My Franchise Story… Research
Note: Post #4. 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.
With little to go on I began poking around the internet, “Googling” things like “Franchise Opportunities”, “Owning a Franchise”, “How to start a Franchise”, etc. Most of that effort was not very satisfying. I was taken to sites with limited information designed to entice anyone who came upon the page to part with personal contact information and subject themselves to a barrage of inquiries from people seemingly coming out of the woodwork. I made that mistake once. After saying “Thanks, but no thanks” more times than I would like, I did what most academically trained folks like myself do. I went to the library, or at least a library of sorts.
I searched for books on Amazon and naturally, found hundreds of titles promising all kinds of information needed to make a decision about franchising. I also explored books on making a career shift after the age of 50. I read through book descriptions and downloaded a number of free trials that allowed me to read a small section of the book to get a better feel for how helpful it might be. My research was not exhaustive, and I cannot recommend the three best books to read that will tell you all you need to know about changing career directions later in life or how to make the best franchise selection. I am happy to privately share some titles that I found helpful, but strongly encourage people to do their own research. You will learn as much from the process as you will from the content you eventually use to shape your next steps.
My early research revealed a couple of key points…
· A franchise is a proven business concept with a well-developed brand and business model. That is one of the plusses and is why you pay a fee to “buy-in” to a franchise system. The advantages are clear. You do not need to spend time and money figuring out through trial and error what works and perhaps more importantly, what does not work. This is a huge plus for me. At 60 years of age, I do not have 2–3 years to figure things out. I need a well-developed model.
· There are people, apparently a lot of people, who chafe under what appears to be a very prescribed way of doing things. They are either highly creative people who thrive in environments of constant development and change, always seeking new ways to do things; or they are simply stubborn, certain they know best and constantly challenge authority and the prescribed way of doing things. Read enough about franchising and you get the feeling that way too many of these folks (and more of the latter than the former) decide to buy a franchise business and spend more energy trying to change the business model than they do implementing the developed and tested procedures. This is a recipe for disaster. The advice I heard repeatedly, “if you need absolute control and have a sense that you always know best, stay away from franchising.” You are better off buying an existing independent business or starting one of your own.