You might be asking yourself, is now the right time in life to consider franchise ownership? It may or may not be. I can help you look at a couple of things to see if it’s even worth looking at during this moment in your life. I’m talking about your expectations for yourself. Let’s look at a few key things that you want to consider before you take that step of exploring business ownership.
Your Research
The first thing to consider is the amount of time it takes to properly do research. It probably takes 15 to 20 hours a week over a two to three-month period to properly research a new franchise. Consider, do you have that kind of time? You also want to look at when you are going to do the research. If you’re going to be talking to a franchisor, they may want to have daytime calls. When you start speaking with existing franchisees, you’re probably not going to get them in the evening. So you will want to make sure you have the ability to take some breaks from your current work to balance some of the 15 hours of research every week.
Your Investment
What about the investment level? Have you figured out what your investment comfort zone is, and where funding might come from? More importantly, have you talked with your spouse or partner about that level of investment? And are you both on the same page? Have you spoken with your spouse about this endeavor and agreed upon the next steps? I have seen many partners not on the same page, and that is not the way you want to begin this next chapter of your career. It is very critical to involve the spouse in the exploration journey.
Your Goals
The final consideration is answering some very important personal questions: What do I want to achieve through business ownership? What are my short-term, mid-term and long-term goals? What are my must-have, must-not-have, and would-be-nice-to-have criteria? This part is something you don’t have to worry about or go into too much detail at this stage because this is the type of work that I do – helping guide people’s franchise search.
We get into helping you define and crystallize your goals, your criteria, the investment levels, and all the critical elements. So you want to ask yourself: Is it worth investing time and energy into exploring potential franc nose ownership options, now? Might there be something out there that’s better for me than what I’m working at now?
I hope to have the opportunity of helping you figure this out, and then guiding your search. Book a session and let’s get started!
