The finance industry has starred for the sixth consecutive year in the topfranchise.com.au awards as Smartline Personal Mortgage Advisors repeated its winning performance.
The awards recognise franchisee satisfaction in franchise systems across seven key areas covering support, marketing, passion, lifestyle, brand, opportunities for expansion and financial success.
Featured in the top 10 list Ferguson Plarre Bakehouse, which only entered the top 10 for the first time last year, moved two places again thanks to improved ranking in the passion and support categories.
Anytime Fitness and Snooze also moved up the list into third and fifth place, with Mister Minit taking fourth place after all excelling in brand, support and marketing activity rankings.
SMARTLINE: TOP PERFORMER
Smartline executive director Joe Sirianni says “There are lots of factors at play currently that are boosting our industry but overall it’s a strong healthy market underpinned by low interest rates; a welcome change following a few tough years during the GFC.
“With such positive sentiment there is a lot of interest in the finance industry and it is helping our business two fold, with increased sales for franchisees growing by 10 percent on average, as well as enquiries for the business opportunity up by about 20 percent.”
Sirianni says an established franchise system can easily keep doing what has always been done.
“However, I think our success has come from the fact that we’ve been able to achieve a balance in terms of being able to build on the model that has worked well for us over the past 15 years, while continuing to evolve it to meet the needs of our franchisees and our clients.”
In the 2013/14 financial year the group enjoyed record turnover, up 16 percent on the previous financial year.
“Having new blood in the business in the form of new franchisees brings with it fresh ideas and experiences which only make us stronger as a business,” Sirianni says.
“Bringing in the right people using a rigorous selection process helps to ensure the business doesn’t stagnate and makes it more outward looking.
“While benefitting from this growth, we have also continued to invest heavily in our very strong culture of teamwork and sharing which we believe differentiates us from many in our industry and in business in general.”
10 Thousand Feet and topfranchise.com.au’s head of intelligence Ian Krawitz says “The research we conduct as part of the award is very important as it shows franchisors the direct correlation between improvements they make in the business and the impact on franchisees. Even if they don’t make the top 10 franchises across the country are taking steps to improve their models, and thus the industry as a whole.
“Over the past six years Smartline Personal Mortgage Advisors franchisee renewal and recommendation ranking has remained consistently high and this is one of the best indicators they are doing things right.”
Sirianni says the company invested in its IT system to enable quicker communication and information sharing within the network and introduced new products such as risk insurance and automotive finance to improve income generating avenues for franchisees.
“The combination of these model changes has had an interesting impact on the network with research showing our franchisees are more satisfied with their work life balance with their hard work paying off with improved financial gain,” he says.
THE TOP 10 LIST
- Smartline Personal Mortgage Advisers
- Ferguson Plarre Bakehouses
- Anytime Fitness
- Mister Minit
- Snooze
- Kwik Kopy
- V.I.P. Home Services
- Mrs. Fields
- Snap-on Tools
- PoolWerx
The list was compiled from more than 1000 franchisees from 44 participating companies who were surveyed for their views.