When looking for the perfect location for your franchise business, it’s important to think about it from a wider perspective. Besides understanding your target buyers, getting a location that is most comfortable for them, taking into account your competitors and aiming to satisfy the needs of all potential customers in the given territory, there are also business specific factors that don’t stand out that much at a glance, but need to be considered seriously, as they can be a real deal breaker when it comes to the actual site selection process.
The idea is that every business can be empowered or restrained by specific surrounding sites/businesses/institutions that are very relevant in terms of safety, customer attraction and acquisition, as well as customer retention.
Those empowerments and restraints are called business Amplifiers and Suppressors.
Suppressors and Amplifiers: definitions
A business Amplifier is the availability of another business/institution nearby, which can help drive more customers to your franchise business, just because of the fact that it exists there.
Similarly, a business Suppressor is another business/institution that can heavily hinder the growth, development and prosperity of your franchise, just by its mere existence in the vicinity of your own business.
Suppressors and Amplifiers explained
One good example of Amplifiers and Suppressors can be opening a kid’s daycare franchise next to a federal prison or jail. Now when we say “next to” it doesn’t necessarily mean that you place the physical building right next to the governmental institution – it can be a lot further away, but simply the fact there is such an institution in the area, can drive potential customers away, even if they have to use the services of a competitor that is much worse compared to your franchise.
In this specific example, the safety of customers’ kids comes before any other factor such as availability, comfortability, the distance from their homes, etc. This is one of the examples where the surroundings play a much more important role for your customers than any other factors.
Similarly, an amplifier for a daycare franchise can be the existence of a nearby school, shopping mall, etc. This will not only make it more comfortable for your customers (they can leave their kid with you and visit the shopping mall while they wait, or just take their kid from school and bring to you, without having to drive longer miles), but they will also feel safe for their kids, which is of utmost importance to any parent.
The concept of business Amplifiers and Suppressors is very tricky and easy to miss when choosing the perfect location for your franchise. This is especially true if you aren’t really paying attention to your surroundings and all the other factors seem to fit nicely.
Remember that when you are choosing your franchise location, you might be new to the territory, while your potential customers might very well be longtime residents. This means that you will have to study everything on a much deeper level, in order to make sure that you won’t miss anything important, which you won’t notice at the first glance.
Another important thing is the prioritization of Amplifiers and Suppressors: it’s more important to make sure that there are no suppressors nearby first, then try to find a location with amplifiers.
In case that you can’t find the perfect spot with no suppressors and a lot of amplifiers, at least make sure that suppressors won’t be an issue.
Having amplifiers is good, but they serve as a boost to your business in the form of “more cash on top of what you already will have”, while suppressors will not only hurt your chances to earn more than initially calculated, but also threaten the initial profits as well.
Every brick and mortar business in every industry has its own, unique Suppressors and Amplifiers and it’s essential to figure them out for your particular case when you are in the site selection process. It’s important to note that different businesses will be influenced differently by their Suppressors and Amplifiers: some of them might be really sensitive (like the daycare business and jail example), others might be a little more forgiving.
With the help of Fract’s territory mapping software, one can easily identify the suppressors and amplifiers for his franchise business, and also calculate the amount of positive or negative impact that they will have. All you have to do is just enter the data about your customers, locations/business that are important for your franchise and you are good to go. Learn more about it here.
The location that you choose for your franchise, can really make or break your brick and mortar business. It’s important to understand that the perfect territory is a much broader term than simply picking the most densely populated spot in the city, even it is packed with your potential customers.
Make sure to approach the site selection process from different angles and perspectives, to really get the most out of your franchise business.
