Starting a franchise can be an excellent way to achieve your entrepreneurial dreams while having the support of your corporate headquarters. Just ask Lara Bruhn, co-owner of Mr. ElectricⓇ of San Antonio and Austin, Texas.
I recently had the pleasure of connecting with Lara for the Ignite Visibility University Podcast. We chatted about her incredible career path and how it led her to start her own Mr. Electric franchise.
Lara has years of marketing experience, both inside and outside of a franchise business model. This conversation is a must-listen for anyone interested in stories of business success, how to start a franchise, or how to market one.
What is Mr. Electric?
A leading global franchise, Mr. Electric, was established in 1994 to help make it easier for homeowners to find electrical installation and repair services they can trust.
As a subsidiary of the NeighborlyⓇ company, Mr. Electric provides quality and trustworthy electrical services in 200 locations throughout the United States. They offer 24-hour service with local and experienced electricians.
In addition to being an incredible company for its customers, Mr. Electric also provides a ton of benefits for its franchisees, so much so that it has repeatedly been recognized as one of Entrepreneur Magazine’s Franchise 500.
Lara Bruhn is the co-owner of Mr. Electric of San Antonio and Austin, Texas. She and her husband, Matt, purchased the franchise in 2019.
Since then, Lara has successfully run both franchises. She loves the challenges that Mr. Electric gives her and loves to learn more each day. By listening to her story, we can all learn something about how to start a franchise, how to market a franchise, and how to find personal fulfillment in our work.
Lara’s Marketing Start
Before jumping into the world of franchising, Lara earned her stripes in the marketing world. After graduating from Princeton University with her Bachelor’s and Harvard Business School with her MBA, she held many positions in marketing across the United States, including at The Washington Post and BrassRing. She even spent some time teaching marketing at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Georgia.
It was in Georgia that her teaching experience encouraged her to take a step back and reevaluate what she had learned about marketing principles. This experience inspired her to explore her entrepreneurial pull.
It was then that she decided to take the opportunity to move to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and open Prantl’s Bakery. After 9 successful years, she sold the business and moved to San Antonio, Texas, where she and her husband have been co-owners of Mr. Electric of San Antonio and Austin for over 5 years.
Acquiring and Managing Franchise
The opportunity to start a franchise came up when she met the previous owner of Mr. Electric of Austin. She and her husband knew they wanted to open another business but had been against opening a franchise.
After doing their research and discovering how active and helpful the Mr. Electric community is, they decided to take the opportunity. While the acquisition didn’t come without challenges, Lara stepped into her new role, motivated to help each team member grow, ensuring their morale was high and their business thrived.
One big challenge of starting a franchise was that Lara now owned not one but two separate franchises. Here, she had to tap into her experience in growing teams, relating to people, and creating the relationships that help small businesses become successful.
She developed a team that worked remotely, handling all the incoming calls, securing the permits for their work, and talking to the electricians day in and out. Lara says the most important thing to remember about managing a team is that your communication has to be top-notch.
Lara also learned quickly that geographic location plays a significant role in how to market a franchise. Some areas of her territory rely heavily on direct mail marketing, whereas others are big into digital marketing. To make both franchises successful, Lara had to learn how to market a franchise in a way that would resonate with the people living in each location.
Finding a Compatible Role as a Franchise Owner
While franchises provide a lot of support, they do have a lot of things in common with owning your own small business that is not connected to a headquarters. As Lara states often, franchise or not, entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone.
To achieve your business’s full potential, you must understand the importance of infusing your personality into its management. For example, Lara excels at math and marketing. She knows how to crunch the numbers to find success, so it makes sense that she is in charge of finance and marketing. Her ability to blend her math reasoning with her marketing experience is part of why her franchises have been so successful.
Safety Challenges
One of the things that drew Lara to Mr. Electric is her passion for safety. In addition to helping people achieve their true potential, she also wants to keep them safe.
Through Mr. Electric, she reaches people where they are, points out how little the typical homeowner knows about home safety, and matches them with the services her team offers to help protect the people who live there.
For Lara, owning a Mr. Electric fulfills her drive to be helpful and make a sustainable and substantial difference in people’s lives—whether it’s her team members or her customers.
2024 Marketing Challenges and Beyond
When I asked Lara what her biggest 2024 marketing challenge was, she responded that she was primarily concerned about growing the company’s market share. To do this, she has to position Mr. Electric as the go-to source in their local market.
This will take work. Lara is committed to focusing her time and resources on more training (both for herself and her team), creating more lucrative career opportunities for her employees, and growing the company’s market share.
Become a Successful Franchise with the Help of Ignite Visibility
If you’re feeling inspired by Lara’s story and want to start a franchise or figure out better ways to market a franchise, Ignite Visibility is here to help!
Our expert team members can help you:
- Develop a franchise and multi-location marketing strategy
- Bring a national digital marketing strategy to all of your locations
- And more!
Sound exciting? Let’s get to work! Contact us today.
