When considering opening a gaming center, people often visit several locations as they research the pros and cons of an independent location vs a franchise. It is not uncommon to notice at many independent locations that there are a bunch of computers sitting around with wires all over the place, that the place is almost always empty and that the owners look downtrodden.
In the video below, I compare an independent hamburger restaurant (Taylor's Hamburgers) to the McDonald's franchise.
The Three Big Questions
At Taylor's Hamburgers I noticed that it's small, there's no branding anywhere, there’s no training anywhere. . . good hamburgers, good people, but that's about it. However, there are many McDonald's locations surrounding Taylor's. What McDonald’s did was they looked at an opportunity where individuals were passionate about a certain thing, in this case, hamburgers and they took their passion and turned it into a business and they were happy with that. There was nothing more to it. Ray Kroc and not necessarily the McDonald brothers, but particularly Ray Kroc looked at that opportunity and said, “Look. . . If we take this thing that people do love (the do love it), there's a huge audience for this, there’s a huge consumer base for it and we apply standards, branding, structures and training . . .”
Have you ever seen the movie “The Founder”? You should watch it, because you'll see the process that someone goes through to take something that is loved by people and to standardize it in order to expand and grow it throughout an industry or throughout a country.
Visiting one or two single hamburger restaurants is not a proof of concept. If you want to be part of a franchise, you can't use independent locations as a proof of concept. You have to look at the industry, see what's happening and see if you can capture it. You have to ask yourself:
- Can I get a better location?
- Will I provide a better service or product?” It doesn’t matter what franchise it is, these rules apply to everything.
- Can I be a better operator? i.e Can I execute better on marketing, on customer service, on managing building the brand, on PR?
It doesn’t matter what franchise it is, these rules apply to every industry.
We hope this is helpful to you. Honestly, it always comes down to the same three things; questions only you can answer. We hope that you're able to do that.
If you're interested in learning more about opening a Contender eSports franchise, Contact Us at any time.
