E97: How Franchising Can Multiply Your Impact & Income with Cheryl White

Have you ever wondered if your business could be franchised?

In this episode of Dream Business, Dream Life, Emma is joined by franchise consultant and franchisor Cheryl White to unpack the truth about franchising... what it really takes, who it’s for, and how it can completely transform your business and lifestyle.

Cheryl shares how she went from being a community palliative care nurse to building a national home care franchise network, after simply Googling “What is franchising?”

Now, her network supports thousands of families across the UK and she helps women franchise their own service-based businesses to increase impact and income.

If you’re a business owner who wants to scale without burning out… this episode is for you.

In This Episode We Cover:

• What franchising actually is (and what it isn’t)
• The 3 key signs your business is ready to franchise
• How to scale using other people’s investment
• The difference between franchising and MLM
• Why franchising has a 97% success rate
• How franchising can become your exit strategy
• The investor model: franchising without industry experience
• Why building impact-led businesses matters
• How to move from working in your business to working on i

Is Your Business Franchise-Ready?

Ask yourself:

1. Is your business profitable?
2. Can someone else replicate your model?
3. Has it been running successfully for 18+ months?

If the answer is yes to all three...franchising could be your next step.

Who is Cheryl White?

Cheryl White is a UK-based franchise consultant and strategist dedicated to helping business owners scale and transform their brands through ethical and sustainable franchising. Drawing on her own success in building a multi-million-pound franchise network and her proven 20x programme, Cheryl guides entrepreneurs to expand beyond local markets with clarity, confidence, and support. She provides structured franchising roadmaps, strategic planning, and access to expert legal, marketing, and financial guidance to help clients grow profitable, scalable franchise systems.

https://www.cheryl-white.co.uk/

Want to connect? Find me here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamemmahine

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-hine

Website:  https://www.emmahine.co.uk

You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/@EmmaHineStrategy

Transcript

Hello and welcome to today's episode of Dream Business, Dream Life. Today I'm joined by Cheryl White. Cheryl is a franchising consultant and I am super excited for this conversation. So hi Cheryl, how are you? 

Hi Emma, yeah, really good, thank you. 

Amazing, amazing. Okay, as I do with all of my guests, I'm not going to introduce you because you're going to do a much better job than me. So tell everybody who you are and where you've come from. Isn't that a TV show? It's a blind date. Blind date. 

That's what it sounds like. So yeah, my name is Cheryl White. I am from the Wirral by Liverpool and I am a franchise consultant and a franchisor. So I have my own franchise network which I started in 2011 and I'm building that across the UK and I also help women to franchise their businesses. 

Amazing, amazing. So it's franchising for everybody? I'm going to ask a really straight big question right at the beginning. 

I believe that franchising is for most businesses, Emma. So when people come to me and ask me whether they can franchise their business, I look at three things. So I look at, is the business making a profit? That's the first thing. Can the business be replicated in other areas? So could you take your model and teach it to somebody else? And has the business been running for 18 months or more so that you've got a proven business model? And if you can answer yes to all three of those questions, then it's very, very likely that your business can be franchised. 

Which is amazing, isn't it? I imagine a lot of people probably don't see their business as a franchisable model. Yeah, I imagine it's a really good way of building your business without probably building the amount of work you have to personally do. Am I right? 

Yes, and the way I sort of describe franchising is building your business using other people's money and investments. So the way franchising works is that somebody pays you an initial fee for you to give them all of the sort of support, the guidance, the blueprint of the business. and then they pay you a monthly fee on top of that, which can be a set fee or it could be a percentage of turnover. So rather than having to find investment to then to, if you wanted to grow your business into other areas of the UK or wherever you wanted to do it, you actually have people investing in your business to be able to help you to grow. 

Which makes complete sense, doesn't it? Which makes complete sense, something completely underutilised. So when you launched your first business, did you say 2011? 

2011, yeah. 

Was that your franchise business? Was that where you started or had you been involved in franchise prior to that? 

No, so I was a nurse. I was a district nurse and I worked looking after, I used to look after people in the last 12 weeks of life. I was a palliative care nurse, community palliative care nurse, and I started to, I was doing that job for 15 years. and I couldn't get really good home care services for my patients when I left them, to the point, Emma, where I was worrying of a weekend that they weren't, that they were okay and they weren't getting looked after. So I thought, well, do you know what? I need to, there's a gap here in the market and I need to fill it. So I started my own home care company, which was called Apollo Care, still is called Apollo Care. And I built that and I thought, I'll keep it quite small, round about 30 local clients, bring some staff in to run it and still nurse. But after 18 months, we had inquiries literally coming in from all over the country because people were hearing about what we did and how we did it. And that we basically said what we did on the turn. You know, it was, you know, the strap line is Apollo where care comes first and it really does come first. for our clients and our families as well. Families sometimes need more support than the clients. So we did that and then I went to see my accountant because I was just so stressed with her or them and I was working constantly. I had families ringing me in tears because we couldn't get out to them. It was all other things. And I said to me, accountants, I can't do this anymore. I'm just so stressed with it and it's really upsetting me that we can't deliver what we want, to all the people. And she said to me, I have ever heard about franchising. And I did, I hadn't, but I said yes because I didn't want to look stupid. And I got in the car and Googled what is franchising. And I looked at it and maybe me thought, that's it, that's what I need to do. Hired A franchise consultant who ultimately went bankrupt in the end, which is another story for another day. And I eventually launched my first franchise, which was Apollo Care Franchise Unlimited, and I sold three within the first 12 months, including the original business. A lawyer came to me and we were looking after his mum and dad and he was like, I need to buy into this business. And I said, well, you haven't really got the experience we're looking for. And he said, well, I want to buy this main one. So I got it valued and he bought it. He's still with me now 12 years later. Well, more than 12 years later, yeah. 13, 14 years later. And we've now grown that across the UK. We've got big plans for the next couple of years of perhaps going international with that as well. So we look after thousands of people every single day and make sure that they're getting the care that they need there. Anyone over the age of 18, and we've just set up a new model in Apollo now where we bring investors in. So it was always, so a franchisee always had to be from a home, you know, from a health and social care background. And we've just worked with some growth consultants and set up what's called our investor model. So people come in from a non-health and social care background, buy a franchise and we source a registered manager for them to come in and run it for them. So we're doing that now. And then sort of, I got into the consultancy work by accident because a few people said, you know, I'm watching what you're doing online, how have you done it? So I just showed them everything I did. And then I thought, I really should be charged for this, so we then start, so I built the consultancy service and that's built on from there. 

Amazing, amazing. So franchise has given you the opportunity to have a much bigger impact, but the thing that is your mission, your heart-led passion to obviously care for people when it's needed. But franchising has enabled you to have so much more impact on so many more people, hasn't it? 

Yeah, And the impact that we have, I mean, we have a videographer, Stu, who works with us and he goes out and videos all of the teams and the clients and everything else. And every time a new video comes out, it makes me cry because I'm like, oh my God, you just, you see these people. And we all see, I'm sitting behind the desk and we're looking at figures, we're looking at, legalities, we're looking at all of the things. But at the end of the day, the ultimate users, are there and that we're providing a service for them that I know they wouldn't get from anybody else. 

Which is amazing, absolutely amazing. And so you started this consultancy by accident and I love that because so many people do that, don't they? just end up doing something because I think we just assume that everybody knows what we know, don't we? I think we're good at that, aren't we? Yeah, everybody knows this, but they don't, they don't. There'll be lots of people doing exactly what you did, Googling what is franchising. So you started that business and did you focus on a specific niche or were you helping anybody to franchise anything. 

Well, at first I was helping anybody to franchise anything because I can't, the model fits into any business really, and I fit the model around the business that I'm working with. So when I start to work with somebody, I'll always ask them first, you know, what do you want to get out of this? Why do you want to franchise? And what would you want your business to look like in five years' time? So then I tailored the model around them. So I was doing that for a while and I work with a team, so I've got a team of franchise lawyers, franchise accountants, they all come in and work with me for 12 months with the person. But some of the businesses I was working with didn't really light me up. Lovely people, but you know, franchising A conservatory roof business isn't the most exciting. thing. So a couple of years ago, I thought, you know what, really now I only want to franchise service based businesses and businesses that actually make an impact on people's lives. I only work with three people a year to do it. So now I work with the only people that I work with are service based and I look and see, well, if I franchise this business, what impact would it have? because the more impact we can make, the better. And so the last couple of the ladies I'm working with at the moment, one's a menopause coach and it's needed so much, to get out and to help women. And then the other lady I'm working with is a physio. So she does mobile physiotherapy into people's houses who are unable to get physio in their NHS or, you know, can't leave the house or wherever it is. So I'm always looking at what that impact would be and how if I franchise that business and then they went and sold 10 franchises, how many clients would that impact? So that's the people I work with. 

Yeah, amazing. So it sounds like if somebody comes to work with you, have everything. They don't need to worry about I need to do this, I need to do that. They do all of that with you. Yeah, which is an absolutely amazing service, isn't it? And I think that's probably what puts a lot of people off. they think, there's so much you need to do, the legalities, the this, the this, the this, the this, and that's probably what puts a lot of people off franchising, isn't it? 

Yeah, I think it is because it is, it can be a minefield if you don't know what you're doing and you can clearly see that sometimes when somebody will announce a franchising business and want to read it, I think, no, you haven't. It's not, guys, you know. But so we've bought the whole team and all of my team are British Franchise Association members as well. So everything we do is along those lines of ethical franchise. And so making sure that the franchise opportunity is fair to franchisee and franchisor, it needs to be a really good partnership to help that to work. 

Yeah, So if somebody out there listening to this, I'm sure there's plenty of people out there. I know I've spoken to plenty of people who've thought about franchising. If they're sat there thinking, you know, maybe, not, how do they go and find out if it is for them? What do they need to be doing? 

So first of all, they could have a chat with me and I could sort of talk them through, you know, what their business model is, where it's up to in terms of, sort of profits and turnover margins, what the blueprint of that business actually looks like. And then we would take it from there. But again, it's very much about what the business owner wants, So once I had, I always remember a guy from a cleaning company came to me and said that he wanted to franchise his business because his first business was failing. The only one he wants is an injection of money in. And I was like, it doesn't quite work like that. You know, you've got to have a really strong business model. So have a look, they can have a chat to me, they can go and have a little look on the BFA website as well. So there's stuff on there about franchising and just really look into it and find a consultant that you feel comfortable working with. 

Yeah, but don't be afraid of it, I think is what I'm hearing. 

Yeah, don't be afraid of it. You know, it's the best business decision ever I've ever made. And, you know, sort of in terms of impact, but also in terms of financial impact as well. So when I franchised the business, we were probably turning over around about 180,000 a year, round about that. And the net worth now turns over half a million a month. so we've got a huge, probably more than that now actually. So the financial benefits are great as well, but that, I mean, obviously it gives me the lifestyle that I want and my children as well, but it also enables me to put back into the business. and to get better experts in and to sort of really grow that care service out to people. 

Absolutely, absolutely. And the more that comes in at the top, the more impact you're creating further down the line, isn't it? And I think that's clearly coming across as your mission, you know, to help and support as many people as you absolutely can. So, what would you say that franchising, we've just touched on some of the stuff that it's done for you in terms of obviously the financials and that sort of stuff. But would you say that franchising your business is something you can do alongside still running your business as you do now? 

Yeah, you can do. Some people do like to keep their own business now and use that as kind of a flagship to show other people what they do. I chose not to do that. So I sold my original business within the first It was only 18 months old when I sold it. I sold that for a six-figure sum as a franchise because I wanted to just work on being a franchisor and supporting the teams. I didn't want to run a care business anymore because it took up such a lot of money. time and I felt like I would it would sort of be a bottleneck for me to grow what I wanted to support the teams. But absolutely, so depending on the business model, some people still keep their original business and grow, and grow that alongside it. What normally happens, I would say probably in around about 70% of cases is they outgrow it and they'll say they'll come to me two years later and say, could you just give me a little bit of advice on how to sell this and how to value it? Because then they'll still earn from it. So if somebody's got a business and just for an example, say an online business and they're taking 5,000 a month from it, they may find that actually if they franchise, if they sell it as a franchise, they'll not only get a big investment, but they'll also be able to take 3 or 4000 a month from it in royalties anyway. And not do the work. And not do the work. So it doesn't make sense to keep it. So it would be very much dependent on the business and what the business owner wants to achieve with that. 

Yeah, So again, that's probably something that people are thinking, isn't it? I need to be able to earn some money whilst it's all getting established, all getting set up and everything else. Yeah, So do you think that franchising is potentially a growing market in the sense that more and more people want to either become franchisors or to invest in established franchises? 

Yeah. I think both sides of that. So the first point is that more and more people now are recognising the model and what the model actually does. And it's really interesting. I was reading an article in one of the BFA magazines a while back and traditionally the most fastest growing businesses in franchising were things like food, home care, you know, sort of bricks and mortar based businesses, all of the things that we think about like McDonald's, Starbucks, all the franchises. And there's a shift now going over to sort of online businesses, spiritual businesses, as people are realising that actually the model works for everybody. It was always like businesses best kept secrets. And it was, you know, franchise consultants saying, well, I'll tell you little bits, but not, you know, it was always like that. And I think people are realising more and more now that it actually works for them. And then as for people starting out in business, franchising has a 97% success rate for franchisees. So those statistics alone, let me tell you that it's so much better to buy into a franchise model because you've got all of that experience, support, the blueprint there, and you've also got your other group of franchisees you can use as well as a network. So it works for both the franchisor and the franchisee. 

Yeah, you're buying into something that's been tried and tested, aren't you? Whereas when you're starting yourself with something fresh, you've got to try and test it first, haven't you? So it's, you know, it's a great opportunity, isn't it? And it really is a good opportunity. And I think it's interesting that franchising, as far as I'm aware, has never sort of had that bad reputation that things like your MLM has had. Yeah. I know it's a totally, totally different model, but it's never had that bad reputation, has it? Which is good to hear, isn't it? It's good to hear that it's not. It's not really. 

Yeah, and it's really interesting, isn't it? Because when you look at the M&Ls and you look at franchising, sometimes people still get them mixed up, and people will sort of say, years ago, people used to think franchising was a kind of a, a pyramid scheme, and it's just, it's not that at all. And, you know, when you sort of look at the Trading Standards Act, you know, within franchising, if it's a If it's a one-layer business, so it's just a franchise, also a franchisee, and the franchisees are VAT registered or they're exempt from VAT, then that is... the franchisees and the franchisor are protected under the Trading Standards Act there. So it's nothing to do with that, multiple level marketing or nothing to do with pyramid schemes. And it's very much, some people didn't like it when they included franchising in that. And I actually thought it was a really good thing because it differentiates what franchising actually is and how it's built, you know, it's built sort of on a partnership rather than a multi-level. 

That's it, yeah. Because it still technically is your business, isn't it? You're still, you owe, you buy your chunk of the business. 

Yeah, and it is, and franchising, it's never set up as well in between individuals. It's always set up between limited companies. So the franchisor is a limited company and the franchisee sets their own limited company up, trading as. whatever trading house rights they're given underneath the franchise model. So the way the business is set up, it's very much in favour of both with under those limited companies. 

Yeah, And I think there's a lot of people who probably don't realise some of the big chains, I know you've mentioned a couple of them already, are actually franchises. They just assume that they're a big company owned by the same person and everything else. And I think that's good for franchising as well, isn't it, to give you that credibility if the likes of, like say, McDonald's and Starbucks and those sort of people franchise. I think it installs the confidence in franchising being a model that works. 

Yeah, And I love what you just said there, Emma, because it's right. People don't realise how many franchises that are around them. And that's because if you've got a good franchisor, they'll make sure that your business is very community based. So people don't realise. So like my, just an example. So I live on the Wirral and there's three Apollo Cares on Wirral. So there's Apollo Care Wirral. South Wirral, West Wirral. So even though there's three of them, they're all in their own communities. They don't use their limited company name only for on the banks and different stuff. So they're just known as Apollo Care, that area. So it becomes very personal to the people that live there. And even people who use the services probably don't even realise that it is a franchise. They just think it's their local care company. 

Yeah, And I think that's the beauty of it. being franchised because the people that are the franchisors and that particular franchisee, should I say, in that little bit, are going to want it to feel like it's theirs, aren't they? Going under the branding and everything else that comes from the franchisor, but it gives it that personal touch, doesn't it? 

Yeah, I always say that the franchisee's success is on, you know, it's on there and they're the secret sauce to it. We can give them all of the support and the blueprints and the guidance and everything, but ultimately, you know, they need to be the ones over the face of that business. and the communities. So it's great. And, this gets bandied about quite a lot, but I like it. It's being in business for yourself, but not by yourself. And there isn't a truer sort of sentence for it. 

No, And I think that's sort of like everybody's dream in a way, isn't it? If you think about it that way, that what you lack when you start your own business is that support, isn't it? That trust, that confidence that this is going to work. Whereas actually in franchising, you've got the proof, haven't you? You've got all these other people that have done it, and you've obviously got whoever's given it to you has tested and tried the model in the 1st place. So it's a bit of a no-brainer, really, isn't it? 

It really is, honestly, so I've got one of my sons is 18 now and he plays football full-time and he's looking at what he's going to do next and, hopefully he'll make it sort of semi-professional, but that's, we'll have to wait and see what that is. And I've already been looking at football franchises for him, you know, because for me, If I was going to start off now, so if I sold Apollo, decided not to do any of the consultancy work anymore and thought, right, I'm going to start a business, the first thing I would do is look for a franchise, look for something that aligns with my values, look for something that interests me and I would buy into that all day long than starting again. 

Yeah, which is really good to hear, isn't it? Because I think a lot of people would probably think start on my own. before they would think buy a franchise. I mean, I could be wrong, but I think that's my gut feel that more people would go that route first. 

Yeah, and again, Emma, it's because they do not really understand how it works. So with our Apollo Care franchise, my own franchise network, you know, people invest in that and we look that they get the return on investment by sort of 18 months to two years, we would expect a return on investment there. And if they started on their own, they're probably not, they're probably looking at least five to six years before they even If they get that far. If they do. 

If they get that far. Yeah. 

Because it's bloody tough in business, as we all know, So for me, it's an absolute no-brainer. And I think, the more sort of businesses we can franchise, the impact is amazing there. But ultimately as well, it creates new entrepreneurs coming into the business world with that support system there. 

Yeah, It's finding the thing, isn't it, that you say that's aligned with your values and everything else that you're going to make, you're going to do the best job of or something, aren't you, if you love it rather than it's just, yeah, absolutely, completely going to do that. So what would you say then would be your top tip to people who have a business, they tick all three of your boxes, you know, they tick all three of those things that you say is the criteria. What would your top tip be to those people? 

My top tip, Emma, would be to build a business that aligns to you and what you want to do. So franchising has allowed me to step outside of the day-to-day and work on the business. Sometimes I have to go back into the weeds and then I take myself out and, you know, but I'd say 80% of the time now I work on the business rather than in it. And that gives me so much freedom to do other things that I enjoy doing. And I think sort of at the moment, well, definitely over the last two years, it seems that every business coach or, excuse me, every business mentor is telling us that we need to do this and we must do that. And I think just take a minute and just sit back and think, is that something that I want to do? Do I want 50, 60 clients? Would that align with me as a person? And I remember working with a business coach three years ago and it's swiftly come to an end. and she was trying to push me into this corner of having, low ticket, middle ticket, high ticket, and I kept trying to say, but that's not how I work. So I think it's been really clear with what you want to do with your business and with your life as well, and, you know, what your exit plan, what you're going to do when you exit. I was with Nick Pigeon in Ibiza a while back and she said to me, I don't want to be on Zoom until I'm 90. And I was like, well, you need to start thinking about it now. What do you want to do with your business? So just really have a little think about that. And that's the first thing I always ask one of my clients before we work together. What do you see your life looking like in five years time? 

Yeah. And I think you said something there that so many business owners don't think about. And I hold my hand up in my old business. I did exactly that thing. Never think about the exit plan. Just keep focusing on the what we're doing today, what we're doing today, but never actually have in mind what we're aiming to achieve ultimately. 

What do we want to do with it? And do you know, Emma, some people will say to me, I just want to wind it down. I want to wind the business down when I want to retire. And that's it. And that's OK as well. but you couldn't franchise if that's what you wanted to do because you've got your responsibility of your franchisees there. So I know my exit plan, I know what I want to exit my business for in financial terms, I know when I want to exit it, and every year I get my business valued and I look at that so that then sets me up to, okay, what do I need to achieve next year to keep pushing me towards that exit plan? And I do exactly the same with my franchisees. So when they come on board with us, you know, it seems a bit strange, they're just signing their contracts saying, when do you want to leave us? But it's so we can support them then with that, with that sort of business growth over the next 5 to 10 years and then what they want to exit it for. 

Yeah, really important one, really important one. Okay, so if any of our listeners want to come and find out more about franchising the business, and I think hopefully after today, lots more will be interested in considering franchising the business, where do they come and find you? 

So if you come over to the website, it's probably the easiest, which is cheryl-white.co.uk. And I'm also on LinkedIn as well as Cheryl White Franchise Consultant. 

Amazing. Okay, so thank you so much for joining me. I've absolutely loved this conversation. I hope lots more people do consider franchising as a way to scale your business. I think that's the right way to word it, isn't it? It's a great opportunity for you to scale your business. So just go and hook up with Cheryl. But thank you, Cheryl. 

Oh, thanks, Emma. Thank you for having me on. 

My pleasure. And everybody else, thank you for listening. I will see you next time.