Can a franchisee own more than one franchise from more than one brand?

Louise Harris writes:

Most franchises demand ‘full effort’. However, if the franchisor is not expecting five-days-a-week commitment, having another franchise brand might make sense.

When our franchisees are owneroperators, they must only operate our service, as there’s no time to deliver another option and there would be conflict. If, however, the franchisee has developed to a number of vehicles and proven themselves, plus have their own ‘head office’ infrastructure in place, we could see value in them trading with different brands, providing it was not a competing one.

There would have to be a consideration for the learning time of a new brand offering and a commitment on how the franchisee would manage ‘emergency’ situations.

The franchise industry is a collaborative one and learning from each other has been a core development area. Multi-brand franchisees would be invaluable for helping franchisors understand where they might be able to improve or simply innovate.

Key to this would be that the sum of one plus one does not always add up to two - we see this in the selling of a second territory to franchisees. Sometimes this is a disaster, as the franchisee cannot focus and maintain the existing business.

Louise Harris is franchise director of Wilkins Chimney Sweep. She sits on the British Franchise Association board and chairs the membership committee.