"Direct sales is the initial stage of joining!"
"Franchise is a more advanced production method than direct sales. ”
"Haidilao Development and Franchise has changed the catering industry for the third time. ”
.........
The above views are all from the well-known public account of catering "What is worth joining", the manager Wang Xinlei, as the most staunch supporter of the catering franchise system, has been using his own theory to interpret the inevitability of catering franchise, and the actions of Hey Tea, Nai Xue's tea, Haidilao and other giants to join have undoubtedly proved the prescience of these views.
Since joining has become the mainstream of catering, it has attracted a number of aspiring catering entrepreneurs in recent years. So the question is, in this era of 10,000 restaurant chains, what is the bottom of the franchise brand of catering people?
On March 28th, the 2024 China Wandian Chain Conference was successfully held by Catering O2O and Prefabricated Vegetable Ingredients Home, What's Worth Joining, China Ingredients E-commerce Festival, and Zhongtou Alliance!
01■
What exactly is the addition of catering franchises?
Brand, star, outlet?
As we all know, in 2023, the tide of restaurant opening and store closure will appear at the same time, and the catering track will become a talent flood area for "big V" industries such as real estate, education and training, Internet manufacturers, foreign trade and cultural tourism industries, and a large number of catering novices will pour into the catering industry. With little experience, in order to enter the industry as quickly as possible, they joined well-known mature brands, which became the best choice for many entrepreneurs.
Even in 2024, catering people have calmed down a lot, especially in February, the new registration of restaurants was only 116,000, a decrease of 46.5% month-on-month, and as of March 14, the number of new registrations in March was only 142,000, although there is no data for the whole month, but it is foreseeable that it will be lower than the 522,000 in March last year.
But in Hey Tea, Nai Xue's Tea, Haidilao, Le Caesar, Fellow Chicken, Sister Pei..... Under the impact of the wave of franchise set off by giants, franchise is still the primary strategy for catering entrepreneurs to "enter the industry".
However, in this era of 10,000 restaurants, how should catering people screen franchise projects?
The Internet celebrity brand is well-known, but it is also the most ruthless scythe in the current catering franchise track; the star restaurants that have collapsed one after another are enough for us to see that the star halo of this track is not lasting;
Tea brewing around the stove, temple coffee, Zibo barbecue.... The catering outlets, which continue to rotate year after year, have become the norm to enter the game quickly and then quickly go out.
Or is it an unpredictable market demand?
In Wang Xinlei's view, none of the above is the essence of catering franchise. "Franchise is not a single element, but a complete set of market-proven systematic money-making methods such as consumer understanding, market demand, store location, and store operation polishing. ”
A good catering franchise project must have a complete profit model. Joining projects that don't make money are all leeks.
02■
How to become a "money-making" brand?
Good franchisees are rare, large resource franchisees, professional good franchisees are even rarer, especially in the whole industry to join the professionalization of the moment, the industry's well-known giants have poured in, ordinary catering brands want to stand out in this wave of "franchise war", to catch the attention of more franchisees, must have enough attraction at the "make money" level.
In Wang Xinlei's view, Internet celebrity brands have brands, but most of them do not do a good job in products; many husband and wife stores have made good products, but the founders are mostly locked in the products, firmly believing that delicious is the last word, stores and brands are weak, and the profit model of a single store is not established, and a chain effect cannot be formed.
If a catering brand wants to truly become a "money-making" project, it must do a good job step by step around the four stages of product, store, brand and organizational power, and upgrade it one after another.
Stage 1: Product Competition
At the store level, do a good job in product stardom and create explosive products. By starting from the five senses such as name, color, image, and sense of ceremony, we re-endow the product with a sense of value that is "easier to perceive".
For example, Banu named a kind of bamboo shoot "panda bamboo shoots" and played the slogan "bamboo shoots that giant pandas love to eat", which instantly separated other bamboo shoot products in the market and passed on the health and high quality of the product to consumers.
In addition, digging deep into big data and looking for consumer needs is also a way to create explosive products.
The core of why Xiyasu Xinjiang fried rice noodles is so successful? The core lies in the founder's discovery of the demand outlet for Xinjiang fried rice noodles from the big data of takeaway during the epidemic.
Here we must pay attention to the product structure is more important than the product quality: product quality is the original intention of catering, but good quality is only better in the range of relative customer unit price. The quality of the product you think may not match the quality that consumers want, and the quality of the products identified by consumers is upgraded step by step.
At the expansion level, the location strategy of rural areas surrounding cities, focusing on the edge of first- and second-tier cities and third- and fourth-tier county-level cities, through the honeycomb store layout, first do a good job in a region, and then go out with a halo, so that the brand potential energy can be released in a centralized manner.
Why did peasant uprisings always fail in history? No base area is equivalent to a homeless area, and only a base area is a people's war. The first establishment of the "base" is the correct franchise method, all for the sake of face, interests or innovative play, the national "pepper noodle" joining, can be regarded as cutting leeks.
Stage 2: Store competition
This is the "positional war" stage of the brand franchise chain, and the product positioning or structure needs to be further adjusted and optimized.
Taking the fried potato Internet celebrity brand Cai Dapang as an example, the brand counterattacked and expanded 30 stores and directly encountered a growth bottleneck, and later the founder found that the fundamental attribute of snacks is to "satisfy hunger", what is needed is more categories, not "full", and Cai Dapang's potato snacks are too large. Cai Dapang increased the snack category in the store, and at the same time, the brand continued to grow rapidly after the product was smaller, expanding to 100 stores in 3 months.
Another example is Gan Shiji, starting from the structure of consumer demand, benchmarking Japanese ramen, Yunnan rice noodles, etc., the product structure has been adjusted many times, adding duck blood fat rice noodles, beef fat rice noodles and other flavors to achieve the penetration of the brand region.
In addition, new markets and new channels are key points for brands to explore.
In this regard, KFC has undoubtedly done a very good job, in addition to regular shopping malls, communities and other stores, KFC has been trying to find new growth points in high-speed service areas, universities, hospitals, scenic spots, gas stations and other innovative channels.
The third stage: brand competition
Branding is a part that many F&B brands overlook. But what is a brand?
In Wang Xinlei's view, the essence of the brand is cognition, and the purpose of cognition is to build trust. Any brand behavior that is not aimed at building trust and reputation is a hooligan.
As Li Zhihong, China's top strategist, said, with the advent of the Internet era, the disintegration of mass society, the rise of niche society, the demand continues to be subdivided, and the category can only be subdivided, and the trend of catering branding is becoming more and more obvious. Now is an era of opportunity for F&B brands to stand out.
In such a situation, without brand power, the brand will not be able to attract more talents and other excellent resources.
Catering must first become a good brand and have enough barriers in the homogeneous competition, so as to get the entry qualification of "competing for 10,000 stores" under the next wave of China's chaining.
Stage 4: Organizational Competition
In this stage of organizational competition, people are the most critical element of the organization, and the core of the brand is to motivate and copy people. How?
First, the internal incentive platform. For example, Xibei launched the "Partner Program" at that time, launching 15 entrepreneurial branches to stimulate the initiative of employees in the form of a competition system.
Haidilao's mentorship system (family system), which binds the interests of store managers and apprentices, is an important part of Haidilao's rapid expansion.
In addition, multi-branding is also a good strategy.
For example, Jiumaojiu has a number of subdivided brands such as Jiumaojiu, Taier, Cowardice, Lai Meili, and Shanwaishan, which has improved the competitiveness of the overall brand in the way of platform-based collaborative operations.
Second, external diversification and franchise expansion.
For example, the classic Wallace partnership model is adopted, where headquarters and company employees, store employees and external investors jointly open stores. Turn employees into fellow travelers and employment into partnerships. For a large number of intending investors, a capital pool is formed on a first-come, first-served basis. The main focus is on one core: win-win cooperation.
Similarly, there is an escrow model, an agency model, and a joint operation model represented by rice village bibimbap.
03■
You don't let franchisees make money
Franchisees won't make you money either
Catering franchise is a kind of mutual cooperation, two-way choice, profit is the basis of franchise cooperation.
It is common in the catering industry to open multiple stores without making a profit. This is that the single-store model is not done well, out of shape, the single-store model is not accurate, or it has not been copied by the franchisee.
As a restaurant person said, "If a project is only good in terms of products, but not a profit model, it is not a good project and is not worth investing in." ”
The new franchise model is creating a "fool-style franchise model", which is a model that requires franchisees to be "obedient and do what they do" to make a profit, and a model that franchisees can make profits without much professional ability.
The brand and the franchisee are in partnership. If you don't let the franchisee make money, the franchisee won't let you make money.
In this era of information explosion, they can break the news on Douyin every day, sue you in court for fraud, and even join forces to defend their rights collectively and make the entire brand reputation stink.
The above is the content sharing of the guests of the catering O2O Wuhan China Wandian Chain Conference in March. On April 24th, the China Wandian Chain Conference will be moved to Shenzhen to continue to be held, and we will see you in Shenzhen for more exciting!
-END-AUTHOR | Produced by Susu | The "involution" of the domestic catering market is fierce, and many catering companies are trying to explore overseas markets and seek a new growth curve.
-In March 2023, Heytea announced that it would open applications for overseas business partners, including those in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, accelerating the speed of going overseas.
-As of November 2023, the number of overseas stores has approached 4,000;
-In 2023, Yang Guofu Group has opened in more than 10 overseas countries and regions, and plans to quadruple the expansion of overseas stores by the end of the year.
-In March 2023, Luckin opened two stores in Singapore at the same time, and opened 30 stores by the end of the year.
In addition to Malatang, hot pot, tea, coffee and other categories with a high degree of standardization, more players in the track have also joined the "overseas army".
-In November 2023, Hunan cuisine brand Nongji opened 2 stores in Singapore;
-In January 2024, the high-end restaurant group with the most Michelin stars in China, Xin Rong Kee, will go abroad for the first time, and its Tokyo store will be opened for trial opening soon.
-In January 2024, Ziyan Food replied to investors on the interactive platform that the company will continue to enter the Australian and American markets, and the store in Melbourne, Australia is being renovated.
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In 2024, China's catering "overseas fever" will continue. As an outpost of going overseas to Southeast Asia, catering O2O will host the 2024 China Wandian Chain Conference and Catering Overseas Summit Forum in Shenzhen on April 24. Catering companies that have gone to sea share their success and experience in entering the pit, specially invited overseas service agencies to dock resources, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, the United States, Australia and other catering heavyweights!