The Industry Word

[#1]

I wish more women knew about franchising. {Or at least knew of the possibilities}

Most of the folks that contact me to inquire about my franchise consulting services are men. {75%) Why is that? Are men more interested in owning their own businesses? Are more men than women losing their jobs this year? Are men bigger risk-takers?

Now, I said that more men contact me for information on franchising. Maybe women are just as interested in becoming franchise owners as men are, but they just don't reach out for more information as much.

Here is why this topic interests me;

When I present live franchise seminars and classes to groups, the audience is usually fifty percent men, and fifty percent women.  That tells me a lot.

Maybe it's in the marketing. Are franchise companies targeting more men than women? I guess it depends on the specific franchise concept. For instance, when Curves first came out, whom did they target as prospective franchisees? Well, women for sure, but more importantly, Curves members.

Take Gayle Nash, a Curves target franchise owner back in 2004;

"I was putting on too much weight," said Gayle Nash, a 64-year-old former college professor and dog enthusiast. "I was not able to show dogs without getting completely worn out. I started dieting but knew I would have to do some exercise."

Nash joined a Curves center in her eastern Michigan hometown and in four months lost 30 pounds and 15 inches. She was able to keep up with her retrievers in competition. On a whim, she investigated the purchase of a franchise and within months had retired from teaching, sold her house and bought the Curves franchise territory in West Chester.

"I fell in love with Curves," she said. "It's for women like me - older women - having fun and reaching their goals."  Read the entire article here. *

There are even franchise directories that focus just on women. Recently, I randomly clicked on this one;

www.womensfranchises.com *

The three "featured" franchises for women consisted of a tutoring franchise that makes house calls, a residential cleaning services franchise, and even a non-franchise opportunity in the vending arena, massage chairs.

Here's what is interesting, though.  Any one of these franchises could be purchased by men.

So, is it the marketing? I'll let you ponder that one.

I randomly went to another franchise directory, this time the USA Today Franchise Ownership Center. * They had three franchises displayed prominently, via video links. They were;

• FiltaFry Cleaning
• PostNet Business Center
• Floor Coverings International

Who are these franchise companies targeting?

FiltaFry is a mobile service franchise for the micro- filtration of cooking oils and the vacuum cleaning of frying equipment in restaurants.

 PostNet is a retail franchise that offers digital services, copying, printing, packaging and shipping for the local small business market.

Floor Coverings International guides and inspires homeowners, right in their own homes, to select from over 3,000 flooring products. The franchisee does the sales and then has installers do the physical part of the sale.

Do you feel that both men and women could be franchise owners of these three franchise concepts?

In the first one, why couldn't a woman do the actual work part of the business? Of course, she could also choose to manage the crews, right?

Running a retail franchise that has a B2B twist to it is most certainly non-gender specific, so a woman could easily become a franchisee of PostNet, if she qualified financially, and was right for the business.

Floor Coverings International is a franchise concept that allows customers to shop in the comfort of their own homes, and definitely has an interior designer feel to it. I happen to know a lot of women who happen to be terrific at anything that has to do with décor.

In summation, the purpose of this article was to really get you thinking about the types of opportunities that are available, and to share a little bit about how franchisors market their concepts, to men and women.

Women-Owned Business Information from Business.Gov

{The Franchise King, Joel Libava, is president of Franchise Selection Specialists Inc. Joel helps those interested in exploring franchise ownership all over the country find great opportunities that are a great match for them. He is frequently called on by the media for his no-spin insights on the world of franchising. You can follow Joel on his award winning blog-The Franchise King Blog.}

* This hyperlink goes to a non-government website

Message Edited by FranchiseKing on 09-22-2009 06:49 AM

[#2]

Hi Joel,  personally I have never understood the "marketing to women" thing.  But it's definitely big and I can definitely see how companies would market certain franchises specifically to women.

Anita

[#3]

Anita,

Thank you for commenting. I agree. I really do wish more women would reach out to me that were interested in learning more about some opportunities in franchise ownership.

I have worked with a few, and every time, it has been a great experience...

The Franchise King

Joel Libava

[#4]

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[#5]

Well, I think it's not just a gender issue, but also an accessibility concern. More men are businessmen and more women are housewives. Hovewer, both can benefit from small businesses. Hence, the problem lies in the sources of information. While male auditory is easliy accessed through general newspapers, search engine ads, etc, female auditory should be reached through appropriate media as well. Consider women magazines, or women-oriented websites as well as some message boards, social networks, etc. In my own experience, many women are downloading PDFs, e-books and documents at Rapidshare search engine, but there are plenty of women-targeted websites out there.

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