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Location, Location, Location
June 23, 2008

Well, at least I know three of you are reading this! Don’t worry, I have my blog on the world still being flat coming out next week.

I promised I wouldn’t use this opportunity to get up on my soapbox, but when we’ve trimmed our gas and electric usage by over 40 percent, our accountant ran home and changed his light bulbs. To each there own though, I understand. Until then we’ll discuss one of the most important topics in franchising... location, location, location!

It’s common knowledge that the location of a business can dramatically impact the success (or failure) of an establishment. Besides the obvious, like nearest cross streets, business–vs.-residential mix, and traffic direction through an area, there is a lot to be said about the demographics that an area possesses. Modern technology has enabled site selectors to consider this information.

Given the diversity of Pizza Fusion’s demographics, we’ve invested considerable time in researching the best solutions for pinpointing demographics in an area. For example, finding out who bought a hybrid car, who exercises regularly, who follows a vegan diet, who’s more likely to eat organic food, who shops at Whole Foods and much more are all factors we’re able to consider when evaluating a potential territory or location. This enables us to build our restaurants in the sweet-spot of our consumers’ demographics; providing geographical value to our franchisees.

Researching and utilizing such resources to effectively accomplish your expansion efforts in a timely, strategic manner is a means of investing in the long-term success of your chain. We’ve made significant investments into this process of our business and at no time will we let the excitement of our growth or national demand for our business model cause us to overlook the importance of finding optimal homes for our restaurants. In fact, we’re pacing our national expansion because of this. Supporting the demand for your growth and protecting the future of your chain involves a high attention to detail in every aspect of your expansion. Never overlooking a step and approaching every challenge with a holistic approach to quality is in your best interest and your franchisees’.

A possible Pizza Fusion site in Carlsbad, Calif.

It might take some trial and error--in fact it WILL take trial and error--and finding the optimal solution will most likely not happen overnight. Every business caters to a different audience and targeting the appropriate demographic is crucial. The optimal solution will enable you to locate your consumers in a desired territory, the times of day they’re concentrated in the area, and map out the traffic through a specified territory to allow you to predict the potential fluctuation in your business throughout the course of the day.

Call me young-fashioned, but there is also a little bit of cowboy in site selection as well. If you stop and think, we are real-estate prospectors, after-all. Just like picking up Apple stock at $16, there is still some of that “gut instinct” that comes into play. Knowledge of a local market and economy trends are also important indicators that computer models don’t always pick up on. So hopefully with the fancy software and our cowboy boots, we’ll be setting up franchises for success, instead of guess’cess. (Is that a word?)

Until next time...Try and imagine our Prius pulling in and out of this empty lot....We tried.

 

Posted by Vaughan Lazar on June 23, 2008 | Comments (0)