Poppies’ Managing Director shares the necessary skills for franchise success

Drawing on 25 years of experience in the industry, Chris Wootton offered his knowledge up to potential franchisees.

Originally established in 1980, Poppies is now owned by the man who was once its most successful franchisee - Chris Wootton. With plenty of years of experience with the domestic cleaning franchise, Chris recently shared his thoughts on the most important skills required to run a successful Poppies franchise.

“Many people get excited about the idea of franchise ownership and are eager to find a lucrative franchise, such as cleaning, but not everyone will have the right attitude or resilience to succeed.”

Despite most franchisors offering a good amount of support and training, franchisees still need that baseline of appropriate skills and expertise in order to be able to start off confidently, on the right foot.

In Chris’s words, “Not only do you need to be the type of person who can stick to someone else’s system, but you have to be able to manage, market and sell your service or product, as well as doing the other tasks required when running any small business.”

Chris expressed that all franchisees would need the following key traits in order to find success:

• Communicative - Strong conversational and interpersonal skills allow for a franchisee to build solid relationships with employees, customers, suppliers and franchisors.

• Good at managing time - Managing your time effectively is essential for the overall success and efficiency of your franchise.

• Good at decision-making - Every decision should be well considered and intended.

• Open to change - Markets shift, and franchisees must adapt to these shifts.

• Understands customers well - What do they need? What are they motivated by? How can you tailor your services/products to suit them?

• Willing to follow a system - Franchisees should follow all operational guidelines.

If you’re interested in starting a Poppies franchise of your own, find out more here.