Help me please, re own business or franchise?

donna

MalcolmCooper wrote:

I agree with what's been said and especially with Seraphim. I have a problem with franchises in general. Most brands are far too young to warrant the money they want and most franchises look to me like "buying a job". Even if you had the dosh available the real work would start after you'd handed it over. Selling advertising space on the web!!! One heck of job to have to buy.

To be fair to this particular operation they have achieved a lot of publicity and you are buying into to established traffic but selling space and getting a good return on your investment is a tough call.

You can of course start from scratch for a lot less money but it's a steep learning curve. A domain name from 123reg.co.uk, cheap hosting perhaps from them too and something like
http://www.izzywebsite.com/index.php
Voila! Total cost about £100.

Read all you can. Join http://www.ihelpyou.com/forums/ and have patience and you can get your site moving but think in terms of 1 to 2 years to get it established.

There are lots of local portal sites out there. Try to find a unique selling point for yours. Hey! maybe you can franchise it yourself in a few years.

Thanks for all the info and links, maybe it's a good thing i don't have the funds for the franchise. I'd hate to do something rash.

donna

Slinky wrote:

Donna

In my opinion, the fundamental question you need to answer for yourself here is 'DO I LIKE SELLING?' If the answer isn't a wholehearted yes, have a very good think about whether this is the right thing for you. Contra to whatever you might read on these franchise websites, advertising space in most media will not sell itself, and advertisers will NOT be falling over themselves to throw money in your direction. You will have to go out there and find customers and information to populate the site it isn't going to come rushing to you.

Good luck

I used to be a Travel advisor so am used to selling and meeting sales targets, although i wasn't the best seller in the team. I cam tell i will be hard work if i do go for it.

donna

keepitinyourtrousers wrote:

Donna,

Save your money - seriously!
I am a magazine producer and have been offered these web franchises on various occasions.

More and more Independent Magazine Owners, like myself, are launching websites offering the chance for local businesses to advertise as a way of fending off competition from franchises like the one you are interested in buying.

I am about to offer my customers the chance to advertise on my web site FREE if they are advertising in my magazine. The reason - to stop other websites charging for the privilege - and using my magazine to source their leads.

For £5000 + Vat you could get a web designer to build you a business & event guide site that would knock spots off of the one you are buying and it would have a unique identity too

Thankyou for your advice, i can see that there is more to this than meets the eye.

donna

Hi,

i have been really busy lately, but it's great to check in and see all the friendly and honest replies. I'm glad i've got you guys looking out for me.

I want to do this or something similar for myself as i have spent many wasted years of my life using my knowledge and training to benefit and better companies i have worked for, yet have never received any praise or thanks. I find working for an employer really, demoralising and thankless.

I guess i just want to reap the rewards of my own hard work.

I have been receiving lots of advice from business link and they have sent me a startup pack and given me a personal advisor who i meet with on Tuesday.

Arthur22_2

I would agree with the other who advice caution. I run a couple of websites which make money from advertising, and I bought the template for a one-off payment of about £20 and the hosting costs about the same per YEAR. Websites really are ridiculously cheap unless you're getting hundreds of thousands of visitors a week.

So presumably they're charging you for the branding and the traffic they will send to the site...but even then I'd be cautious. They're obviously good at getting in newspapers and TV etc but most websites can't survive on traditional media exposure, because that's not how most people find sites - Google, Yahoo and MSN send the vast majority of traffic, and it's more about search rankings than what the Daily Mail thinks. Today's newspaper is tomorrow's chip paper, but a top three ranking in Google can last for ages.

donna

Arthur22 wrote:

I would agree with the other who advice caution. I run a couple of websites which make money from advertising, and I bought the template for a one-off payment of about £20 and the hosting costs about the same per YEAR. Websites really are ridiculously cheap unless you're getting hundreds of thousands of visitors a week.

So presumably they're charging you for the branding and the traffic they will send to the site...but even then I'd be cautious. They're obviously good at getting in newspapers and TV etc but most websites can't survive on traditional media exposure, because that's not how most people find sites - Google, Yahoo and MSN send the vast majority of traffic, and it's more about search rankings than what the Daily Mail thinks. Today's newspaper is tomorrow's chip paper, but a top three ranking in Google can last for ages.

Thanks for the info,

Do you know how many visitors i would be allowed with 140gb of webspace and 2gb bandwidth.

The best of (the 10k franchise) are sponsered by google and have fab rankings.

MalcolmCooper

Do you know how many visitors i would be allowed with 140gb of webspace and 2gb bandwidth.

Don't worry about it. You have more than ample.

The best of (the 10k franchise) are sponsered by google and have fab rankings.

Where it says "Sponsored by Google" all it means is they are paying money to Google for that listing. Anyone can do that. Just depends how deep your pockets are. They've got £10k each of other peoples money to play with like that though.

Kilty_2

10k? As in £10,000? :eek::eek::eek::eek:

XE.com wrote:

10,000.00 JPY
Japan Yen = 45.1028 GBP
United Kingdom Pounds

That's more like it . Sounds like a major rip off to me.

Arthur22_2

Yeah, the 140GB of webspace is huge (that measures how many files and the size of files you can upload to your site, rather than how many visitors you can have).

The bandwidth says how many visitors you can have each month, and again 2GB is gonna be enough for most sites.

The 'sponsored by Google' part is, as mentioned, just advertising - they are paying for their rankings, so they're bound to be good, anyone can get good rankings on Google if they've got the cash. It's like saying I was featured in the Daily Mail when I paid them £100 for an advert - anyone can do it, and I'd be wary of any company boasting about their great Google rankings if it's just sponsored ads they're talking about.

The free 'organic' rankings are generally more valuable because they're, well, free! And to rank well in those you need to do some good SEO as mentioned earlier.

donna

Arthur22 wrote:

I would agree with the other who advice caution. I run a couple of websites which make money from advertising, and I bought the template for a one-off payment of about £20 and the hosting costs about the same per YEAR. Websites really are ridiculously cheap unless you're getting hundreds of thousands of visitors a week.

So presumably they're charging you for the branding and the traffic they will send to the site...but even then I'd be cautious. They're obviously good at getting in newspapers and TV etc but most websites can't survive on traditional media exposure, because that's not how most people find sites - Google, Yahoo and MSN send the vast majority of traffic, and it's more about search rankings than what the Daily Mail thinks. Today's newspaper is tomorrow's chip paper, but a top three ranking in Google can last for ages.

Hi and thanks for the info. Would you mind me asking where you got the template for £20 from?