This year’s International Women’s Day (2021) campaign theme is #ChooseToChallenge.

According to the International Women’s Day website: “A challenged world is an alert world. Individually, we're all responsible for our own thoughts and actions - all day, every day. We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women's achievements. Collectively, we can all help create an inclusive world. From challenge comes change, so let's all choose to challenge.”

We were going to pick out some of our staff members to profile, but that’s not especially challenging. We decided instead to look at the franchise industry and see how we compare.

Firstly, franchising is ahead of other types of businesses when we examine women owning and running their own business: around 30% of all franchisees are women according to the 2018 bfa (British Franchise Association) NatWest survey, the most recent reliable figures available. As this was around 5% up on the year before, it’s to be hoped that this figure is now even higher.

According to Franchise Direct, in terms of women franchisors (the people who set up the franchise operations), there are around 16% women CEO’s in franchising - 11% more than in Fortune 500 companies.

So we’re doing better than average as an industry. But clearly not well enough, since around half of the population are women.  

And closer to home we’ve taken a look at our own make up. Most of our franchisees are either couples or males in partnership.

So we’re laying down a challenge: could you be our first all female driven easyStorage franchise?

It would be easy to see us as a ‘Man with van’ franchise, but whilst our bright orange easyVans are an essential part of our operations, there is way more opportunity within an easyStorage franchise than that.

The bespoke, eye-catching, easyVans are fun to drive, and key business enablers. Our franchise teams are trained to pack up the easyPods that goods are packed into them in order to maximise safety and make the best possible use of space. Anyone who has the strength to pack and load, man or woman, can learn how to do this. In established easyStorage franchises, the franchisors often don’t do this themselves – although as many see it as the best bit of the job.

By contrast, whilst we can point out the need for empathy with customers, we can’t train people to be empathetic. Yet this caring about customers, and their stories and goods, is the thing that makes our franchisees special. The service our franchisees offer is the thing that will determine their business success.

Of course, businesses don’t run themselves. Whilst easyStorage offers systems, infrastructure and support to franchisees, the franchise business owners are masters of their own fate, and everything from business planning and logistics, marketing, networking, publicity and accounts needs to be done. It’s the fabulous mix of roles that makes running your own business so attractive, along with the chance to shape your own success.

If you’re a woman who’s up to the challenge of running your own business, backed by a phenomenal brand, an easyStorage franchise with a business partner might be right for you.

You can find out more here: easystorage.com/franchise

We’d like to help address the gender imbalance, and if you think you have what it takes, what’s keeping you?  Contact us now to find our more or to book a discovery day.

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