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Teaching the Masses, One Child at a Time
More than 50 years ago, a Japanese math teacher named Toru Kumon came up with the innovative teaching method that bears his name while trying to instruct his son, a second-grade student, who was struggling to learn arithmetic.  As a teacher, he understood that it was important to lay a strong foundation in mathematical basics before anyone could expect to move on to higher function processes.  The results of that “experiment” has yielded the Kumon franchise operation, a worldwide network of individually owned and operated teaching centers that today encompass reading skills as well.  There have been Kumon franchises in Japan for 50 plus years, and the company expanded into the United States 25 years ago.  From a business standpoint, among all franchises Kumon ranks sixteenth in financial strength and twenty-first in system size.  The field of outside tutoring continues to be a hot commodity, as parents are always looking to give their children an edge in learning new skills and improving the ones they already know.  Let’s learn more about a Kumon franchise for sale.

Kumon Franchise Review
This year (2009) there are 1,383 Kumon franchises located in the United States, plus close to 400 in Canada and another 24,800 overseas.  Because the Kumon franchise model continues to thrive in its native home, many of these overseas franchisees are in Japan.  The company owns only 20 locations worldwide, so you can see that the concept of franchising is alive and very healthy at the corporate level.  The people at Kumon have developed a highly regimented process that is easy for clients to follow, and easy for a Kumon franchisee to implement.  Parents are considered an integral part of the learning process, as they are expected to take on a supervisory role during the times in which the student is away from his or her local Kumon Learning Center.  They are expected to set aside regular study time, check that assignments are completed, comprehend what it is their child is learning, and discuss progress with their Kumon instructor on a regular basis.  Within this system, instructors are considered more mentors or coaches than simply teachers.  Rewards and encouragement form a primary basis for Kumon’s overall learning strategy.  A Kumon franchisee enjoys rewarding work that benefits the community at large, and a warm relationship with a parent company that is unlike nearly any other franchisee-franchisor bond.  What follows is an example of the Kumon franchise cost.

Kumon Franchise Information & Costs
Two or three people can operate a Kumon franchise, which is quite a savings for prospective owners.  One should have a net worth of around $150,000, with $50,000 of that in cash.  The franchise fee is set at $1,000 – one of the lowest barriers to entry of any franchise opportunity – and it is estimated that one’s total out-of-pocket investment will run from between $30,000 to $130,000.  Franchisees pay royalties to the parent corporation based upon their number of students and how many courses each one is taking.  The average royalty is set at around $35 per student, per subject each month.  Terms of the franchise purchase allow for a two-year agreement that is renewable, with an additional $1,000 franchise fee due every two years.  The company does not provide any sort of in-house financing.  However, as you might expect, their training regimen is extensive and amazingly comprehensive – both for the franchisee as well as for individual instructors.  Prospective owners are expected to possess strong marketing skills, solid math and reading comprehension ability, and good business sense.  Successful franchisees are given the opportunity to attend annual conferences at no charge, and the company also threw a huge Fifty Year Anniversary party in Japan in 2008, to which all Kumon franchisees were invited.

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