How to Make a Career Change with a Car Wash Franchise

Elliott Fudge, writer

Published at 13/09/2021, Updated on 04/05/2022 , Reading time: 5 min

How to Make a Career Change with a Car Wash Franchise — Photo © How-to-Make-a-Career-Change-with-a-Car-Wash-Franchise.jpg

Making a career change is never an easy decision. Whether you’re looking for more job satisfaction, better profits or the opportunity to be your own boss, making a career change can be the perfect decision for you. And, in a sector as profitable as the car wash sector, what better option than becoming a car wash franchise?

With all of us spending so much more time at home, making a career change has never been such a popular decision. And, if you have a passion for vehicles, why not join a car wash franchise? The sector is worth a whopping £1 billion, with many franchises always on the lookout for new franchisees [Auto Express].

There are lots of different reasons why making a career change with a car washing franchise could be the right option for you, but how exactly do you make a career change?

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Why make a career change with a car wash franchise?

Whatever industry you’re already working in, and whatever reason it is that you’re considering making a career change, franchising is a business model that has something for everyone.

Job security: Only one percent of closing franchises cited commercial failure as a reason for closing, making your job security that little bit higher than many independent and local businesses.
Income: Because of your improved job security, you can also look forward to enjoying more income security as well.
Pre-existing customer base: Because your franchise will have already been working in the industry for a number of years, you won’t need to invest huge sums of money building and retaining a customer base. They’ll already be looking for you.
Training and support: One of the biggest advantages to running your own franchise businesses is the amount of training and ongoing support that you’ll be able to make use of both before and after you open.
Networking: You will also be able to count on a supportive network of like-minded franchisees and tradespeople who will be on-hand to help you keep your business running smoothly.

The advantages to running a franchise business are many, so if you think that franchising is the right option for you, there are a few different things you’ll need to know to get your business up and running.

How to make a career change with a car wash franchise

1. Understand the industry

The first step towards starting your own car cleaning business is to understand the industry inside and out. Your research will need to be directed towards a number of things: potential franchise businesses, competitors, opportunities and unique selling points. But above everything else, you should look at some of the key trends and data.

There is plenty of data out there breaking down some of the key demographics about the frequency with which people get their vehicles washed, and which demographics are more likely to get their car washed more frequently. If you’re looking to run a car washing business that has loyalty schemes, as well as other strategies designed to keep customers coming back on a regular basis, you may want to note that full-time workers typically get their car washed every two to three months [Intelligent Car Leasing].

This could form the basis of your business, as you’ll be targeting certain demographics on a routine basis. So make sure you do your research, consider the existing data and trends, and integrate these into your future business.

2. Choose the franchise

Once you have a good understanding of the industry, and understand roughly what kind of business you want to run, you’ll then be in a good position to decide which franchise is the right opportunity for you. Using the research that you have already gathered, consider some of the following franchise details:

What are the strengths and weaknesses of each franchise?
Are the franchising fees and costs affordable?
Do certain franchises have particular working practices that you agree or disagree with?
How many units will you be expected to run? How do you feel about running a multi-unit franchise?
What are the growth projections?

There will be a few different areas of interest to explore here, but once you’ve answered both these questions and your own, you will have a great idea of which franchises are the right options for you.

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3. Put together a business plan

Once you’re confident you have a good business idea, and you know which franchise is the best one to help you pursue this, you will then need to put together a business plan. Business plans will change over time, but generally speaking these plans set out many of the smaller details that your business will adhere to.

Whether or not you’re aware of it at the moment, these plans are important, and will often contain a number of key details in every version. Familiarise yourself with these key details before you put together your first plan, to maximise your chances of putting together the perfect plan.

Make a career change with a car wash franchise today

If you have a passion for vehicles and are looking to make a career change that will combine this passion with profit, you should consider making a change with a car wash franchise.

But it might be the case that running a car wash business isn’t quite the right thing for you. There are some very attractive window cleaning franchises in the UK that might be a good fit, so you might want to see more details about how you can make a career change with a window cleaning franchise. Or, if none of these options are quite right, you may be better off searching through the wide range of opportunities in the UK franchise directory.