During a conversation with a prospect for one of our areas, I was asked this question:
Why should I invest £12,995 + VAT in a Raring2go! franchise?
I’ve been asked this question many times before and have always answered by reeling off a long list of the ‘benefits’ of our home based franchise business. These include the component parts of our start up package, the fact we were members of the British Franchise Association for 15 years, the initial and on-going training, the unlimited support from our head office team, the life work balance our business offers, the fact we have a committed franchisee council, the flexible working pattern of Raring2go!, availability of funding by the banks and the great support our franchise network give one another and so on and so forth…
This time however, I answered the question with a question.
Why are you thinking about investing in our franchise?
It turns out that her answer to that question was also the answer to her original question!
She told me she had a five-year-old at primary school and a two-year-old toddler just starting in preschool. She said she pays for a child-minder 3 days a week and relies on her parents who live nearby for the remainder of the day-to-day childcare. She mentioned her parents are elderly and are finding the ‘energy’ of a two-year-old a little ‘strenuous’.
She commutes to London daily, as does her husband. She loves her job but she hates both the commute and the scant time she spends with her growing family even more! The cost in £££’s of her season ticket and the physical strain it takes on her means she wanders from Mondays to Fridays on autopilot craving for the weekend to come. She told me she suffers from Sunday blues as she prepares to face the week ahead. She also told me she had never been to her five-year-old son’s school for a play, a sports day or managed to make it back in time for a parent-teacher evening. She dreads an ‘inset’ day as this means increased costs for the child-minder or ‘imposing’ on her parents again to step in and care for her two children.
I stopped her there, saying ‘you’ve just answered your own question’!
Whether it be Raring2go! or any of the many other excellent home based franchise systems out there, I told her that it sounds to me that she needs to make a choice, to either carry on as things are or take control of her family and work life balance. I made it clear to her that a fat city salary isn’t something she can expect from Raring2go! but I also underlined the really interesting ‘bonus’ scheme that Raring2go! offers.
This includes getting rid of the commute and all costs, both physical and monetary entirely. It also removes the cost of child-care and includes the option to be available all the time for school plays, music recitals, sports days and those dreaded inset days. I also reminded her that flexibility was a major aspect of Raring2go! and though I couldn’t see her when I said this, I got a sense she was smiling.
We’ve got a meeting planned next week. After that, if she wishes, I’ll connect her with any of our franchisees that she chooses to speak with, so she can ask them if Raring2go! works for them and if the life work balance is all it’s cracked up to be.
I’ll keep you posted!
