One of the best things about a WSI franchise is that it offers a combination of the benefits of being in business for yourself and having a traditional employment situation. Every franchise is part of the WSI family, able to draw on resources such as training, common information sources, and so forth. However, each is also a business unto itself, and a franchise owner is able to look at the profitability question in a whole new way — as the boss!

In a traditional employment arrangement, there is a certain amount of job comfort. After all, there is a clearly-defined set of goals and rules that have to be met, and the employee gets paid for doing so. As long as the parent company remains profitable, the employee should have a job.

However, that statement right there shows the nature of the beast: the parent company’s profitability is the key concern. Many middle managers who were doing quite well, have found themselves out of work in recent years, because the company as a whole needed to cut back. Many of us – in one way or another – have felt the pressures from the economic challenges of recent years.

WSI franchises offer a lot of opportunity for today’s independent-minded businessperson — not the least of which is the chance to make a good Return on Investment.

Of course, ROI can refer to a lot more than simply the money returned, although that is definitely part of it. Time is a particularly hefty investment in any business, and anyone who’s even considered the process knows that the time you invest into your business can sometimes take you right past normal business hours.

The strength of a WSI franchise is that a lot of the leg work that goes into start-up has been done for our franchisees. We’ve looked into the market, and we have done the market testing and discovered the online strategies that work best. Our franchisees don’t have to invest valuable time into researching their demographics, lead generation strategies or in creating advertising material — we’ve handled that part, so our franchisees can focus ROI efforts on other matters than time.

Franchising = Operating at a Profit

While every country is different, consider that in the United Kingdom, some 90% of franchise businesses turn a profit every year. This isn’t a case where someone can say “most franchises make a profit,” when they actually mean 50% of them do but the other half tend to fail — it’s outright almost ALL of them. In this global downturn of big business, the smaller business owner is well-placed to take advantage and grow his own organization effectively, and the ROI is there, just waiting for discovery.

WSI franchises offer businesspeople both support and independence in equal measure. Many of us can imagine a time when we had a really outstanding idea. We had a project in mind, a plan to implement it and the desire to go for it. But, alas, ideas take time and money, and in a traditional employment arrangement, the company tends to want to play things safe, leaving the ideas of many excellent people on the draft board rather than the project table.

With a WSI franchise, you can be more flexible about how you approach revenue growth.

Every owner’s style is different. Sure, we have a tried and true formula that we have tested against the market, but each franchisee can implement it in different ways with his or her own personal touch. Some owners are idea people who want to grow their revenue by trying out new things. Others are people workers who excel at assembling a good, small team of talented individuals.

A franchise offers a lot of leverage to handle things your way, allowing you to focus more on revenue growth and increasing your profitability than on poorly-worded requirements from upper management.

Further, a franchise offers you a lot of support in achieving your ideas and goals. We have a good idea of what the market wants and needs, and what approaches work best for our customer base. So if you have a good idea, and share it with home office, we can give you guidance for how to implement that idea, and how to get the most out of making it work.

One of the most important benefits of a WSI franchise is that its profits are your profits.

In a normal employment situation, this isn’t ever completely the case. There are situations that get close, such as salesmen making commissions, or bonuses for a department performing over expectations and under budget, but these aren’t really the same thing at all.

In a commission, you get a part of each sale, yes. But you don’t get to dictate what is done with the remainder of the profits. That’s up to management, corporate office, district or whatever chain of command is above you to decide. You might have a killer idea for how to re-organize the store, or present a better face to the clientele, but you might not get to initiate it because someone else is pulling the strings; you do not own the business.

So, we’ve mentioned a few times that the average franchise posts a return to profitability after the initial investment within one to three years. But what exactly does that mean to you? Sure, it means that’s the point where you’ve made back your initial investment and can start saving or investing money again.

But what exactly does it mean compared to a more traditional job?

Let’s start with a fairly common area of measurement: retail service…

…It can take a year of working as a cashier to be promoted to specialist or low-level management positions.

…It can take as much as five years to be promoted to higher management positions.

…There is no guarantee of being promoted, even if you work hard.

…Your hours, even after several years of work, are dictated entirely by the needs of management.

Owning a WSI franchise is being part of the digital revolution.

Digital marketing is not just popular, it’s becoming the new norm.

We live in an age where anyone can become a businessperson with a bit of time, some space and an Internet connection. Ebay and Amazon have allowed the home business model to flourish, and the small-box store is coming back with a vengeance even as larger stores like Circuit City and Borders are declaring bankruptcy.

This is why, when talking about increasing profitability, social network marketing is so vital.

With Facebook, I could be talking to someone in China, Australia and Finland with very little effort. The marketplace is now the entire world, not just the immediate area I can drive or make phone calls to at a reasonable hour. Small businesses are becoming global enterprises with very little effort, and social media is an inexpensive way to do it.

Obviously, when someone buys a WSI franchise, he or she wants to make money.

Profitability is the bottom-line factor of anyone’s consideration of starting a small- or medium-sized business; how much money are they going to bring home, and how often?

So it’s crucial that a person understands how to define profitability.

The first way is to consider the return on investment (ROI). Investing $10,000 and getting back $75,000 is a very clear gain. Though again, one must make sure to consider the rate of return with the ROI. Getting that $75,000 over 75 years might not seem as desirable or profitable as getting it over 3 years.

WSI franchise owners know that one of the best arguments in favor of the franchising model is the excellent return on investment it offers.

After all, many franchises reach profitability within one to three years. But sometimes a bit more detail is needed to clarify just what the return on investment for a franchise looks like.

We’ve discussed the comparison between franchise self-employment and working for a traditional company. A good way to look at the breakdown is the wage by hour comparison. How much were you making per hour at your previous job, and how much per hour now?

The reason that this is an effective way is that an hour of work is an understandable, easily-grasped measurement. You know how much you could type, data enter, manufacture, bake or sell in an hour of effort, and you know how to break down hours on the job versus pay in a period to figure out hours. It makes the concept simple to relate to.