Is 2020 the Year for Women in Franchising?
When it comes to women and franchising, living the American Dream, and that constant hot topic of how to “be your own boss”… there’s the occasional “women’s issue” of a magazine, or some organization’s congratulatory award for woman of the year, or even the occasional ranking for best franchise opportunities for women. And while the national conversation about women in franchising has often felt like an obligatory mention at times, those times certainly are changing for the better.
Today, more women than ever own their own businesses. And in franchising, especially, women are making their presence known.
Recently, the Wall Street Journal ran a story on the growing number of women in the franchise industry. The article cites, “as of May [2019], women own or co-own 35% of the franchise outlets in the U.S.—around 265,000—according to the Franchise Business Review research firm. That represents outlet growth of 24% from a decade earlier, and in the two years ended in May, 41% of new franchise outlets opened have been owned or co-owned by women.”
The expectation is that these numbers will only continue to grow. And we look forward to promoting those stories.
Women That Wow Us
Our team at BizCom has long been promoting women in business. We’ve worked with numerous female CEOs and founders of franchise organizations, garnering media attention for them in outlets like Franchise Update Magazine, Medium.com, ThriveGlobal, ClubSolutions Magazine, and more. We’ve championed female franchisee success stories. Heck, we’ve even written books for female franchise icons. But there is so much more to share from for this audience, and today there are several more vehicles to do so.
Podcasts for franchising listeners have added special programming JUST for women. Some of these include Modrn Business’ Women in Franchising, Social Geek Radio Women’s Franchise Podcast. On an even broader level, Procter & Gamble has launched an entire podcast network devoted to the female audience called P&G’s Seneca Women’s Podcast Network.
Now there is even a magazine called The Franchise Woman, a bi-monthly digital magazine that empowers women as they navigate the franchising industry.
And in 2020, the International Franchise Association’s (IFA) Chairwoman will be a woman— only the 5th woman to hold this honor in the association’s history. We expect very big things from her and the world’s largest advocacy group for franchising that continues to elevate important issues for women in franchising.
Who knows? Maybe someone will even create the very first national Franchising For Women Conference this year.
The Future of Franchising is Female
This topic is not a novelty. It is a movement, and it’s only going to get bigger. There is still room to do more to cover this scope of the industry, shine a bigger spotlight on participants and educate the growing numbers of women entering the sector. But looking at what progress has been made in recent years, we are confident that things are moving in the right direction, with women taking the wheel.
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