Mixing It Up
They may not have the numbers yet, but women are making waves in the traditionally all-boy world of franchising.
Is a woman's place in franchising? It didn't seem that
way in years past. The disproportionate lack of women in
franchising was apparent everywhere from franchisors' executive
offices to franchisee-owned locations.
Even Dina Dwyer-Owens, CEO and president of The Dwyer Group,
wasn't immune to the problem. When she was appointed acting
CEO, some franchisees campaigned against her, because they
didn't think a woman should be in charge of a corporation
focused on such traditional male occupations as plumbing and
electrical work.
It's still an issue among The Dwyer Group's 1,400
franchisees. Dwyer-Owens estimates only 10 percent of franchise
agreements include a woman's signature, although many
franchises are run by husband-wife teams where the woman controls
business operations and the man handles fieldwork.
Content Continues Below
Why the discrepancy? "Competence," says Dwyer-Owens.
"A lot of women don't believe they have it, or they're
afraid to prove they have it. They're afraid to get out of
their comfort zone."
According to the most recent data-a 1999 study by private
consulting firm Women in Franchising (WIF)-the number of
women-owned franchises is not increasing proportionately to the
increase of women-owned companies in general.
In addition, WIF found that the female franchise ownership
percentage rate decreases as franchise cost increases.
"There's not so much of a glass ceiling keeping women from
purchasing a franchise as there is a green ceiling-money,"
says Samuel Crawford, a WIF senior franchise consultant and author
of the study.
Crawford believes that financial ceiling may be related to the
way women typically start businesses. "A lot of women start
with little or no money and use their earnings to grow the
business," he says. "But that's typically not a
growth strategy that works."
While Crawford attributes this common mistake to lack of
business savvy, it may also reflect many women's conservative
fiscal nature and limited financing options. According to reports
by the National Foundation for Women Business Owners (NFWBO), while
women own 38 percent of all U.S. companies, they receive less than
2 percent of venture capital. And although access to capital is
increasing, NFWBO found the amount of credit granted to women still
trails that of men.
Page 1 |
2 