Why Sales Professionals Excel as Franchise Owners?
You’re a self-starter with energy, commitment, and advanced communications skills. You set, meet, and exceed goals and inspire your clients’ confidence and engagement. You convert prospects into customers and have a track record for success. All of that makes you an ideal sales professional for your company.
Ever thought of working for yourself? What if you owned your own business and could achieve success on your own terms with the skills you already have?
There are ample opportunities for smart, talented, and hard-working sales pros like yourself to become entrepreneurs through franchise ownership. Take a look at some of the best businesses for salespeople.
Best Franchise Sectors Tailored for Sales Professionals Seeking Growth
Franchises are enterprises structured to follow a business model perfected by a larger and more established organization. As a franchise owner, or franchisee, you get the franchisor’s name, logo, branding, reputation, and ways of doing business. You have a customer or client base that already recognizes and respects the brand, and you get the training and support you need to achieve similar levels of success.
Sales professionals can find ownership opportunities in both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing structures.
Some offer products for sale, while others market services to clients. Here are some top brands in both categories that you might find worth exploring. You might have to undertake additional training to service your new customer base, but you’ll likely find it well worth your time and effort.
Product-Based Franchises
Freeway Insurance
Freeway has hundreds of highly trained and certified franchise owners operating coast-to-coast, marketing auto, home, renters, life, health, business, and multiple other lines of coverage for both commercial and consumer clients.
Edward Jones Financial Services
The 6,000 financial advisors across North America operate their own branch locations and are all partners within the parent organization.
FASTSIGNS
FASTSIGNS franchisees in over 700 locations in the U.S., Canada, and beyond specialize in designing, producing, and installing logos, graphics, and signs for businesses of all types and sizes.
Budget Blinds
Home-based Budget Blinds franchisees offer low-cost window covering products and installation to both consumer and commercial accounts all across the country.
Apricot Lane Boutique
Here, the sales pitch is delivered to customers who walk in the door of brick-and-mortar women’s clothing stores. It is just one example of retail opportunities for sales pros who can make an immediate and lasting first impression.
Service-Based Franchises
ActionCOACH
These professionally trained franchise owners offer business training, mentoring, and advisory services to the owners and executives of primarily smaller and mid-size companies.
Sandler Training
These franchise owners offer leadership and sales skills to business owners and their top executives and sales teams.
Keller Williams Real Estate
Trained and licensed brokers and independent business owners for franchisor Keller Williams deliver real estate brokerage services from locations all over the world.
HomeVestors
Franchisees in this organization join a national network of investors who buy, renovate, and sell homes at a profit.
Dream Vacations
The owners of this home-based travel agency franchise sell travel packages all over the planet.
Understanding Franchise Investment and Startup Costs for Sales Experts
Sales professionals seeking to buy their own franchise businesses can find opportunities at various franchise cost points in terms of franchise fees and other start-up costs. Depending on the franchise, your investment level can start at far below $50,000 or well exceed $150,000.
Will you need a building, equipment, inventory, or a fleet of vehicles? Or can you start with minimal costs and little or no inventory? How about the size of your workforce? Can you open your doors on your own, or will you require a significant team by the time of your grand opening?
Financial considerations are among the first areas of concern you need franchise representatives to address when you contact them for details.
Key Aspects Sales Investors Should Take Into Account Before Choosing a Franchise
When you start crunching the numbers, calculate your ability to acquire start-up funding and perhaps go several months or longer without a salary as you build your business. Can you keep a second job? Do you have a spouse working? Are your savings adequate for the initial lean times, or do you have deep-pocketed investors?
Also, consider other options. Should you forego the franchise fees and other start-up and ongoing costs of becoming a franchisee to start your own independent business on a shoestring? It might make financial sense if you can go without the built-in brand recognition, customer base, training, and marketing support of a top-notch franchise operation.
In short, take the time to think out every detail. Do your research. Go online and find franchises that might interest you. Search for “franchise opportunities for sales professionals” or make additional queries. You’ll find franchise websites eager to make contact with talented salespeople.
When you make a connection, ask key questions. Don’t get rushed by anyone. One of the final steps is to request and read a Franchise Disclosure Document. Your FDD should fully explain the finer points of cost, opportunity, territorial concerns, timelines, and every other issue of importance. Share this document with your lawyer, accountant, partners, or other advisors, then review their concerns (if any) with the franchise rep.
Only sign documents once you’re convinced that the opportunity is as promised and will likely lead to a rewarding career as a business owner and sales professional.
Transitioning From Sales Professional to Franchise Business Owner
What drew you to your franchising opportunity was your sales skills (and the opportunity to be your own boss). But have you ever hired, trained, managed, and motivated a work team? Drawn up and balanced budgets? Read balance sheets? Worked with vendors, rented workspace, or run a multi-department operation?
If you start out as your sole employee, you’ll wear many hats. You are every department head. You’ll have to come far out of your comfort zone. Are you ready and eager to make the big move from star sales professional in someone else’s organization to rookie business owner?
Developing and nurturing a customer base or client roster will be critical, but it won’t be your only responsibility. Far from it. That’s why it will be important to buy a franchise from an enterprise that does an excellent job of training its new business owners and giving them ongoing support.
If you get the chance, chat with other franchisees in the organization to see if they felt like they were properly prepared to own their own companies, especially if they were first-time business owners when they bought their franchises.
Don’t shy away from learning new skills, facing new challenges, and overcoming obstacles whenever they’re in your way. Most of all, stay flexible, creative, and positive along your exciting new career path.
Consider a Rewarding Sales Franchise Opportunity at Freeway Insurance
As you begin to seriously consider sales franchise opportunities, one critical question you’ll want answered: Who has your back?
You might have never founded and run your own company before. Every responsibility might be foreign to you except the sales process. How will you grow your company?
If you purchase a Freeway Insurance franchise, you won’t do it alone. At Freeway, we provide ongoing top-tier training and support.
You don’t have to know anything about the insurance business. We’ll not only fully educate you on the industry, but we’ll also help you identify and attain all the licensure you’ll need in the state in which you establish your business.
As an independent Freeway Insurance agent, you’ll have our familiar name and logo behind you and access to a full roster of insurance products your customers know and trust. You’ll have our hard-earned reputation and national advertising campaigns serving as an introduction.
You’ll find the cost of entry to be low compared to many other franchise opportunities. You can start your business at your kitchen table and run it solo until your revenue growth enables you to rent office space and hire a team.
There will be no physical inventory to buy and warehouse, and no expensive gear or equipment to own and service.
Once you open your doors for business, you’ll receive ongoing support and guidance whenever you need it. Following our business model will let you adopt the tools and methods that have led to Freeway’s success — and make that success your own.
Ready to Leverage Your Sales Talent for Ownership Success?
Join hundreds of Freeway Insurance franchisees who’ve turned top-tier sales skills into thriving businesses.
Want more information? Let’s chat. We’ve established successful Freeway franchises coast to coast, and we’d love to let you sell us on adding you to our team.
Call your Freeway Insurance sales franchise representative at 📞 877-822-3024.
Or 📩give us your contact information, and we’ll reach out to you.
