2015 United States of Franchising

Introduction

In the past 12 months, almost 3.7 million people have visited FranchiseHelp.com, the internet’s leading resource on becoming a franchisee. Given the sheer volume of Americans seeking information of franchising from us, we’re in a unique position to look at how this breaks down across the nation.

At the highest level, there are a few conclusions that are impossible to ignore:

• The South is the center of franchising in the U.S. The four most interested states (Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, and Texas) all have SEC football teams.
• Franchising is not particularly regional outside of the South. If you look at the Northeast and West, you’ll see bordering states display quite different levels of interest. For example, North and South Dakota are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Nevada is very different than its surrounding states.
• When you break down interest in franchising to the zip code level, everything is bigger in Texas. Eight of the ten zip codes with the highest absolute interest in franchising are all in the Lone Star State.

Without further ado, here’s the 2015 United States of Franchising.

State by State

(If you’re interested in the methodology for our analysis, scroll down.)

Each state’s relative interest in owning a franchise:

As we mentioned above, interest in franchising in the U.S. is dominated by the South, specifically Florida and Texas. It is interesting to note that only 17 out of 50 states have a positive relative interest.

Zip Codes

10 Zip Codes with Highest Relative Interest in Franchising (Minimum 20,000 People):

Beverly Hills. Turns out that Weezer isn't the only group people who wants to be there. Interest in opening a franchise is the highest of anywhere in the country! As one of the wealthiest zip codes in the country, it’s not surprising to see it #1 on our list. Opening a franchise can be a fantastic investment, and it looks like the fancy people of Southern California realize that.

10 Zip Codes with Highest Absolute Interest in Franchising:

Katy, Texas may not be the most famous city in Texas, but it’s the center of our franchise nation. Although it only boasts a population of 14,102 according the U.S. census, its appetite for entrepreneurship is unmatched. Owning the 1st and 4th most interested zip codes in the country is very impressive for such a small area. Next time you find yourself just West of Houston, check out where franchises come to thrive.

10 Most Populous Zip Codes with No Interest in Franchising:

It turns out that not every place in the U.S. is beating down the door for information on opening a franchise. Areas from California to North Carolina just simply aren’t interested. Maybe next year…

Methodology

This analysis represents two different types of interest in franchises, relative and absolute interest. For the purposes of simplification, any reference to simple “interest” is actually a reference to relative interest.

Absolute interest is simply a breakdown of the total number of leads that FranchiseHelp has generated irrespective of the population of the geography in question.

Relative interest is a comparison of the number of leads that FranchiseHelp has generated compared the population of that given geography. The formula looks like (Percentage of Total Leads – Percentage of U.S. Population) / Percentage of U.S. Population.

As an example, let’s look at the state of California. As far as absolute interest, California represents 10.7% of all the leads generated by FranchiseHelp. (It ranks 2nd behind Texas.) With regard to relative interest, this number is compared to the fact that California has 12.2% of the U.S. population. Therefore, the relative interest is (10.7 – 12.2) / 12.2 = -12%.

The breakdown of leads generated comes from FranchiseHelp’s proprietary data. State populations are from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2014 population estimates found here. Zip code populations are from the 2010 U.S. Census populations found here.

Further Information

• How FranchiseHelp generates leads for franchises all over the U.S.
• FranchiseHelp Lead Generation Resource Center -- Learn everything there is to know about how online lead generation is successfully done for your franchise.
• If you have any questions, clarifications, or comments, feel free to shoot us a note here. We’d love to hear from you!
• If you’re a member of the media and interested in the full data set or other information regarding the United States of Franchising, submit a request here and we’ll get back to you ASAP.

Eli Robinson and Tim Gilboy contributed to this report. Eli is the General Manager of FranchiseHelp.com and COO of Metric Collective. Tim is Head of Marketing for FranchiseHelp.com.