Choosing A Franchise – Only You Should Decide
Choosing a franchise is about thinking for yourself
The process of selecting a franchise can be overwhelming. There are literally thousands of franchise opportunities across nearly 100 different types of business categories. While easily confusing, there’s a logical approach. Here are steps to make the process easier.
- Clear your head. It’s natural for franchise buyers is to jump into the deep end of the information pool. That’s a mistake made by virtually all first time buyers. Like kids in a candy store, the urge to check out every possibility is awesome. And unfortunately, it’s way too easy. You can Google franchises forever and the result will be more confusion than clarity.
- The best starting point for choosing a franchise is YOURSELF. You already know what you’re looking for. You do, and you’ll believe it after slowing down the process. Let’s put it a different way. If you’re busy looking for a business opportunity, then you’re at a crossroads in your life and looking for a change. If it were not for need of income, what would you be doing next? Short of unlawful activities, there’s a franchise close enough to the life and activities you want.
- Knowing what you don’t like is close to knowing what you do like. If you don’t like indoor work, why would you spend any time studying fast food? The process needs to be about you. In spite of the spin that a franchise salesman puts on a food opportunity, if you don’t like indoor work, you won’t like the business. Don’t waste your time.
- There’s no such thing as a ‘hot franchise.’ Even if a concept is doing well at the moment, it will either burn out or there’ll be lots of other similar franchises in the future. Don’t be pushed or sold into any franchise. Again, choosing a franchise is about you, not the business.
- Understand franchise broker vs. consultant. Brokers labeling themselves as franchise consultants can present concepts you’ve missed, but consider this: 1. brokers, calling themselves consultants, are not working for you; they working for a commission. 2. you need to conduct franchise due diligence and these folks, if, in fact, they could provide due diligence, would never do so because a negative finding would impede your purchase. So again, first know what you want. Gradually narrow your options and do excessive investigation. Here’s real protection when buying a franchise.
Take your time
Be selective regarding the things you study closely. There’s no rush in to purchase. Making the wrong choice will be a lifetime mistake.
There’s so much written on the subject of buying a franchise and a lot of it is good. But the nuts and bolts of financing, training, territory, etc., while all important, become repetitive after awhile. The most important factor will always be you. Of course, for anyone seeking guidance to work through insight issues, we will always suggest ‘The Focus Program for Emerging Entrepreneurs‘.
And last, you’re more important to the franchise than the franchise is to you. Our site is filled with useful franchise information to help in your search. Happy searching and write if you have questions.