What You Should Know About Construction for Your Franchise

Posted on: March 31, 2023 in Uncategorized

Construction and development are essential to taking your franchise from dream to reality. After completing all the necessary research, you’re ready to create your franchise’s brick-and-mortar storefront. Multisite construction projects can help get your franchise up and running. You’ll be able to draw in numerous revenue streams and increase your brand recognition.

Having multiple construction projects going on simultaneously can be a lot to manage. Using the right tools and knowing what to expect can help make the process easier and more successful. Continue reading to learn more about multisite construction management, convenience store construction tips and how to build a franchise.

Why You Need Multisite Construction

If you’re a business looking to expand, creating a franchise is essential to increasing your number of stores and customer reach. If you already have one location running successfully, your experience and knowledge make it easier to open more locations.

Many professionals also recommend that successful franchises create multiple locations. Doing so can increase your number of business locations, helping you reach more customers. When more people become familiar with your brand or business, they’re more likely to work with you at different locations.

You’ll need to utilize multisite construction to create multiple locations. Multisite construction helps you create various business locations simultaneously. You’ll also need to implement the proper management techniques to ensure the process goes smoothly.

What to Expect During Development and Construction of Your Multisite Franchise

Understanding how to manage multisite projects is crucial to your projects’ success. A multisite construction project can be more successful when you know what to expect during development and construction. Below is the general process and methods you can use to make each step more successful.

1. Find the Right Real Estate

It’s essential to find the proper real estate for your franchise so customers can shop or interact with your business. There are three steps of real estate transactions you can expect during the first stage of the process:

Letters of intent: The letters of intent will include the terms and conditions of the purchase agreement and the plan to obtain the properties where you’ll build your franchise. Letters of intent are often part of securing commercial leases. It’s up to the parties involved to determine if the letters will be a general outline of how the process will go or if they constitute a binding agreement.
Project schedule: Some construction projects will run on schedule, while others may run behind. Having a plan lets you know what to expect and when so you can keep everything on track.
Lease agreement: You’ll have to sign your lease before securing your property. If you’re building multiple properties simultaneously to expand your franchise, you may have more than one lease to sign. You’ll want to review the lease agreement carefully or consult a real estate attorney to ensure the terms are correct.

2. Development Plan Generation

Once you’ve signed your lease, you can start generating your plans for the land. This step may involve hiring an architect to ensure everything is on track. You’ll want to hire an architect who understands the requirements of your franchise.

With many things to keep track of throughout the process, you may also need to work with a community board, civil engineer or attorney for planning and zoning.

3. Permits

The next step is getting permission from the agency with jurisdiction over the land you plan to build. First, you’ll want to obtain your permits from the city, county or another department. Your local municipality can help you find out what permits you need to get.

While you secure your permits, your architect will submit your plans to general contractors. You’ll want to get at least a few bids to ensure you’re getting the best price at market value.

4. Construction

The construction process is crucial to your franchise’s development. You’ll work with a general contractor to help manage the process. During construction, you’ll want to stick to the following steps:

Get your general contractor’s schedule: Your general contractor will have a specific schedule. Get a copy of that schedule as soon as possible. It will allow you to keep track of the construction progress so you can report to the franchiser about progress and the expected timeline.
Get your certificate of occupancy (CO): Your CO shows that your property meets the municipality’s requirements and is safe for your workers and customers to enter. While you can obtain a temporary certificate to open to the public, you’ll want to get a permanent certificate as soon as possible.
Issue a punch list: A punch list involves you and your general contractor going through your property to ensure they’ve met all requirements and aspects of your contract. This walkthrough is an excellent time to catch mistakes, make corrections or complete missing work.

5. Grand Opening

The grand opening is the last step of your development and construction process before you open to the public. Your grand opening should be a special event to officially open the doors and welcome the community to your business. If you’re opening multiple locations, you can have a grand opening event at your primary site or a special event at each location, depending on your preferences and business.

Multisite Construction Challenges

Even when you know what to expect, you can still encounter challenges in multisite construction projects. Multisite construction managers face numerous challenges when handling multiple construction projects simultaneously. Some of these challenges include:

Budget overruns.
Reduced quality from mismanagement of resources.
Delayed project delivery.

These challenges can occur for several reasons, including:

Lack of trust between you and the contracting team.
Ineffective communication.
Lack of roles or responsibilities.
Poor planning.

You can remedy these challenges by using management solutions to help you stay on schedule and within budget. Extra planning and preparation can help you solve many challenges you may face in multisite construction. Be sure to stay on top of communication and do everything you can to move construction processes along.

Tips for Multisite Construction Management

Franchise construction management for a multisite construction project can be challenging. However, using the proper methods, you can simplify the process and make it easier to succeed. Below are some tips you can use to help you successfully manage construction for a franchise.

1. Create a Detailed Plan

One of the first things you should do is create a detailed individual plan for each project, even if you’re working on them simultaneously. These plans should include the timeframe, budget, performance metrics and safety measurements. You’ll also want to communicate your plans with stakeholders so you can determine their expectations and provide updates on the projects’ progress.

A detailed plan will help help you stay within budget, prevent misunderstandings that could hinder the projects and meet timeline expectations. You can also update your plan if you encounter any changes during construction.

2. Assign Specific Roles and Responsibilities

Since you will be completing multiple construction projects at one time, it’s best not to leave the work to a single team. Instead, it’s best to split your team into several units, making it easier to manage and communicate for each project. You can split your workers into groups based on their skills and strengths, allowing you to divide the workforce as needed for your project requirements.

Delegating roles and responsibilities can help reduce the need for overtime or second shifts. Saving on these resources helps save on costs while improving your workforce’s health and motivation. Keeping health and morale up is essential when working on multiple construction projects simultaneously.

3. Set Realistic Deadlines

Project timelines can vary significantly. While the stakeholders should agree upon and set the deadlines, these deadlines should be realistic and achievable with the work your contractor can do. You may want to add time to your timeline if you experience unexpected delays. Your workflow should match your proposed timelines so you can prevent the need for overruns or unnecessary pressure.

You may also want to assign different priorities for each project since they will likely be in varying stages from time to time. A contingency plan can help when you have unexpected delays. A reasonable deadline can also help you save on overall labor costs.

4. Manage Your Resources

Your resources will include four general categories:

Labor or workforce
Equipment
Timeline
Materials

Properly allocating your resources impacts your construction’s completion time and costs, especially when handling multiple projects simultaneously. As we mentioned, you should allocate resources based on your priorities when delegating roles and responsibilities.

New equipment can be expensive. You may be able to save a significant amount of money by using pre-owned equipment for your construction projects. You’ll want to consult with tax advisors or accountants to get a clear idea of how much you can save.

5. Utilize Technology

Technological advancements have revolutionized many industries, including construction. You should consider finding a general contractor that uses technology in your multisite construction projects. There are many technological advancements you can choose from to revolutionize your processes, including:

Staff scheduling and management systems.
Document management software.
Design software.

If some processes or tasks are inefficient, don’t hesitate to use technology for help. With the proper implementation, technology can make construction processes more accurate, streamlined and collaborative, increasing the success of your projects. Technology can also help you find a cost-effective method to manage your construction processes.

6. Maintain Consistent Communication

Communication can be a significant challenge in construction, especially for multisite projects. Proper communication can prevent numerous problems, including timeline, budget, allocation of resources and quality.

Your project manager must maintain consistent communication to stay on budget, keep projects on track and ensure employees fully engage with the project. Project managers may need to go directly to the job site or hold conference calls with team members. Staying in touch also enables you to meet the needs of each team so they can successfully and efficiently complete your construction projects.

7. Focus on Financial Management

You may handle the project budget, including bids and obtaining capital, depending on your role. Your ability to tell whether the project will be profitable will likely fluctuate throughout the process, so you’ll want to stay focused on financial management.

While you may want to store financial information on a spreadsheet, this can make financial monitoring and planning more challenging. Instead, consider using construction management software to help you keep track of crucial financial information and gain insights from data. This software rearranges data into simplified interfaces, making it easy to see where your budget is going and where you can make changes.

Construction management software will also allow you to:

Keep track of bids.
View and share reports that are important to shareholders.
Make estimates for expenses for each phase of your construction projects.

Construction management software allows you to track each project’s financial stage. You’ll also have access to real-time information, which is essential when encountering unplanned expenses or needing to make changes.

8. Be Honest

When managing a multisite construction project, one of the most important things is to be honest with your team members and stakeholders. Sometimes, things may go wrong and you may make mistakes throughout the process. Missteps happen across most construction projects, so it’s not something to worry about.

It’s essential to be honest, especially if something has affected the timeline, budget or quality of one of your franchise projects. You’ll want to keep all parties informed, which leads to a stronger and more trusting relationship.

Trust Maintco Corp for Your Multisite Construction Needs

If you’re looking for a general contractor to help build your franchise and work on multiple construction sites simultaneously, Maintco Corp is here to help. Whether you’re looking to remodel or build from scratch, our multisite construction services offer everything you need to make your project a success.

We can help you make minor updates like new signage or more significant changes like a complete convenience store remodel. We can also help you build from scratch, ensuring that your new property matches your brand’s identity and functions the same as your other locations.

Since multisite construction projects for a franchise are often ongoing, it’s crucial to work with a contractor your can trust. We have decades of experience managing multiple construction projects and helping clients get projects off the ground, reducing stress and improving efficiency. We serve numerous industries, including education, convenience stores, industrial, commercial and retail. Contact us today to learn more about our services and how we can help you get started on your next construction project!

What You Should Know About Construction for Your Franchise