Entrepreneur Istayak Ansari, known for establishing leading franchise ventures of popular brands such as Truefitt and Hill, UFC Gym, 1441 Pizzeria, Hair Nails and More, and Mary Cohr, among others, shares his business strategy and expansion plans.
What drives you to enter niche business spaces?
What are your new ventures?
Going ahead with our brand strategy, we ventured into the fitness domain in 2018 with UFC Gym master franchise, which is the first gym to combine mixed martial arts, functional training and traditional fitness training. We have recently opened a gym measuring 10,500 sq, feet in West Delhi. In addition, we have recently ventured into women-only luxury salon chain named Hair Nails and More. This is again our unique initiative to tap the luxury beauty space targeted at working women in leadership positions. We are tying up with five star hotels for the franchise and have opened two stores in Chennai and Indore while two more stores are under construction. More recently, we have entered into a master franchise agreement with Mary Cohr Paris to establish their premium beauty salons and products in India.
What best practices do you follow in franchising?
We believe the only way we succeed is by retaining the existing clients and acquiring new clients through reference. Almost 70% of our new business across all our ventures is derived from the references of our existing clients. To ensure that each store we open is profitable, we provide extensive and continuous training and keep the staff highly motivated. And, we take customer feedback quite seriously. We also choose a partner who is passionate about the business and can build multiple stores. These strategies have enabled us to build long-term partnerships with franchisees. Moreover, we have been able to build an ecosystem of partners having multiple stores, which has enabled faster expansion of the brands as well as uniformity in operations and customer experience, resulting in high profitability for the franchise.
What are your expansion plans?
We have expanded the presence of Truefitt and Hill stores with over 21 outlets across 13 cities and eight stores are under construction. Further, we have increased 1441 Pizzeria’s presence with over 12 outlets across three cities while two stores are under construction. By 2020, we plan to add 12 more outlets of Truefitt and Hill, 15 stores of 1441 Pizzeria, six UFC Gym outlets, and five Hair Nails and More stores. Further, we will open at least five Mary Cohr beauty salons.
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