Let’s now look at a few critical pitfalls that you’ll want to avoid as you’re looking at franchise ownership. Because if ignored, these pitfalls are often a future recipe for how to fail in franchising once you buy the business.

Please remember that these pitfalls aren’t just exclusive to franchise ownership—they apply to any business ownership at all.

The first pitfall is making your franchise purchase decision primarily on emotion. We hear all the time something along the lines of, “I have to love the product or service if I’m going to run that business.” I would suggest to you that this is one of the most critical mistakes you can make if you use it as the main criteria for selecting your business.

You see, as the business owner, I don’t have to love the product or even use it. What I have to have, though, is absolute, 100% conviction in the value proposition that that product or service provides.

Find me a maid business owner who likes cleaning houses—that doesn’t happen very often. Instead, what is it that they like? They like marketing. They like engaging with customers. They like managing staff. They like having control over all the decisions that go into running the business. They don’t do the product or the service.

You might be asking yourself, “How do I sell something that I don’t use personally?” Well, that happens all the time in business. It’s more about understanding value. As the business owner, I need to understand what my main customer base needs and then make sure I have the skills and drive to build the team to deliver a solution suite that satisfies those needs—even if I personally, as the owner, do not resemble my core customer.

There’s a very true saying that people buy emotionally and justify logically thereafter. As you’re hopefully beginning to see, this is one of the biggest pitfalls people experience—and that you’ll want to avoid.

Now, let’s look at misplaced passion. A pretty commonly held belief in the marketplace—there have even been books written about it—is: “Do what you love, and the money will follow.” Well, that’s a very important statement, but it’s often misinterpreted.

A lot of people try to turn their hobbies into a business. “I have this hobby. I like doing it. Let me try it part-time, and when it gets to be good and I’m running a good business, then I’ll go into it full-time.” Unfortunately, what often happens is they end up losing the hobby and resenting the business.

When you look at a hobby, what is a hobby for most people? It’s a place to disengage, to quiet things down, to just do something that they enjoy doing for the sake of doing it. If you have to turn your hobby into a business, the thing that gives you enjoyment ends up not being fun anymore.

I’ll use a personal example: my dad loves golf. He regularly golfed three times a week. He was also one of the senior executives for the Hudson’s Bay Company, and he had over 100 buyers that he oversaw. There are very few people who understand retail better than my dad.

Now imagine if my dad had a golf store. What would his day look like? Well, he’d be managing staff, managing the inventory. He’d probably be working with people on getting the displays. He’d be overseeing the lessons—or at least hiring people to do the lessons. When would he golf? Yeah, exactly—not very often. He’d be spending so much time in the business that he wouldn’t be able to do the thing that he loved.

So don’t turn your hobby into a business.

Let’s look at another relevant example I hear quite often from people who are considering self-employment, especially in the professional services area. “I really should be considering a consulting business.” They’re looking at themselves, saying, “I’ve developed a really good base of skills. I’m a good facilitator, I’m a good listener, I’ve got project management…” or all the different skills that a consultant has. They might have even been responsible for driving major change through an organization.

Well, let’s take a step back and look at: what is the number one role of a consultant business owner?

The answers I typically get are: facilitating change, solving the owner’s problems, coaching the different executives—all the different things a consultant does.

Well, I would suggest to you: the number one role of a consultant is to go out and generate business. Business-to-business hunting. Sales. Cold calling. Networking. Following up. All of those things necessary to get the customer.

You see, the second role—and the one most people who look at consulting love—is the fulfillment. And you might have a great base of skills to be able to deliver on fulfillment. But if you don’t have the selling skills, and you don’t like selling, and you don’t like the rejection that comes with outbound selling, then consulting might not be the right business for you.

So here’s the point: you have to understand each critical role that the business requires being done in order to drive success. And you have to make sure you have those skills in order to perform those roles—or have the skills to lead people who will perform those roles.

So that’s pitfall number one.

Now let’s look at pitfall number two: beware of the ambush.

When we say “beware of the ambush,” the world is full of people with incomplete or uneducated opinions—and you might even have some of your own. We all have people in our lives who are full of good advice. They want to help us. They want to advise us. And when they share it, they mean well. But often their own perceptions are based on their own opinions and personal biases.

We’re not saying you should turn your back on these people and ignore them, because a lot of good questions come from these people with the things that they raise. But they might be stating something as a fact, and you might be thinking, “Well, I don’t know if it’s a fact or not.” Whether it’s a fact or not, it might be a good question for you to get more insight on.

So you should say something along the lines of, “Thank you very much, I’ll take it under advisement and dig a little deeper.” But don’t fall into the trap of following somebody’s advice when they don’t have any relevant expertise or knowledge on the subject.

See, the difference is listening for additional questions to ask versus blindly following and being influenced—either away from something that might be the right opportunity, or towards something that might not be the right opportunity.

Here’s an example: we had a recent client who spent almost four months in research. They spent several weeks talking with the franchisor to learn everything about the business. Then they went on and talked with over 12 existing franchisees to learn what a day, a week, a month in the life of the business looked like, and what were the roles it took to drive success. So they got a really good understanding of the business, and they thought it was the right business for them.

They went to a franchise lawyer and got all the perspectives of what the legal ramifications and the relationships were, and they were comfortable with it. Then they went to the accountant. Well, the accountant is supposed to give them advice on business structure and tax planning, and check that their business plan was sound.

But then the accountant told our client—in their opinion, the accountant’s opinion—all the things wrong with the business, even though they were not involved in the research at any time.

See, that’s an example of somebody in a professional position who went above and beyond their area of expertise and based advice strictly on opinion, not fact.

If you’re getting near the end of your research and somebody is challenging or offering you an opinion that’s contrary to your beliefs, you should be able to make a statement: “No, you’re wrong, and here’s why,” and give a defensible argument based on your research. Or, “Wow, that’s something I hadn’t considered. Let me check it out.”

That way, you’re able to stay in control of your own research process and not let other people take you too far off course.

If you’re going to be sharing your dreams and goals of business ownership with other people, you have to be ready to manage their expectations and their perceptions. Most people mean well and want to bring you questions and fear points, but if you’ve done good research, you should be able to listen to and communicate around each point, defend it, and move on to the next one.

My final comment on ambushes: it’s not other people’s jobs to solve your career challenges or opportunities. It’s your job to do that. So don’t let other people ambush you.

Pitfall number three: making fatal assumptions.

It’s completely reasonable to have your own list of assumptions when you’re going into the journey of self-employment research. But as you go through the journey, you want to make sure that those assumptions are validated as correct or inappropriate.

Let me say it a little differently: it’s reasonable to make initial assumptions, but it’s not okay to be guided by them. Instead, ask enough questions to be guided by facts.

As our clients start delving into research, they start with those initial assumptions and turn them into concerns. Then they ask the right questions so that they can get enough information. Does it satisfy the concern or not? And if the concerns were satisfied, they ended up buying that business—because they got enough facts.

We’ve also had some clients not be able to get past their initial assumptions, and they disengage from research very early. This is always unfortunate when I see that happen, because their optimum opportunity might have been right in front of them, and they didn’t give themselves a chance to see it and look into it.

I just want to take a moment here and talk about the last assumption, because this is one that’s fairly common and we really need to be clear about it.

You see, for a lot of people, the assumption when they buy a franchise—when they buy a brand—is that it’s the franchisor’s job to bring them customers. I would say to you that that is absolutely incorrect. It’s not the franchisor’s job to bring the franchisee the customers. It is the franchisor’s job to bring the franchisee a proven business model, a solid marketing system, staff engagement, staff training—all the things that the franchisor is part of, which is how to get and retain customers.

It is your job as the franchisee to execute the business model.

Let me say this a little differently: when you’re trying to figure out which business is the right business to buy, you want to go in with the mindset that brand is almost irrelevant. Yet so many people believe that if they buy a franchise with a strong brand, then the customers will just come. Build it, and they will come—it’s almost automatic.

And you know what? They’re probably going to be right the first few times. But if the franchisee can’t execute on the business model and therefore, as a result, can’t deliver on the brand promise, then here’s what’s going to happen:

The customer will come in the first time, and they’re probably not going to have a good experience. Because of proximity, they might come a second time. If they’ve had another not-so-good experience, they might not come back—and they might even tell some people. If they decide to come back a third time and still don’t have a good experience, now they’re going to social media.

The franchisor can do everything right in terms of marketing, branding, location selection. But if the franchisee does not execute the business model, then that business will fail—regardless of brand.

So when I say brand is almost irrelevant, it’s irrelevant until you’ve figured out that you can run the business.

My closing thought on making fatal assumptions is this: it’s the franchisee’s job to fully execute the business model, part of which includes how to attract and retain customers, and executing a marketing and sales strategy. Then, once your customers come in, deliver on all the fulfillment requirements in order to make sure that customer has an awesome experience.

So make sure you have the necessary transferable skills in order to execute the business model—instead of having to rely on the brand.

This concludes our discussion on pitfalls. In the next discussion, we’re going to be talking about how to find your optimum match.