Phil Risher explains why franchises beat independent contractors: they use repeatable playbooks. Franchises systematically generate leads, convert them through structured funnels, and retarget non-closers with email newsletters. Independents often skip these steps, which is why they fall behind.
Here's why franchises are eating independent contractors. It's because they have playbooks. The most important playbook for any business is getting customers in the door. And what home service businesses need is a playbook with three parts. They need visibility. They need new customers coming in, whether that's SEO, ads, B2B partnerships, social media, content referrals. They need to have leads coming in all the time. The second piece is a conversion funnel. Once the leads come in, they have to go to lead, nurture, estimate, estimate, nurture and sale. This is usually a big leak point in this bucket because leads are coming in but they're not getting into sales. And then the third part, which franchises crush this. Home service businesses all always miss. This one is retargeting all of the prospects that you pay for all the leads that you pay for all the customers. Anyone that comes to your funnel that doesn't close needs to go into an email newsletter every single month where you cross sell services, you educate them and bring people back into your funnel. Those are the three parts that franchises already know and they're deploying it on all their franchisees that home service businesses miss. And that's why they're not growing.
