, we are going to reveal the answers to those questions.
If you head over to Google and type in “what’s the hottest franchise,” “top franchises,” or “best franchises to own,” you are going to get a wide range of answers. The hard truth is that the vast majority of these answers fall somewhere between wildly inaccurate and hugely misinterpreted. In other words, you are not going to find much helpful information.
Here’s why: There is not one specific thing out there that is the hottest franchise or the hottest industry. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either trying to sell you something or doesn’t know what the heck they are talking about. It’s not the most glamorous answer, but it’s the truth.
How Do You Know Which Franchise to Choose?
If there is no definitive hottest franchise or hottest industry, then how do you know which one to choose? Choosing a franchise is all about finding the right match.
The franchise that is best for you may not be the same franchise that is best for any other given client at FranCoach – or your friend or your brother or your neighbor’s cousin’s sister. Our process is made to help you discover the franchise that is best for YOU.
Mutual Attraction
When we get people connected to franchises during our process, we often use a cheesy analogy that compares finding the right franchise to dating. Before you roll your eyes, hear us out for a moment.
First of all, finding the right franchise is mutual. You can want to date or marry someone all day long – but if they are not interested in you, it’s not happening. The same thing goes for franchising.
We have all heard the phrase “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” From the romance perspective, FranCoach Founder and CEO Tim Parmeter likes to say that he is (without question) married to the most beautiful woman in the world and wakes up every morning feeling lucky and happy about that.
In the punchline of Tim’s joke, he imagines his wife’s friends saying “What the heck are you doing with the old, bald dude?” But Tim’s wife is just as happy to be married to him as he is to be married to her – they found their perfect match.
The same thing goes for franchising. Some of the key elements when it comes to finding your perfect franchising match are intangible – they are core values and attitudes that would not appear on your resumé or your LinkedIn profile. But they speak to the core of who you are and how you will align with a given franchise.
Let Core Values Take the Wheel
We talk about core values often when we get into industries. You can have two franchises that look exactly the same to the consumer but can be completely different behind the scenes in terms of what they are all about.
We recently spoke with a client who was soon to be attending a Discovery Day. A lot of Discovery Days are still held virtually, but it was a priority for this client to be able to attend his Discovery Day in person. After narrowing down potential franchisors to find a match, the client wanted to look at some other franchisors in the same industry to see if there were any important differences.
We put him in contact with other franchisors in the same industry – and keep in mind, these were great brands with hundreds of successful franchise owners. But the client ended up coming back to the franchisor he was originally paired with. Why? The things that brought him back were the structures, the support, and the comfort he felt with that franchisor’s team and their culture.
An Inside Look Into Industries
In some industries, we have partnerships with as many as 15 different brands. So how do you differentiate between that many players in a given industry?
You will be amazed at how brands that do the exact same thing can be so different from each other. Those differences are all behind the scenes and proprietary – you cannot Google them. At FranCoach, we are able to understand them and access them through our relationships with the franchisors, and that’s just one of the many reasons that clients choose to work with us.
When it comes to which industries are trending and hot, every industry is going to throw a bunch of glittery stats at you: X is a $30 billion industry, and Y is expected to grow to $60 billion by 2025. But honestly, who cares?
Those stats are the shiny objects that we get attracted to – and distracted by. An industry that looks like it’s headed for record growth might be tempting, but is the franchisor really the right match for you?
For example, take the senior care industry. You can make crap tons of money (yep, that’s the technical industry term) in that space – but only if senior care is the right fit. In the senior care industry, franchise owners have to grow big teams and manage a lot of people. If you are not a people person, senior care is probably not the right place for you.
Stop Googling and Turn to the Experts
If you are reading this post, then we bet you already have an interest in franchising. And that means you have probably surfed Google trying to find out information about which franchise you should get into. Here’s our advice to you: Stop Googling!
Former client and current franchise owner Cody Johnson gave the same advice when he appeared on our Franchising 101 podcast. Here’s what he said:
“I did way too much Googling. Stop Googling. Put that down – don’t do that… If this sounds good, just reach out. Tim will be very honest with you.”
It’s okay to look at Google search results from the perspective of opening your mind or finding new information about franchising. But searching the web is really not the way to find the right fit for you. Discovering the franchise that is your perfect match is a personalized, individualized process that’s not going to be accomplished via a search engine.
You need to ask a series of important questions. What are you looking for? What do you really want? In our previous dating example, you might say “I love long walks on the beach” (and piña coladas and getting caught in the rain).
But as we all know, relationships are not all long walks on the beach. They’re not all rainbows and unicorns. So just because a particular franchisor says “Look how great our owners are doing” and “Look how hot our industry is,” it doesn’t mean that brand is the right fit for you.
In fact, odds are that it’s probably not. There are thousands of franchises out there. At FranCoach, we work with multiple franchises in every single industry. Two franchises in a single niche can be night-and-day different from one another. Whether it’s the people, culture, support, technology, growth potential or business model, no two franchises are the same.
You need to find the one that’s the right fit for YOU. Otherwise, you will be hard-pressed to get out of bed every morning and go to work running your business.
The Get Out of Bed Test
At FranCoach, we want to properly educate you about the franchising world and what it’s really like to be a franchise owner. So what do you need to consider?
You need to consider YOU. What are you good at? What do you want to do? What are the things that are valuable to you?
We talk a lot about what we call “The Get Out of Bed Test.” You are the one who is going to be getting out of bed every morning to go run your business. So you want to be good at it. You want to do things you enjoy and surround yourself with people you enjoy being around – in terms of staff, customers, and community.
Where do you need the most support? Where do you need more freedom and autonomy? Answering all of these questions is crucial to figuring out which franchise is the best match for you. It’s really not about the hottest industry or the hottest brand.
Instead of looking at what is trendy, turn the focus back to YOU. At FranCoach, our team will help you answer the questions that we have mentioned. We will help you understand what is important to you so that we can do the research and find a franchise that’s the right fit.
Sometimes, you will be paired with a franchisor in an industry you have heard of or thought of, but more often than not, you will discover a new industry that you may not have even known about previously. We will help you get connected with that franchisor and assist you throughout the vetting process so that you are not making any mistakes or jumping toward shiny objects. At FranCoach, we are here to help you find the right franchise for you – and then you’ll be up and running.
The “hottest franchise” doesn’t exist. It’s a myth. The “hottest industry”? Also a myth. At the end of the day, it’s all about YOU. So are you ready to explore franchising? Are you ready to gain control over your lifestyle, both personally and professionally? Do you want control of your income, finances, and what you’re doing every day? If so, we need to talk.
How Can FranCoach Help You?
So who are we anyway? FranCoach is a national search firm dedicated to working with individuals who are interested in owning a franchise. We've partnered with over 600 of the top franchisors in the country, spanning nearly 70 industries.
Our goal with clients is to help them find the absolute best franchise for them to own. Our goal with our Franchising 101 podcast series and this series of informational blog posts is to help educate people on all aspects of franchise ownership.
Reach out to us to learn more about potentially becoming a franchise owner. There’s never any fee for our service, so why not take the first step today toward your better tomorrow?