We found a person responsible for the space growth of the economy coffee chain network with coffee for 60 rubles each and asked what to expect from their franchise. This is Natalia Bikbaeva, CEO of One Group Company, which develops One Price Coffee.
Evgeny Lebedev: Natalia, 90% of the heroes of our interviews answer “no” to this question. The question is: do you have a specialized education, general catering?
Natalya Bikbaeva: No! Like most, I did not have any general catering education. By my first education I am a radio physicist, I have gone from a line engineer to the director of a branch of a federal IT company that serves shops and restaurants. And 11 years ago, at one fine moment, I received a proposal from Subway to become a business development consultant.
-When were you the branch director?
-Yes. Everything seemed to be good. Where it went from the student body, where it aspired, everything was achieved. But I already understood that I didn’t want to go on like this, but I want something fresh, completely different. I stepped on a lower salary, on a smaller position. Just because it is an international company and traveling work. Then I lived in Siberia, where no one knew what Subway was and what franchising was. Few people knew what a sandwich was. No one understood where I was going - just stepped nowhere. It is difficult to find people who would agree to permanent business trips. That is 80% of the time you are on business trips. And I happily ran, and so five and a half years. Subway - my alma mater in catering, I call them that. The system is American and the approach to training is also American: it doesn’t matter what position you come to - you must know everything from scratch, from the kitchen, from cooking. The training went on for six months.
- What happened then?
-I had my own consulting agency PRO Cafe, we created concepts from scratch, opened franchising points. There were many offers, including one related to One Price Coffee, where I came at the end of August 2018.
-Recently.
-This is basically a young brand, it is less than a year old: the first point was opened on April 28 last year in St. Petersburg. When I joined the company, there were 5 points, now there are a total of more than 50 coffee houses. This year we plan to grow by 200 points.
-From what is open, how many franchise points, and how many of yours?
-About 20 franchise points, the rest are your own. How we differ from many franchisors - we ourselves open points and manage them ourselves, that is, it is a classic franchising. When I decided to go to this company, I immediately said that I was for classic franchising. Now, unfortunately, a huge number of pseudo-franchises has developed in Russia. The word "franchise" becomes obscene in a sense.
-There is such a trend. They will open two points and begin to sell the franchise.
- There is no understanding what it is. What is a franchise for me? This is an experience that you have already gained and continue to gain. You have a training ground where you can constantly test new products, new promotions and then offer this franchisee with this packaged experience. You dance yourself on a rake so that others do not dance and fill cones. And in our country there are franchises not only with two points - sometimes there are none at all. You also need to understand that a franchise is a full-fledged business, it has an investment period when you need to invest. It is necessary to maintain a back office, specialists who must support the franchisee. And only after some time this business comes to payback. Not everyone understands this, they think: now I will pack the franchise and tomorrow I will have real money. And again: it’s important for many franchisors to open as many points as possible, to collect a “lanyard” today, and then even though the grass does not grow. In classical franchising, service comes first, due to service there will also be a turn. Therefore, we are interested in developing and training franchisees: the more turnover he has, the more royalties we have. This is franchising. Everything else can be called dealership, sometimes other, bad words.
-What does the one who gets your franchise get?
-My position - we must close everything that can arise from the franchisee. The first is a search for a room, an assessment of a location.
-On your own or attract subcontractors, geo services?
-And on our own, we use analytical reports, and we attract third-party realtors. Realtors are engaged in the search for locations directly, because it is a very voluminous work even within the same city, not to mention different regions. Franchisees, we offer a ready-made location with calculated PNL and estimated turnovers.