对酒当歌，人生几何？譬如朝露，去日苦多。

概当以慷，忧思难忘。何以解忧？唯有杜康。

青青子衿，悠悠我心。但为君故，沈吟至今。

呦呦鹿鸣，食野之苹。我有嘉宾，鼓瑟吹笙。

明明如月，何时可掇？忧从中来，不可断绝。

越陌度阡，枉用相存。契阔谈咽，心念旧恩。

月明星稀，乌鹊南飞。绕树三匝，何枝可依。

山不厌高，海不厌深，周公吐哺，天下归心。

Franchise and Cheerleading

Franchise and Cheerleading

Let’s start with some definition

Got this from here

fran·chise/ˈfræntʃaɪz/ [fran-chahyz] noun, verb, -chised, -chis·ing.

–noun

1.

a privilege of a public nature conferred on an individual, group, or company by a government: a franchise to operate a bus system.

2.

the right or license granted by a company to an individual or group to market its products or services in a specific territory.

Eg. Subway, McDonald’s, 7-Eleven and etc

How franchising works?

Franchising is more or less like you paying someone in exchange for his or her established business ‘formula’ and the leverage on his or her well established name to get a quick return on your investment

For those who do not understand how franchising works, let me give you a brief description. Typically, you would be needed to pay a certain amount of start-up cost to franchisor. Start-up cost varies for different organisation ranging from less than $10,000 to as high as million. And then you would be required to go through the organisation’s education to be able to fully understand how the organisation works and what your responsibilities are, basically learning their secret formula. By the end of your training, it’s probably just nice the time for you to start running your own outlet. Once the business gets running, you would be needed to pay a % off your revenue or sometimes profit and on top of that, rental fees that can be at a flat rate, % off your revenue or even your profit to your franchisor organisation. Usually, this amount will be used for marketing purposes which in turn will help create brand awareness and other purposes. All you need to do now is to manage the outlet and hire people to handle the outlet when you are not around. This system really varies depending on the organisation. Currently, there are quite a few hot-on-demand franchise names such as McDonald, Subway, KFC and even our own local brand Old Chang Kee is doing franchising.

Businessman and business students please pardon such easy demonstration of the franchising system. I believe that it is definitely a system much more complicated than the above described but I make it easy for simplistic purposes. For the real in-depth information about franchising system, you would probably need to do more studies.

Ok, so let’s talking about franchising and cheerleading. Most of you are probably wondering what kind of relationship I can derive from a business concept like franchising and a popular-yet-be sport in Singapore.

Looking at how successful most of the franchises are doing made me wonder about this.

‘Can we use franchise strategy to spread CHEERLEADING?’

Let’s try to look into more details.

First, just like the franchisor possessing a successful business strategy, there must be a development of a winning formula of managing a team.

In order for people to buy into this ‘formula’, this formula developed would probably have to be put it into practice and achieve a certain level of DESIRED results. Let’s first establish a common understanding of this DESIRED results before people misunderstood the terms used. In Singapore’s case where capitalism, bureaucracy and meritocracy reign, I would like to establish this DESIRED result as winning the National Championships for a minimum of 5-8years consecutively. Reason being very simple, if it is truly a winning formula, it should last for quite some time. Of course it will not be rigid, as just like any business models requires remodel and restructure, I believe this winning formula will evolve as time passes. And also, it would take some time for people to recognise that it is truly the ‘formula’. Let’s call the team that fits the criteria above be Team Z.

Second, just like personal preference for goods, we need to recognise that not everyone would recognise that this is truly the ‘formula’ as a matter of fact, we can’t make everyone happy. Now, let’s assume first that the market is 50 teams. Let’s say Team Z attracted 10-20% of the market (all the cheerleading teams at all level in Singapore) to buy your ‘formula’. 10-20% would be about 5 to 10 teams, let’s call these teams Second Tier Teams. Team Z will be providing coaching services of the ‘formula’ to these Second Tier Teams and providing the assurance of getting into the top three positions. In return the Second tier teams have to pay a certain amount of remuneration for the coaches and also providing one of the best ‘graduating’ base and one of the best ‘graduating’ flyer to Team Z. In franchising terms, these are the so-called rental fees. Should the Best decline the offer, second would be offered the chance instead. Let’s say on average Team Z is coaching 1-2 teams from each category of the 3 categories available (Mainly Secondary, Tertiary and Open). Team Z could get a conservative number of about 2 pairs of best and 2 pairs of second best. Where do I get this amount? Basically, primary school would not be eligible to participate in Open Category due to age limit. So, the only talent pool left are Secondary, Tertiary and Open. Since its conservative number, 8 persons from 3 teams are achievable taking into consideration of influence of friends and desire to achieve.

Third, Team Z would now be receiving about 8-10 players annually steadily. With such a great inflow of players, Team Z would probably have to consider expanding into Team 1 and Team 2 and etc. More teams eventually leads to more exposure to the public as players would share with their family members and friends. More teams would only means more chances to clinch the top 3 positions in the Championships and therefore further enhance the image of their ‘formula’.

There is a rapid development of franchise in China in 2009, and by 2011 those franchise names that could not keep up with competition would be eliminated. Same applied to Singapore cheer industry, more teams would be formed but as time passes by some of those teams without the ‘formula’ would be eliminated and eventually left the ELITES. By then, Singapore would be ready to compete in the world stage.

I admit that there are certain flaws or problems that might arise or I have not taken into consideration. I will do up an evaluation real soon, and meanwhile, do provide me what are the concerns you as a cheerleader might have. For example, humanist concern. And ultimately, I believe that everyone has to WORK TOGETHER in order to achieve the common goal we have with foreigner predecessors, that is to bring cheerleading unto the Olympic stage.

Disclaimer: This theory was developed merely out of free time thinking during study breaks. Just a statement for everyone to think about what can be done for Singapore cheerleading industry.

-Ken Signing Out