10 Traits You Need to Start a Shipping Franchise

Are you looking for a career advancement opportunity with unlimited earning potential and the freedom to work from practically anywhere? Starting a shipping franchise offers the opportunity to raise your career potential in a recession-resistant industry. However, not everyone is cut out for the financial responsibility of running their own business and building their network through dedicated sales efforts. That's why it's important to consider this list of the 10 top qualities exhibited by successful shipping company franchise owners. Do you fit the bill?

The Top 10 Traits of Shipping Franchise Owners

1. Passionate

Like starting any other type of business, starting a franchise can feel like a lot of work. From day-to-day shipping tasks like connecting SMB shippers with top carriers across the nation to larger, annual hurdles like navigating the peak season rush, running a successful shipping franchise can feel overwhelming.

Some days will be harder than others. That's why it's vital for franchisees to be passionate about providing top solutions for their customers. This passion will help carry franchisees through even the toughest challenges and give them the motivation to keep moving forward, helping SMB shippers along the way.

2. Knowledgeable

Stagnation is the enemy of progress, especially when you run your own business. That's why successful franchisees are constantly seeking knowledge and looking for ways to learn more about their industry and customers. Whether doing industry research or meeting with other successful franchise owners, it's important for franchisees to always stay curious.

The shipping industry is constantly evolving with embargoes, road closures, unexpected weather events and more throwing wrenches in shippers' plans year-round. The most successful franchisees are those whose market awareness and arsenal of solutions help get shipments delivered safely and on time.

3. Sales-Minded

As a shipping franchisee, SMB owners rely on you to get their packages from point A to point B safely — but that's not a franchisee's only job. You also have to be comfortable and competitive in B2B acquisition sales tactics, like cold calling, follow-up and pipeline management.

A shipper's livelihood literally depends on your services, but you can't help them if you're not constantly building connections with other businesses. From local shippers to national carriers, your competitive nature will put you ahead of the curve when building your network.

4. Communicative

A huge part of running a shipping franchise is communication. Successful franchises must be both easy to talk to and good communicators, even when it comes to hard topics like shipping delays, budgetary restrictions or staffing hurdles. Having these undoubtable people skills will make customers and employees alike feel heard, understood and informed.

When seeking shipping franchise opportunities, it's important to consider your personality as well as your work ethic. Do you have the capacity to interact with prospects and customers every day? Are you comfortable making cold calls and selling shipping services? If not, a shipping company franchise is likely not the right choice for you.

5. Hardworking

Most jobs require their share of hard work, but top franchise opportunities require consistent effort to run smoothly. Successful franchisees are always willing to go the extra mile and do whatever needs done to make sure the job is completed the right way. From spending extra time managing more complex customer accounts to meticulously building a sales funnel, franchisees are hardworking self-starters.

In the shipping industry, you get out what you put in. If you put in the hard work to build an extensive book of business with repeat shippers who plan to use your services long-term, you'll get more out of your shipping franchise than if you sit back and expect customers to come to you.

6. Collaborative

The best part of being a franchise owner is perhaps the instant access to a nationwide network of like-minded sales professionals all working to help SMB shippers better their supply chains. The best franchisees utilize this network to its full extent and collaborate with other franchise owners to learn and grow.

Whether you're meeting with other franchisees to gain business insight and knowledge or working with your sales and support teams to create a cohesive, streamlined process, collaboration is key to making the most of shipping franchise opportunities.

7. Growth Mindset

Starting your business will not be the most challenging step you take — in fact, starting up may be the easiest stage of your franchise journey! While managing day-to-day tasks and overcoming surprise hurdles like embargoes and shipping delays, franchisees need to stay on top of their game and consistently seek opportunities for growth.

This consistent growth and improvement mindset can help franchisees with many tasks from expanding their book of business to opening additional shipping franchises. Plus, since shipping and logistics is a recession-resistant industry, a shipping franchise opportunity is a rewarding sales opportunity with unlimited growth potential.

8. Able to follow a proven system

Some may believe that taking risks is the best way to grow as a franchisee, but that's not always the case. The benefit of starting a franchise as opposed to your own individual business from the ground up is that the system in place is already successful. The franchisor has already implemented a proven model so you can hit the ground running!

The best franchisees know this and make the existing system work for them. They understand the system and how to utilize it to make the most of the franchisor's connections and resources, while still making use of their own drive, passion and desire to succeed.

9. Leadership Skills

As a franchise owner, you're in business for yourself, but definitely not by yourself. Successful franchisees take advantage of all opportunities to be coached by those who have been in their shoes. The best franchisees then utilize their own leadership skills to hire and coach staff members as their businesses grow.

Top franchises are made up of industry experts who are happy to help coach new franchisees on achieving success. They may even help you train and manage your staff as your business grows to new heights.

10. Entrepreneurial Spirit

Entrepreneurs and franchise owners alike need a burning go-getter attitude to prospect and build their business. Franchise owners have the benefit of starting from a tried-and-true framework that allows them to take off running from day one, but armed with a true entrepreneurial spirit they are able to carve a path forward without the hassle of starting from scratch. That means they're able to grow more in less time, all while being backed by the resources and network of a larger company.

Unishippers: Shipping Franchise Opportunities for You

At Unishippers, we're more than just your average shipping franchisor. We're a nationwide network of small business owners who work tirelessly to provide industry-leading shipping solutions to SMB shippers across the U.S. Think a shipping franchise opportunity is the right fit for you? Connect with our franchise recruitment team for more info.