Provided by My Own Business, Content Partner for the SME Toolkit
Objective:
Duplication of a successful store concept requires management in a number of business disciplines unrelated to the operation of the stores themselves. Failure in any one of them could become a stumbling block. This session covers what you need to know before you expand by duplication.
- What is growth by duplication?
- Definition of duplication
- Small scale duplication
- Large scale duplication
- Examples of growth by duplication
- Businesses with questionable potential
- Businesses with good potential
- Importance of a successful pilot operation
- Management skills required
- Financing skills
- Create profit centers
- Management selection
- Accounting oversight
- Supervision oversight
- Real estate development functions
- Creating a site model for your locations
- Architecture and construction
- Leasing issues
- Rule number one
- A potential conflict of interest
- Recommendations
- Legal issues
- Top ten do’s and don’ts
- Session Feedback and Quiz
Definition of duplication
Growth by duplication is taking your present business and duplicating it in other locations. It’s also called a “cookie-cutter” approach because as with a cookie cutter, identical cookies can efficiently be stamped out in either small or large numbers.
There is a margin of safety in pursuing this method of growth because your expansion does not take you outside your already proven circle of competence. You are sticking to what you know best and what you have already proven to be successful. This approach does however require some management skills beyond those required for operating a single location.
Growing the business that you have learned to do well in doesn’t mean that you should not always be trying to improve it. More often than not, good ideas for making improvements can come from outside your own operations. The best places to learn will be from your most successful competitors.
Small scale duplication
Assume you have a profitable business that is appropriate for duplication and your customers are located in a ten mile radius. If you add another equally successful store outside that area (so you’re not competing with yourself) you could accomplish two goals:
- Double your sales.
- Potentially more than double your earnings since some fixed costs are now spread over two stores and you have greater purchasing power.
Large scale duplication
To build a really large business, you will continue to expand over an increasingly widespread area. Your long-term goals could include:
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- Franchising the concept
.
- Public ownership.
- Become a candidate for acquisition by a larger company.
Maureen Costello
Wholesale Distributor
Is buying a business easier than starting one from scratch?
Personally I think that buying a business is a lot easier than starting a business from scratch. When you start a business from scratch you have to do everything. You have to have to reinvent the wheel in many instances. When you purchase a business it’s already operating. There are already pieces in place and then you can improve upon them and move them around. So I believe it’s easier to purchase an existing business. You know more about it, there’s more information, more history and the best business to buy is one that you’re already operating. I purchased a business I was already operating. I knew everything about it, I didn’t have any surprises. And a lot of people get into a business and don’t get into owning a business by purchasing the business they are already working for.
Maureen Costello
Wholesale Distributor
Is it a bad idea for a pet store to operate in a supermarket shopping center?
Interestingly enough not only is that not a problem but it’s a benefit. One of the problems with any independently owned business is that it doesn’t have name recognition so it takes time to develop a reputation in the community and a lot of times independent stores a have a problem because manufactures want to put their product in these larger stores because it’s convenient for the shopper to buy them. But there is nothing more convenient for a consumer than being able to go to a pet store if it’s located in a grocery store shopping center because they are going to the grocery store anyway. I know a lot of times our retailers believe that the grocery store is their competitor and in actuality the grocery store draws people into the center and a pet lover would rather go into a pet store than. It’s more fun, they enjoy the experience and many times even if the independent store carries exactly the same product as in the grocery store because the independent store may more variety and more knowledgeable people they’ll sell more than the grocery store does. So people who are really clever about this actually locate themselves next to these grocery stores and see them as an asset rather than a liability.
Businesses with questionable potential:
- A professional or specialized practice (where your individual expertise is the cornerstone of the business.)
- A business that requires high investment in machinery, upkeep, working capital, keeping up with the competition or any other reason. If you have borrowed money for the opening, debt repayment will be a major obligation.
- A manufacturing business where efficiency is based on centralization.
- A product or service business where the owner is the sole key person.
- Web based businesses.
- Service businesses…but not all.
Businesses with good potential:
- Think about most any retail chain you know.
- Foodservices, especially fast food.
- Franchisors. Please refer to the following session on franchising which covers how your business could become a franchisor.
- A firm that is geographically widening its market.
Duplication requires successful management in a number of business disciplines unrelated to the operation of the stores themselves. Failure in any one of them could become a stumbling block.
Financing skills
Opening a new store location will cost a lot of money. Assuming you are leasing the location, costs will include fixtures, equipment, tenant improvements, inventory, signage, lease deposits, working capital and other expenses. Your sources of funding will come from retained earnings or borrowing or both.
- When you borrow, if you can pay back in three years, then ask for a five year loan…and not the other way around.
- Your cash flow projections should show sufficient cash flow to cover debt payments by a stated margin of safety. For example you cash flow might be a multiplier of your debt service.
- Your cash flow projections should show sufficient cash flow to cover debt payments by a stated margin of safety. For example you cash flow might be a multiplier of your debt service.
Create profit centers
Incentive plans will vary according to the business, but one essential component will be a system based on frequently calculated profit and loss statements for each individual store. Reasons include:
- The only way to truly evaluate a store is how it contributes to overall company earnings.
- Profit sharing provides the most powerful incentive for a store manager.
- The best managers want the incentive to reflect their individual successes, not on overall company results.
- A frequent, more imminent reward is more powerful than one sometime in the future.
- You need to know the financial results of each individual store in order to pinpoint weak ones. Losing store should either be corrected promptly or spun off by sale or sublease.
A case study on a profit based incentive plan:
Company “A” decided to vertically integrate by getting into the manufacture of its line of retail goods. An outstanding manager with all the qualifications was available but asked for 10% of the company’s stock. Instead, a profit sharing plan was created for the profit center he was to run, giving him a 10% share in the profits. Over time he made a great deal of money and flew his own plane. The company was delighted: it still received nine out of every ten dollars of earnings the manager produced.
Management selection
The success of your growth will depend a great deal on how skilled you and your human resource (HR) management is in selecting the best managers to run your stores. Mistakes made in this process can result in a huge drain on earnings. Here are some recommendations:
- Have a very highly qualified HR manager.
- Set up a standard process to screen applicants.
- The process should include testing that is specific to each position.
- Do not take any short-cuts in reference checking. Make sure the candidates have accomplished what they claim.
- Ask candidates the same questions so you can compare answers
- Consider retaining a HR consulting firm that can customize the search process to your specific needs.
Our overall recommendation on hiring managers is quoted from Warren Buffett:
“In looking for someone to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence and energy. But the most important is integrity, because if they don’t have that, the other two qualities, intelligence and energy, are going to kill you.”
Accounting oversight
Your accounting system will require a system of preparing frequent income statements on a store-by-store basis. Profit sharing payments should be disbursed to managers at the same time the profit and loss (P & L) statements are prepared. This will require your accounting department to develop procedures to accomplish this including inventory accounting. Some chains prepare P & L’s every week. In cases where weekly is not practical, P & L statements should be published monthly.
Supervision oversight
Once you have opened your second store you are now a chain and will require some controls in place.
- A training manual in place for each job description.
- An operations manual so that each procedure is standardized.
- Central control of SKUs (stock keeping units).
- Central purchasing and distribution to stores. Store managers place their purchase orders with your central distribution facility.
- Central control of pricing, merchandising plans and advertising.
- A feedback procedure so that store managers have free access to central management.
- A supervisory plan so that stores are adequately monitored.
- Regular meetings with store managers to gain feedback and discuss strategies.
- Rigid disciplines as to service, handling complaints, uniforms, menus, etc.
Maureen Costello
Wholesale Distributor
What problems are encountered when running a chain of retail stores?
I think when you have a chain of retail stores especially if the first ones are very successful. You end up every once in a while opening up a store that is not successful. And there is a tendency not to want to acknowledge that you made a mistake in picking the location and you want to think that if I just work a little harder at it I can turn this into a profit. But in reality what you end up doing is spending so much time doing is trying to fix a loser that you really don’t do the best you can with your winners and some of them become losers too. So I think retailers who are expanding their chains need to be really honest with themselves, be willing to cut their losses if that’s what it takes to get rid of something that’s not making money or sometimes you can turn lemons into lemonade and you can sell a loser to somebody else. You can make money or at least get yourself out of it and not take a loss and then you can go back to operating your successful stores.
If you continue to add more stores, you will also be in the real estate development business. Some of these functions include:
Creating a site model for your locations
We recommend you establish a site model for your particular business. Each business is different. The site model will establish an objective way to evaluate the various factors which make up a good location.
Demographics, especially population mix, will be important.
In some cases, copying the location criteria of a really successful competitor will be of value.
Architecture and construction
- In order to secure necessary permits you will need an architect to prepare working drawings for the store including the tenant improvements.
- You will need a contractor to build out the store (assuming it is free standing) or construct the tenant improvements if it is in a shopping center. The landlord may be responsible for the tenant improvement build-out.
Lincoln Watase
President, Yum Yum Donut Shops, Inc.
After you took over as CEO of Yum Yum – Winchell’s, what benefits were gained from your store refurbishment program?
Well we felt when we refurbished a store sales went up. It became very clear it was a positive thing to do. In addition we found that employee moral seem to improved. We think that’s because since the store was nicer and customers were complimenting the store, you know the employees feel better about being in the store and pride in working at that store. So all in all that was a very good program to put in place.
Rule number one:
It is better to pay fair rent for a great location than to pay great rent for a fair location.
A potential conflict of interest
In the early stage of growth you will probably outsource your site location responsibility to a commercial real estate broker who will act as your “site” person. But be aware of the conflict of interest which will exist when the agent’s compensation is derived from leasing commissions. For example, the agent may strive for a 20 year lease instead of a 10 year lease with one 10 year option.
Any lease you sign for a second store will probably create the largest liability in your business. If you sign a 10 year lease for PKR10,000 per month with a 10 year option, over ten years, come what may, you will owe the landlord PKR1,200,000. For a leasing checklist please refer to our session “Location and Leasing” in the Operations section.
Recommendations
- Never enter a lease negotiation without your real estate lawyer.
- Never agree to a lease negotiated by either your leasing agent or the landlord’s leasing agent.
- Require a right to sublet which shall not be unreasonably withheld.
- Better to sign a 10 year lease with a 10 year option than a 20 year lease.
- Negotiate for the landlord to provide tenant’s improvements.
- Negotiate a go-dark clause in the event the anchor tenant leaves.
- Don’t scatter your locations to make distribution, supervision and advertising difficult. Build-out one marketing area at a time.
Do’s
- Stay in the business that’s within your circle of competence.
- Stay within geographical limits you can service well.
- Prove profitability and systems before expanding.
- Bring in your lawyer for all real estate transactions.
- Build out one market area at a time.
- Verify that your name, logos and slogans are available.
- Compartmentalize your P & L’s to individual stores.
- Calculate P & L’s frequently for each store.
- Establish a real estate site model.
- Pay fair rent for a great location.
Don’ts
- Over borrow. Maintain 3-5 times cash flow to debt service.
- Pay great rent for a fair location.
- Risk duplication if you are the sole key person.
- Be in a hurry…instead proceed with great caution.
- Overlook the importance of operating manuals.
- Let leasing agents negotiate your leases.
- Overlook the importance of demographics.
- Be vulnerable to Website-based competition.
- Don’t give stock to managers: share the profits instead.
- Sign a lease without including recommended deal points.
