There are thousands of franchises but this article will discuss just three brands we really like that you can get into under $100,000. You will need to do these full-time and not semi-passively. All three could become semi-passive after it is established, but in the beginning you’ll need to be putting in full-time hours. Drum roll please…
Fundraising University
When people see the word fundraising, some may immediately think that this isn’t something they want to do, but hear me out. You, personally, will not have to be fundraising any money. Instead what you are doing is signing up (mostly) high school sports teams to do their fundraisers through your company. If you like sports, are good at sales and have some project management skills, this could be a perfect fit for you.
Let me explain the model a little bit more. Your job is to sell, setup and execute. You’ll go into high schools and meet with the coach of a sports team. You’ll sell that coach on using Fundraising University, then you’ll help to setup the fundraiser. This involves a meeting with the players, parents and coaches explaining to them how the fundraiser works. Then you’ll be there as support while the players are executing the fundraiser. Typically you’ll have a check-in meeting to show the progress of how everyone on the team is doing and then you’ll come back at the end to close things out. About 90% of the teams come back year after year. You’ll also get other teams to sign up after one team has had success. Sign up the football team, then get the cross country team, basketball team, volleyball team, etc.
For the actual fundraiser itself, you can offer the typical things like a product (cookie dough, popcorn, etc) you can offer a coupon or discount card, OR what the majority of teams do is actually a 7 Day Text Campaign. The players will text their family and friends a link where they can donate online – making it a very easy and seamless process.
One reason we like this franchise is the margins are fantastic! This can be run independently with no employees. You don’t need to spend much at all on marketing/advertising since a lot of your business is found walking into the doors of schools and making those connections. You also don’t have any inventory/expensive equipment or lease with this business. You’ll have more free time in the summers and some areas have potential to buy more than one territory. The item 7 of the FDD shows this opportunity to be a total investment of $85,000 or less! Let’s take a look at the financials disclosed in the item 19 of the 2022 Franchise Disclosure Document:
Gotcha Covered
The next brand is one that they say of themself: “the best opportunity you never thought of”. I would agree with that sentiment. When we show this one to our candidates, it’s not usually one that they told us was of interest to them. But sometimes we show brands that we know check all of the boxes of what the person is looking for – it just may be in an industry they hadn’t considered.
Gotcha Covered is a window treatments franchise. Anything from blinds, draperies, shutters, shades, curtains and more. Just about every house or business has some sort of window covering. The good news about this industry is that there is no large player who has already taken up the market share. There is a lot of opportunity to get business – especially using the buying power, technology and marketing efforts that you instantly get when you become a franchisee of Gotcha Covered.
As for what the day to day looks like – you’ll be spending some of your day going to sales appointments. At the appointment you’ll be able to tour the home, measure the windows, review budget and style and show the customer images of what their room could look like with the different options using their proprietary software. Customers will pay a 50% deposit, giving you a cash flow friendly business. You do not need to hold on to a bunch of inventory as everything is custom ordered. You also can start this business out of your home, with no need for a retail space at first. Some choose to open a showroom after a few years of being in business.
The installation of the products can be done by an installer that you hire or you can choose to outsource that part of the job. As you grow, you’ll eventually hire others to do the sales appointments, freeing up your time to work on other aspects of the business. In addition to the leads you get through the marketing efforts by corporate, you’ll also be networking in the community to get referrals.
Almost all of the current franchisees had zero design experience, so this is not something you need to be an interior designer to do. It’s all done during business hours giving you work/life balance. This 20+ year old business is stable and the total investment range is between $87K and $116K according to their Item 7 in the FDD. Below are some of the pages of their item 19 of their 2022 Franchise Disclosure Document. The below table is only showing the top quartile. To see the other quartiles please send us a message and we’ll be happy to share that as well. We only had so much room on this blog post.
Blue Moon Estate Sales
The last one is also one out of left field. Blue Moon Estate Sales helps families who are needing to get rid of their belongings. 80% of families are downsizing or right-sizing and 20% of the families have had a death and you are working with executors of wills. This is a unique business, with again, not a ton of competition. Kevin and I have placed someone in this business where we live in Omaha, NE and they are doing amazingly! They even bought more territory after the first few months of being in business.
This is a business that is weekend heavy. This is when you are holding the estate sales. How it works is during the week you’ll be tagging larger items using the pricing guide that Blue Moon provides. You’ll get the sale set up and ready to go for customers to come in Friday-Sunday and shop. There is a menu card for pricing on smaller items – so for example, every book in the house is $1, every shirt is $2, etc. Then when the sale is over, you’ll split the profits with the homeowner.
The franchise owner’s job is to network, go to consultations and schedule sales. As the owner you can be picky about what types of estate sales you take on. In the beginning you’ll take what you can get, but after being in business for a year or so you can take on only the more profitable sales. Estate sales have a huge following of customers. Once people know about your business, you’ll have several “regulars” that show up at every sale. You can also customize text messages to past customers inviting them to upcoming sales based on their purchase history.
You’ll have several part-time employees who can work flexible hours. During the week they will be preparing the house for the sale and on the weekend they will be there to answer questions and check out customers using iPads.
While not all of the owners are doing this full-time – the ones that are, are bringing in significant revenues. With the total investment potentially being under $50,000 you have the ability to recoup your initial investment very quickly. There is no need for any brick and mortar location, no inventory and relatively small fixed expenses. Let’s take a look at the Item 19 from the 2022 Franchise Disclosure Document.
***The information in this blog post is found in greater detail in the franchisor’s Franchise Disclosure Document. You should review the entire Franchise Disclosure Document carefully and seek the advice of a professional advisor prior to making any decision on whether to purchase this franchise. Do not rely on any information which is not consistent with the information in the Franchise Disclosure Document.
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