October 2024 – Volume 6
Methodology
The results from our latest Franchise Growth Confidence Index- BoeFly’s quarterly survey measuring how certain economic conditions and external factors affect franchisors’ growth – was recently published by Franchise Times. Between September 19 – October 2, 2024, we surveyed nearly 700 franchisor executives to determine if there were any significant changes in franchisor sentiment regarding domestic franchise growth.
Participants rated their confidence on a scale of 1 (not confident) to 7 (completely confident) about whether they expect their brand to achieve growth targets this year. Additionally, respondents answered four supplementary questions designed to assess the impact of several conditions on their confidence level.
Results
This quarter, only a third (33.3%) of the respondents expressed at least some confidence in meeting their franchise growth goals for this year, the lowest percentage in confidence rate to date, dropping over 15% from the previous quarter. Further insights include:
- A clear majority (83.3%) indicated that inflation has adversely affected their growth targets, up over 6% from the previous survey.
- The percentage of respondents who felt negatively impacted by interest rates increased from 80% from last quarter to 83.3%.
- Regarding labor market conditions, 79.2% of franchisor executives agreed their ability to find and hire strong talent has improved their ability to find and hire strong talent has improved over the past year, reflecting an uptick in franchisors’ ability to find, hire, and retain talent successfully.
- When asking respondents to measure the impact of the upcoming presidential election, 58.3% agreed or strongly agreed that the uncertainty surrounding the election is negatively affecting their growth projections, up from 4% from the previous quarter.
