Can Accountants Really Give Us Sound Business Advice?
Expanding your business may seem to be the best logical step if you have a successful
business but there are still caveats that you may want to explore when thinking of growing your business. One of the first things to think about is to see if your business has the potential to grow in different locations. You may have a successful restaurant because your location and demographics can afford your product but will it be the same in another area. Perhaps in a different situation, your product may not be popular or favourable with the present market. Perhaps to save time and money, you can hire an accountant to do a feasibility study for you. Getting an accountant to do this for you is favourable since they are locals from that county and they would know how the local market will take to a sushi bar. A sushi bar may be popular in a cosmopolitan city like London, but this does not translate to being successful in other places. An accountant may give you sound advice on this.
The second issue that you may want to consider is that do you have the financial capability to expand to another location. Putting your business in another area does require a substantial investment and may also mean you travelling back and forth which if you live far away from the proposed second area, may add to your additional expenditure. Would you consider getting a local partner or a franchisee to invest in your business? Getting a local partner or a franchisee does ease your financial constraints and may add money to your coffers in terms of royalties and franchise fees but it also eats into your profits since you are not majority owner of the business. You have to weigh this option as well and think about it deeply.
Do your research about franchising your business. This involves analyzing your business by yourself or by a consultant. There are people who specialize in seeing the feasibility of franchising your business. The things to consider are actually trying to maintain the quality of your product and the logistical considerations of bringing your product to that area. The other thing to also consider is how the nature of your business alters a bit. By franchising your business, your revenue stream changes in the sense that you do get less money from the actual revenue of sales, but from royalties and sales from a commissary or kitchen sales. In the end, there are pros and cons to expanding your business but if you believe that the business will flourish, then go for it.