I'm moving. Is it possible to open a Sportmadness franchise there?
The world is becoming more and more globalized and people are moving around more and more. And not only as tourists, but also as residents. According to the World Immigration Report, in 2020, about 280 million people will be living outside their home country. This is almost double the number in the 1990s and triple the number in the 1970s. What was once rare to see or concentrated in certain benchmark cities, is becoming increasingly common in many other places thanks to the facilities that exist to move and live in other countries.
In addition to the international level, we are also seeing an increase in mobility between different cities within the same country. After the pandemic and thanks to the rise of remote working, these numbers are increasing every day and contribute to a social and demographic change that will continue to develop in the future.
At Sportmadness, we are fortunate to have several franchisees who have decided to move and start their business in a different place than where they lived or were born. And we're talking about national and international changes, even moving to areas thousands of miles away from where they live.
One major advantage of starting a business in the place where you've lived and grown up all your life is that you can tap into a network of local contacts that will make it easier for you to manage things or seize opportunities. But make no mistake, you can't make a living from your contacts alone, and simply having connections doesn't guarantee the success of your business.
A more important asset than having contacts is having the knowledge of how the sport works at the local level. Currently, 75% of our franchisees do not have a sports background, either professionally or educationally, so this is something that is often overlooked even if you are a local entrepreneur and have participated as a user in sports events or activities.
If you have made the decision to relocate, we are sure you have weighed the pros and cons of starting a business in a new area. We are sure that you have made this decision after analyzing the area you are targeting and how it works.
In addition to the knowledge you already have, we at Sportmadness are working every day to improve our systems to help our entrepreneurs better understand their local markets and design commercial strategies that allow them to meet the needs that exist in each of these markets.
Being a 100% digital model allows us to adapt to your timelines. In some cases, we started working up to 12 months before the person wanted to move and launch their business in a new country. This time allowed us to get to know the prospective franchisee, support them in their research, train them in sports management, and understand their region so we could start working on different opportunities.
