Alumni Forum

The prospect of franchising is always promising for us young entrepreneurs. We delight in the potential benefit it can bring to our dreams of business expansion, but dreads the tedious work franchising strictly requires. Systems creation, detailed documentation, and the like are usually a turn-off and catalysts for discouragement. The brave ones who overcome the initial hardships begin the process of building a franchise model for their businesses. Preparation becomes a key in franchising. The critical characteristics constituting a franchisable business according to Jan Norman in her book “What No One Ever Tells You About Franchising” that needs preparing includes the following:

· It needs to prove its concept with a successful, profitable prototype store or office.
· It must have systems for doing every aspect of the business.
· It must be capable of being replicated in other markets.
· It should have a distinctive niche and brand to differentiate it from competitors.

There is no doubt to the difficulty of the task to be prepared, but there is equally no question to the reward franchising offers its worthy supporters. All that is needed is to get it started from small steps up to its natural growth and fruition.

Let us learn from Dennis Parreno of Surigao City and his story of courage in taking the challenge to pursue a family’s entrepreneurial dreams.

I started looking for other businesses worth pursuing in late September of 2006 when our existing venture was slowing down. I visited Cagayan de Oro City and I noticed that the fried chicken business is one of the hot cake businesses in its many high foot traffic areas. When I visited Cebu City some time in Nov of 2006, it was to my surprise that fried chicken booths can be found almost around hospitals and schools. By that time I decided to bring that business in my province of CARAGA. I brought home with me the things I was able to research about the business from the information I asked around the vendors. I started operations and was confronted immediately by the challenge of formulating a low cost, pre-mixed marinade for the taste of the chicken. In April of 2007 we finally discovered our perfect low cost pre-mixed amounting only to Php 1.55 good for one kilo of chicken. That is the time that me and my wife, Mercy knew that this is franchisable. With its humble beginnings, we are now operating 3 booths and a mobile cart. We did a lot of changes and are still making changes in preparation to our target goal of franchising, which include proper documentation of operations, cash flow, income statement, uniform, hiring, firing and marketing. We set a goal of launching our first franchise in June of this year prior to the opening of the school year.

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We see GAYANG growing strongly in the future; this gives us confidence to persevere in doing this business.

The prize of prosperity in franchising is available to us, all we need to do is prepare our businesses and engage in its power of expansion.