My Franchise Journey… Deciding to Say No

Note: Post #11. Imagine being 60 years old with a Ph. D. and 35+ years of non-profit administration experience, most as Vice President or Assistant Vice President of Institutional Advancement in colleges and universities. Now you are buying a franchise and becoming a small business owner. This is my story.

As mentioned in the previous post, I decided to walk away from the opportunity to buy the estate sales company franchise. Like the rest of my exploration, saying “no” was a process. Ultimately it has a definitive moment but getting there takes time.

Let me pause for a moment and say that the estate sales company is a solid opportunity. I enjoyed meeting some of the people of the company and learning about its business model. I did not discover some fundamental flaw or lack of integrity. It would have been easier to say “no” if I had. Rather, I concluded that the business model is sound, and success is possible with this business.

In the end, I decided it was not the right fit for me and I was not the right fit for this business. Here’s where self-awareness once again comes into play. Go back to Posts 2 & 3 (especially 3) for more on the importance of self-awareness. Thanks to a reflective comment from my brother, I will add here that it is critical not to confuse “self-imagined” with self-aware. Being self-aware requires honesty with one’s self, sometimes brutal honesty.

My reasons for saying no to estate sales came from being very honest with myself about what it would take to be successful in the business and whether my interest and energy would sustain me to achieve that success. The volume of sales necessary to be as successful as I would like is achievable but would likely take 4–5 years or more to get there. Estate Sales work requires a lot of weekend effort. Do I really want to work 40 weekends every year? While I’m interested in antiques and household treasures, am I interested enough to commit to the learning curve of identifying and pricing things of value? Many who go into this business are experienced buyers and sellers already and the business provides another way to monetize their knowledge. That is not the case for me.

These questions and issues are answered differently by different people. Over the course of my two-month exploration it gradually became clear to me that this was not the right opportunity for me. I had a cordial parting conversation with my franchise developer who wished me well and kept the door wide-open for me to pick up the exploration again if I changed my mind.