10 Essential Questions to Ask During Your Peer Review Call

If you’re thinking about starting your own business so you can finally leave the corporate grind behind you, there are few better ways to do so than by investing in a franchise. But before you can sign your agreements and write your check, you’ll need to navigate your way through the Franchise Discovery Process.

This is a series of interview and learning stages specially designed to help you understand the ins and outs of your potential future business and help your franchisor support team make sure you’re cut out for their business model. During this process, you’ll get the chance to join a Peer Review Call – or multiple, if you’re lucky! – and get a glimpse into the franchise and the future you can expect as a Franchise Owner.

But first, what is a Peer Review Call?

During the franchise discovery process, you’ll be guided through a variety of stages all the way from your Introductory Call to the Welcome Meeting you have after signing your franchise agreement. Each step is designed to not only help you get to know more about the franchise you’re looking into but also to allow your Franchisor team to get to know you better – and a Peer Review Call is one of those steps.

But first, what is a Peer Review Call?

With Skedaddle Humane Wildlife Control, once you’ve had the chance to review our Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) and begin the process of looking at available territories, you’ll also have the chance to schedule a Peer Review Call – and sometimes, more than one, if schedules allow! In these calls, you’ll sit down with current Franchisees to learn about their perspective on running their own Skedaddle pest control locations. This is your chance to ask these Franchisees any questions you have about their experience.

However, it can be tricky to know what questions to ask if this is your first time getting to this point with a franchise. If you forget to ask about certain subjects, you may be setting yourself up for more work or headaches down the line. While the Skedaddle business model was developed specifically to streamline the day-to-day operations of owning a humane wildlife control business, there are still various moving parts that can sometimes be best learned by talking to those who are dealing with them firsthand and those who may eventually become your peers: current Franchise Owners.

10 Questions to Ask in Your Skedaddle Peer Review Call

1. How long have you owned your Skedaddle franchise?

When you first start your Skedaddle pest control business, you may experience certain challenges that simply take time to get through. So, when you chat with Franchise Owners during your Peer Review Call, it’s important to consider how long they’ve been in operation when they discuss the speed bumps they may be facing. By starting your call with this question, you gain the ability to create a flexible timeline for yourself and know what to expect at certain points in time after you’ve launched.

2. What did you do prior to joining Skedaddle, and how has that experience helped you?

At Skedaddle, we tell all our franchisee candidates that our business model is designed to enable people of any and all backgrounds to find success in the humane wildlife and pest control industry – and we mean it! However, there are still benefits to having specific experience or certain attributes, and it’s important to consider where a peer came from during your review call with them. If, during an interview, someone says they’re having a difficult time with sales, but it’s because they had zero sales experience and not because of the Skedaddle business model, it will give you essential context throughout the call.

3. What do you like most and least about running your business?

The answers you receive to this question can be eye-opening because once a Franchise Owner has experience running their Skedaddle pest control business, they’ll know all the tiny, minute details involved in the day-to-day operations. While one peer may dislike something small about the territory they chose but love working with customers, another could find frustration in an aspect of managing their technicians but get excited about their charitable work. It’s important to keep each of these small details in mind as you move forward in the process so you can avoid similar headaches once you launch your own humane wildlife control business.

4. What does your day-to-day consist of?

At Skedaddle Humane Wildlife Control, our business model is designed to allow Franchise Owners to focus on many of the business-building and customer-facing aspects of their business, leaving the laborious tasks to the technicians themselves. With that being said, it’s important to learn directly from your peers about the tasks they’re focused on each day and get a realistic gauge of how often they may be seeing animals in their clients’ homes. (Hint: it’s not very much!)

5. What were the first things you invested in when you launched (and would you do it again)?

We often see first-time entrepreneurs join our Skedaddle franchise family, and while our franchisor team provides guidance and support to make launching easier, Franchisees can still sometimes experience a learning curve when becoming their own boss. If someone decided to invest in a certain area of their business on a “gut feeling” just as they were launching in their territory and it turned out to be a waste of time, you’ll want to know about it. This way, you can avoid this pitfall yourself as you step into their role.

5. What were the first things you invested in when you launched (and would you do it again)?

6. Which revenue streams do you currently offer?

With the Skedaddle business model, you have the opportunity to offer multiple revenue streams to increase your capabilities with clients and mitigate any potential seasonality you may experience in the humane wildlife and pest control industry. When you start to ask financial questions in your Peer Review Calls, it’s helpful to consider how many of the revenue streams each Owner offered during the financial period they’re referencing and if they’re considering adding more as they continue to grow. This question will often give you a more realistic interpretation of the revenue potential of the Skedaddle model as you continue learning about your Peers and their financial answers.

7. How long did it take you to break even and become profitable?

In the franchise world, it’s not uncommon to see people needing to invest $750K or more just to get their new business started. At Skedaddle, our initial financial investment is kept significantly more approachable at $102,100 – $251,600, making your financial risk more manageable and your breakeven timeline shorter! When chatting with your peers and learning about how long it took them to breakeven, you can often determine which decisions they made that increased their breakeven time, allowing you to avoid the same mistakes – wherever possible – so you can start earning big returns like our Wisconsin Franchise Owner saw in 2023 with his Gross Profit of $716,195!*

8. Is your business performing at the financial level you expected?

New Franchise Owners jump into business ownership with certain expectations about how much money they’ll make, especially when they hear about the unbelievable numbers our Wisconsin Franchise Owner has produced. However, there are a few things that can help you effectively manage your new wildlife control business quite like a realistic perspective on your financial potential.

9. What are you hoping to do differently in your business this year?

All of the best business owners know how to reflect on their past practices and achievements and create actionable strategies for improvement. When you’re talking to a Skedaddle peer, learn what you can about their goals as they grow and how they plan to improve during their first (or second) year of business operations. This can help you understand the kind of timeline you could have over the first few years of running your business and the kind of speed bumps you could potentially avoid during your first year.

10. If you had to do it over again, would you still choose Skedaddle?

There are few Franchise Owners that got to where they are now without considering all their options. With all the franchise businesses available on the market, many of the franchisee candidates that go through the discovery process with a given franchise brand are doing so after dedicating dozens – if not hundreds – of hours to researching multiple franchises. After running their business for a year or more, your peer could give you the encouragement and reassurance you need to feel comfortable with joining the Skedaddle pest control franchise. During your Skedaddle Peer Review Call, asking this question could provide the gentle nudge you need to make your final decision.

The Peer Review Call is your opportunity to hear directly from those who have hands-on experience in the role you hope to step into. With Skedaddle, we can’t wait for our franchisee candidates to learn about how our Franchise Owners have found success and how they can gauge whether or not our business model is right for them through this step in their journey. When you’re ready to begin the discovery process for yourself and become the next Skedaddle Humane Wildlife Control Franchise Owner, take our 1-minute qualification quiz to get started.

*2024 Franchise Disclosure Document Item 19 – Table 1