Everyone eats. So when you’re making a food franchise vs. insurance franchise investment decision, the foodies win every time — right? Or at least that’s the conclusion you might make before looking closer.
Dig a little deeper, and you’re likely to come up with an altogether different point of view. One that makes insurance company franchises such as Freeway Insurance stand out.
Business Model Comparison
In making your franchise investment comparison, you’ll find advantages for both types of business categories (and for others as well). But some realities come forward in ways that just might color your thinking. Consider the following.
The food industry is transaction-based, whereas insurance is sold — and upsold and cross-sold — upon relationships carefully built over time.
You might go to the nearest burger franchise when you’re hungry or passing through town — and never go back. That might not be because you’re dissatisfied with your meal or the service you receive, but because you don’t really give your dining experience that much thought. The franchise satisfactorily solved one minor problem once: hunger pangs.
Maybe at some point your customer will try another nearby fast-food franchise with the same name, logo, and signage, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be yours. Any burger joint with the same name will do. Or a competitor with similar menu offerings. That, in essence, is the definition of a transactional relationship. There’s not a lot of brand loyalty for individual franchise units involved.
Insurance is different. If consumers need an auto insurance policy, they have to consider costs and benefits. The industry buzzwords can be confusing. What’s covered, and what’s not? And to what degree? How can they lower monthly premiums? What’s really critical in coverage, and what can clients with a strained budget set aside?
As the agent/franchisee, you’re the expert with much-needed answers and the ability to control costs.
It’s an even bigger deal for first-time homebuyers. They need homeowners insurance. That new residence might well be the largest investment they will ever make. What if there’s a fire? Internal flooding? Damage from a tornado or hurricane? Loss to a burglary? What about possessions kept off-site? Are they covered?
Lots of questions, and a good insurance agent has valid, useful, and stress-relieving answers.
You begin to build credibility slowly. If a client comes to you for insurance on their first car and you make the process as easy and affordable as possible, who do you think they’ll call when they buy a newer vehicle? Lease an apartment? Buy a house? Decide to invest in life insurance? Bingo! Your insurance client has a much greater lifetime value than your burger or taco customer, as long as you keep them satisfied.
You also have inventory and delivery system advantages. There is no inventory. You don’t need a large workforce. There’s no pricey gear or equipment, such as a fully stocked kitchen. You don’t need a workspace for your insurance operations any fancier than the spare bedroom in your home or apartment.
You can conduct the insurance business almost entirely online and by phone. You can meet your clients in the local coffeehouse, if necessary. This makes the insurance franchise model a much more affordable investment than a restaurant or food service operation of any kind.
You can get in with little more than a phone, a laptop, business cards, and a home office until your business starts to outgrow such modest beginnings. And it’s likely that it will.
Industry Growth and Market Dynamics
What happens when your food service franchise market becomes saturated? Can your customers choose between Burger King, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, Five Guys, and Shake Shack, all nearby? If that happens, you can’t exactly move your brick-and-mortar business to a city or neighborhood with somewhat less competition.
In the insurance franchise model, you can scope out your level of competition before you buy your business. First, read your franchise disclosure document, or FDD. This is a mandatory document from the franchisor to those considering becoming franchisees. One item that you should carefully review is the details regarding your protected territory. You shouldn’t ever be competing with other franchisees from the same brand.
What about other competitors? It should be easy to find out who you’re up against simply by walking the streets and conducting online searches. Once you get established and start recruiting policyholders, many will come back to you out of brand loyalty. They’ll also recommend you to friends, neighbors, and co-workers.
That’s the best way of dealing with your competition. Just make your business more valuable than they make theirs.
Recessions and economic slowdowns are another threat to business owners in various categories. If consumers have to retreat from spending, where are those cuts going to come?
It’s cheaper to eat at home. Pack lunches for work and school. Not having a cheeseburger and onion rings for lunch isn’t a big emotional sacrifice. But try going without car insurance or homeowners coverage.
That’s true even if you own an upscale “date night” restaurant franchise. There are other ways and places to get together when budgets are tight.
Insurance works on a different plane. Auto policies with some level of coverage are mandatory in every state in the U.S. but New Hampshire. And it would be an unnecessary risk to go without it, even if it wasn’t the law for motorists. Some property managers won’t let you sign a lease without presenting a rental insurance policy. And no lender will let you buy a home without a homeowners policy. All of that is true in both good and bad economic times.
Bottom line, insurance is recession-proof. Food service franchises…not so much.
Initial Investment and Startup Costs
No two franchise models are the same. Some simply cost more than others. Here are a few major budget considerations that help explain the difference.
Franchise Fee and Equipment Requirements
You’ll pay a franchise fee just to get started, no matter which category you choose. This is your cost of entry. It allows you to become a franchisee and use your franchisor’s hopefully familiar name and logo, its products or services, reputation, and proven ways of doing business. Your franchise fee can range from a few thousand dollars to seven figures, depending on the strength of the brand, the complexity of start up, and other factors.
You must also pay royalty fees. This is usually a percentage of your sales of products or services that your franchisor has already made popular.
And then you have your startup costs. This can include the rental or purchase of a building, hiring of employees, and the cost of inventory, gear, and equipment.
Here’s the rub: A food service franchise has all four of those major ticket items — building (with decked-out kitchen); employees; inventory, which mostly consists of the food you’ll serve, as well as condiments, napkins, flatware, and packaging; and such pricey gear and equipment as your food service appliances, utensils, and perhaps delivery vehicles.
Compare all of that to what was previously mentioned as insurance franchise must-haves: website, laptop, smartphone, and business cards. That’s basically it. You can operate the business by yourself, at least until it grows to a level at which you’ll need to start hiring a team. There’s no physical inventory to buy and store. You can operate off of your own kitchen table if all of your business is ecommerce, or you have a nearby coffee shop where you can meet clients.
The point is, your startup costs are going to make a big difference in a food service franchise vs. insurance franchise comparison.
Hidden Costs and Ongoing Expenses
You’re not done with figuring out the cost of running a food service franchise.
Food has this interesting phenomenon. It spoils, wilts, or otherwise goes bad. Serve menu items that are spoiled or contain ingredients that should have been tossed, and the food can range from unappetizing to… deadly. So be sure not to over-buy ingredients. If you do, you’ll have to throw much of it away to keep your offerings fresh and safe and your reputation intact. But…
If you don’t buy enough ingredients, you’ll have to take menu options off the board, your customers will be displeased, and they’ll tell their friends.
Life is interesting — and expensive — if you own a restaurant or food service operation of any kind, at any level.
Revenue Model and Profit Margins
Crunch the numbers for each of the two franchise sectors, and you’ll draw some more interesting conclusions.
Income Stream Comparison
In the restaurant and food service business, the revenue you bring in tomorrow will be… anyone’s guess. Patrons might stay away if the weather’s bad, traffic is congested, or the economy is sour. Or they might come pouring in for reasons you can’t determine, and eat you out of your foodstock.
Every day brings revenue guesswork in the restaurant business. The insurance sector, on the other hand, allows for much more reliable income figures. Let’s say you sell someone a homeowners insurance policy on a new residence that probably carries a 30-year mortgage. Your insurance premiums are built into the house payment as well as the property taxes, and that mortgage will be paid every month.
Sure, your policyholder could switch policies if they wish, but why would they do so without warning? It’s not something a policyholder does every month, so the chances are good that you’ll have that client for years to come.
Back to the restaurant franchisee. What do they know about that customer who patronized their establishment today? Will they ever see that customer again? Can they depend on the weekly, monthly, or lifetime revenue they’ll receive from that customer? Of course not.
Insurance franchisees have commissions and recurring revenue streams on the books. Restaurant franchise owners have customers with hunger pangs at one moment in time, and no guarantee or even a reliable guesstimate of tomorrow’s numbers from that same diner.
Profit Margin Analysis
Remember all of that talk about food going bad, customers being displeased, and never coming back? Add to that the need for a full workforce, both front-of-house and in the kitchen. All of that costs money. Lots of it. And that’s why full-service restaurants tend to have profit margins averaging around three percent to six percent. These are among the narrowest margins in business. A fast-food franchise does only a little better.
An insurance agency, on the other hand, can maintain gross profit margins of 15% to 25% and net margins of up to 10%. High-performing agencies can do even better.
The reason for the difference goes back to how you can start solo in this business, working from your house or apartment with little more than a laptop, smartphone, website, and business cards. You’ve got nothing in the way of inventory to buy and stock (or to potentially go bad). You expand as you grow, adding employees and maybe fancier digs only once you can afford such upgrades.
Daily Operations and Lifestyle Impact
The restaurant and food service industry will certainly give you more of a 24/7 physical workout and stress test than ownership within the insurance franchise sector — but is that such a good thing? Read on.
Work Schedule and Time Commitment
As an insurance franchisee, you set your own hours. You arrange appointments to serve your and your clients’ availability. A restaurateur has a sign on the door. The sign reports the establishment’s daily hours of operation. That means food service franchisees don’t control their own time — the clock does.
When the sign on your door and on your website says you’re open, you had better be. That quite possibly includes weekends, early or late hours (or both), and even holidays. Your time is definitely not your own.
Physical Demands and Work Environment
Where’s that order for table seven? Why is there smoke pouring out of the kitchen? Does that food vendor have to show up now, in the middle of the noon rush? Have I paid this month’s rent yet?
As a food service franchise owner, your days (and possibly nights) keep you hopping. One moment you’re in the kitchen ironing out personnel problems. Then you’re on the floor, greeting customers or taking care of concerns. Back at your office, you have bills to pay, new employees to interview, hire, train, and schedule, and vendors to deal with. You’re in constant motion, going from the dining room to the kitchen to the office. It’s quite a workout.
Insurance franchisees work from a desk. Most of their business and their communication comes via phone or the internet. You’ll even have time to go to the gym to get some of those workouts you don’t get at the office.
Staffing Challenges and Human Resources
With profit margins as tight as they are in the restaurant business, most employers pay minimum wage to staff — or even sub-minimum, whenever possible. Even with tips factored into their earnings, the typical restaurant employee is not well paid — or all that enamored with the job.
That means that there’s a lot of employee turnover in the industry. That results in the constant need to hire and train new employees. Their understandable mistakes can compromise customer service and dent the reputation of your establishment.
If you end up owning an insurance franchise, you’ll hire career professionals who will likely stay with your agency for a much longer period than a food worker. They’ll receive sales commissions and be well motivated to work hard and stay in your employ.
Risk Factors and Industry Challenges
As an entrepreneur, you probably understand the concept of risk and risk acceptance. No matter what segment of the economy you adopt, you’ll have obstacles and challenges. You can overcome some of them more easily than others.
Operational Risks
Restaurants and other food service operations are beset with potential problems, ranging from spoiled food and litigation from sick diners to kitchen injury risks to staff and minor and major health code violations.
Insurance, by contrast, offers exposure to far fewer risks, as long as your franchisor offers respected, reputable insurance products. Stay in compliance with your state’s insurance regulations and obtain a reasonable level of errors and omissions insurance, also known as E&O coverage, for financial protection against policyholder liability. Take those simple steps, and you can run your business smoothly and with little cause to fear big-ticket operational risks.
Reach Out Today
You see now how insurance franchises such as Freeway Insurance can offer some of the best opportunities for entrepreneurs. You’ll find ownership opportunities coast to coast. Just reach out to a knowledgeable Freeway Insurance franchise representative at 877-822-3024. You can also give us your contact information, and we’ll contact you.
