Females and franchising – a Fantastic combination?

February 2021

Hear from Jenny Farenden, Franchise Marketing Director at Fantastic Services as she talks about why more than ever, women have entered the world of franchising. 

There are more women in franchising than ever before. The British Franchise Association measured a 20% boost in female franchisees in the past five years alone.

In fact, today over 37% of new franchisees are women. But why is that?

Are there simply more franchise opportunities than there used to be? Or is something else responsible for driving the number of women who now own a franchise?

More women finding freedom in franchising

Many of the most convincing analyses of women and franchising point to the fact that the phenomenon usually referred to as the “glass ceiling” seems to be notably absent from the franchise industry.

The glass ceiling is a metaphor which describes the invisible barriers that prevent women from reaching the highest level positions in many organisations – to the point where less than 5% of board and corporate officer positions in the vast majority of businesses are held by women.

However, in the franchise sector, the glass ceiling seems to be far less prevalent. Contributing factors may include the flexible working hours offered by franchises and the broad generalisation that women tend to score better on communication, multi-tasking, and emotional intelligence than their male counterparts.

All of those are key skills for successful franchisees. 

Fantastic females

Whatever the reason is, the number of women in franchising is growing at an outstanding rate. Fantastic Services is no exception to having high female representation levels. The number of women joining the UK’s leading property maintenance company has drastically increased in the past few years. 

Women from all walks of life but the same goal are becoming part of Fantastic Services:  

Some had other careers first and made the shift to franchising. Either because they hit a glass ceiling or for the flexible working options. Others became franchisees straight out of school or university.

One of our best and most successful franchisees, Ivanka Obreshkova, won Franchisee of the Year in the AFA Awards 2020 and was a finalist in the Inspirational Woman category of 2019's EWIF (Encouraging Women Into Franchising) awards.

Ivanka started with just a couple of teams. Today, she manages more than 30 teams of service professionals. She also drives the network as a whole to continually expand the quality of services we offer.

Are you a woman interested in getting into franchising? Explore the wide range of management-based property maintenace franchises with Fantastic Services!