Lawn & Landscape magazine printed a good article about green industry franchises just recently. U.S. Lawns is one of the bigger and better of those which were listed. The major benefit to a lawn care franchise is a business system that is suppose to be able to take much of the guesswork and startup problems out of the way. Their systems have all the marketing tools in place, the record keeping and time management, the tax withholding and employee benefits stuff (workman’s comp, soc security, etc). With the franchise you have a corporate support group dedicated to each aspect of the lawn care business. I’m assuming that a franchise in lawn care is for those who want to let others make decisions so that the business can grow and expand quickly. It’s only going to be an advantage to someone who wants to grow a very large business. It’s also only going to be an advantage if the franchise is successful.
I guess micro management may consume enough of my time to prevent my business from growing large. I also may not be an expert in all areas of managing the business. I’m still going to wait until I become senile or brain dead before I let someone else make my decisions for me.
