The horizon of 2025 beckons, and with it, an evolving franchise landscape – a landscape forged by a multitude of influential factors waiting to be uncovered. Strategically, this perceptive insight lets businesses size up their competition and plot a way forward. In a recent video, franchise industry veteran Mario Altieri of Upside Group Franchise Consulting in Scottsdale, AZ, lent his years of expertise advising brands nationally and abroad to predict key trends.
Primarily, Altiery emphasizes how broader economic conditions often most directly impact public confidence to either propel or hamper franchise investment. With recent recessions at the forefront of many small business owners’ minds, the predominant media narrative dwelling on negative GDP outlooks understandably breeds hesitation and slows entrepreneurial risk-taking.
However, the franchising expert cites searching ‘2025 economic forecast’ unveils decidedly more optimism across financial publications. Top stories detail recession fears easing after robust jobs reports, surveys of strengthened small business confidence levels jumping to six-year highs, and market analysts forecasting GDP upticks into 2025 off consumer resilience and spending.
Such increasingly favorable macro conditions stand to renew franchise buyer faith in growth potential – both franchisors looking to expand units through licensing and franchisees seeking ownership opportunities. Altieri predicts the improved climate will reduce trepidation that previously sidelined investments and businesses that temporarily struggled, now poised to benefit from tailwinds.
Now’s the time for franchisors to dust off those stale marketing strategies and aim them at the buyer groups quietly mobilizing behind new growth signals. Specifically, Altieri advocates for increased lead generation initiatives and digital campaigns while sector perception aligns with franchise success, essentially capitalizing on the momentum.
Mario Altieri and fellow franchise consultants at Upside Group predict a bullish 2025 for the franchise industry, assuming no external disruptors throw a wrench in the works. However, certain opportunities distinctly leading to adoption appear as remote ownership, digital capabilities, and purpose-driven missions given cultural mega-trends toward mobile lifestyles, tech immersion, and workplace transformations. To get ahead of the competition, brands need to pinpoint the ripest opportunities and position themselves for success – and that time is now.
Transcript:
Hi, everybody; it’s Mario Altiery with Upside Group Franchise Consulting, headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, serving clients throughout the United States and internationally. I want to make a quick video about the franchising forecast for 2025. We’ve been asked a lot about this—folks are always asking if their business is franchisable.
One of the biggest impacts on the success of a franchise is actually the economy, and a lot of times, folks don’t pay close enough attention to realize how these trends happen. When you’re turning on the news all the time, and they’re saying bad things, or you’re seeing businesses in your town shutter, or your own small business—the one you were considering franchising—has been down for a year or two, you’re not going to be very confident. Consumers, seeing businesses closing and see sluggishness in the economy, aren’t going to be very confident buying franchises either.
But when you open up a quick Google search, you can see right here—three articles—JPMorgan talking about the new year with renewed optimism. And again, these are the first three articles that come up: saying that recession fears have eased. You have another one saying small business confidence leaps into the new year. You have another one saying U.S. small business confidence has jumped to more than a six-year high.
So, this is probably the number one factor in the success of franchising. You can put together the best model, and you can have a great brand, but if people out there just don’t think that they can be successful because the economy is bad, and they’re saying, “Why am I going to start up a small business during this time?” — which is essentially what a franchise is—you’re giving them the roadmap to open up their small business. They’re going to have more trepidation and you’re going to sell less franchises. So that’s why the economy weighs so heavily on the success of franchises.
It looks like we’re heading into a really good time. We’ll probably see a lot more businesses franchising, and we’ll see a lot more franchisees who now have the confidence to go forward—maybe something they had put on the shelf in the past.
So it looks like a good time, and I’d suggest that all the people who are current franchisors also pick up their marketing and generate more leads, as you’ll probably find you have more confident folks looking to join your networks.
That’s it from Upside Group Franchise Consulting in Scottsdale, Arizona. We look forward to bringing you more videos in the future.
