You’ll always find the same name at the top of the franchise world. A brand you can probably smell from a mile away. McDonald’s rakes in the most sales of any chain on the planet, so unsurprisingly it ends up at the top of the highest grossing lists all the time.
But what actually generates these massive sales figures?
It all comes down to one thing: sheer volume. With thousands of stores churning out sales every single day, all following the same business plan, the numbers just add up.
The Usual Suspects
Paste McDonald’s at the top and you’ll find all the other usual suspects right behind it.
Seven Eleven, KFC, Burger King, Subway, Taco Bell & Dunkin all of whom have a spread of locations across the globe that most people would struggle to map.
These are the type of businesses that get to the top because scale really is their superpower one store might be small time, but 20,000 of them is a whole different story.
But here’s the thing that really matters to the owners of these businesses.
Total system sales are basically meaningless when it comes to your actual profit.
You can be the highest grossing franchise in the world and still find that your individual store is struggling to break even once you factor in rent, royalties, and the cost of ingredients.
Big sales are more like evidence that people are walking into your store, not a guarantee of getting rich. What is left after costs have been deducted is a very different story altogether.
