The advantages of using a franchise system in property marketing, especially residential property marketing, says Tony Clarke, Managing Director of the Rawson Property Group, have now been fully proven and, in his view, can no longer be disputed. Nevertheless, he says, there are still many ‘pockets’ of people in the property sector who do not fully appreciate or understand these advantages.
Asked to elaborate on exactly he believes so passionately, Clarke said that in his view it has the following advantages:
- It is increasingly accepted that any agency which is part of a well branded national or regional group will derive benefit from that association.
“The really good franchising groups,” he said, “spend a significant portion of their monthly income on advertising and promotion and this will inevitably gain them great recognition and respect with the public. Every franchisee will benefit from this – especially as surveys have shown that the public prefer to deal with an established group, one which already has a name and one where they know that if necessary there are superiors to whom they can appeal.”
- An organized franchise group will simplify and streamline the management of its
franchises by supplying them with accounting, report-back and work organization systems which make the franchise more efficient and simplify the tasks of its staff greatly. Such systems will also enable the agents to spend more time with their customers. In addition, a good franchise support system will be helpful to the franchisee in that it will make it possible for him and his staff to benefit from a nationwide referral system. This gives him leads from colleagues in other areas and enables him to do the same for them, earning extra income in the process. This addition to a franchisee’s list of contacts can be very significant.
- Franchising attracts the ‘right type’ of estate agent or entrepreneur – one who likes to run his own operation and shape his own future. A surprisingly high number of those who bought Rawson Property Group franchises have already been successful in other businesses.
“It is worth commenting,” said Clarke, “that for the first time in the history of the property sector we are attracting large numbers of people with tertiary education qualifications – MBAs and graduates in property studies, BCom and law. This never happened in anything like the same degree under the old branch systems.”
“The very rapid expansion of the Rawson Property Group,” said Clarke, “has not been achieved by compromising standards. On average we accept only one in every nine applicants and, by being selective in this way, we have maintained our reputation for professionalism and high standards. There can be no doubt, however, though that this expansion would not have been as dramatic had we not used the franchising system which has proved itself to be exactly right for the recruiting of good go-getter and entrepreneurial franchisees.”
