The
short answer is: “It depends.”
And what it depends on is largely based around which franchise offers a proven
and validated business model that aligns with your skills, goals, ideal role as
the owner, and offers you the highest probability to achieve your lifestyle and
financial long-term goals.
Sorry, boring answer.
What’s hot isn’t always what’s right for
you
Leading with the question “what is the hottest franchise?” can lead you down
the wrong path. It tends to create a focus on the widget (i.e. product or
service) that a particular franchise offers which can lead to making a decision
largely based on the “hot” trend that a franchise may be riding and not
drilling down deep enough to understand if the role of the owner in building
the business matches your skills, strengths and wants.
In my experience, this can be a dangerous path to follow as it can mislead
someone to not evaluate the totality of the franchise business and lay all the
factors against the personal criteria that help to ensure a good long-term fit.
In a nutshell, the reality of being the owner of a “hot” franchise and actually
running the daily aspects of the business may not be what you want to be doing
day in and day out.
Chasing the “hot” franchise is almost like chasing the “hot” stock. Chasing the
hot stock is generally a strategy to follow when searching for short-term
returns (a nice way of saying “get rich quick”). However, unless you are an
outstanding day trader, rarely will this approach achieve your long-term goals.
The same logic applies to starting a franchise or any business that matter –
there is no shortcut to entrepreneurial success. When formulating a long-term
more reliable investment strategy, the conventional advice is to build a
portfolio using the help of a financial adviser that is comprised of a diverse
mix of investment assets – some that produce short terms returns, but mostly
comprised of historically proven performers in stable industries that offer a
safer bet for long-term returns to help achieve one’s financial goals for
retirement.
There are thousands of different
franchises out there, how do you know what is right for you?
Investing in a franchise that is the right fit for you is more analogous to the
process you followed to build your long-term financial and investment plan. You
probably worked with a financial adviser who helped you to lay out your
personal and family’s long-term financial goals and then built an investment
plan that put you on a path towards those goals. Good financial advisers drill
down deep to understand your risk tolerance, utilize tax-efficient methods to
maximize your returns, take into account non-retirement financial goals such as
savings for kid’s college funds, and a host of other details that help to
ensure you have a plan in place that gives you the highest probability of
achieving your long-term goals.
Over the decade or so I’ve worked with franchisees and prospective franchisees,
I’ve had the pleasure of helping hundreds of people make the life-changing
decision to start their own business and invest in a franchise that was the
right fit for them. Many of these folks have gone on to build a life for
themselves and their families that they had only dreamt about. And what’s very
interesting is that just about all of the happiest and most successful folks I’ve
worked with ended up investing in and starting a franchise business they had
never thought of or heard of before. Furthermore, they would have never
researched in the first place because they would have dismissed as a potential
franchise opportunity solely based on the widget the business provided.
Should you follow your passion?
Be careful. I’ve seen people fall into the trap of starting a business that
aligns with a particular passion. I say trap because passion doesn’t always
align with the realities of building a business that is financially viable.
Just because you are passionate about it, doesn’t mean it is a good business.
Furthermore, following a passion to start a business can quickly lead to
someone losing that passion because your passion becomes your work. As the
business owner, you have a lot of other obligations to build a successful
business which you might not be passionate about.
Mike Rowe, most notably known as the host of the Discovery Channel’s show Dirty
Jobs, offers an interesting opinion about following passion…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=CVEuPmVAb8o
So, if not “hot” franchises nor your
passion, what should you follow?
Start with your WHY…
Do you enjoy helping other people solve a problem?
Do you enjoy motivating other people to achieve goals?
Do you like working hard to achieve a personal goal you have?
Do you enjoy leading and managing people like you want to without combatting
politics or organization bureaucracy?
Do you want to build a business where you can put your skills to use and build
something that enables you to achieve more personally?
Are you comfortable pursuing opportunities that others don’t see?
Business ownership is an opportunity for many people to create something for
themselves and achieve the vision they have for themselves and their family.
Everyone’s vision is different and highly personal. Some people want to spend
more time with their families and get off the road. Some people want to stop
building wealth for other people and shareholders, and build an asset for
themselves. Some people want to put their skills and abilities to use in their
own business and get away from the trials and tribulations of working in large
corporations.
Whatever it is you want to achieve, the first step is identifying it and
rolling it into a vision. Your vision will become your passion that fuels you
to achieve it.
The next step is researching different businesses to find the one that offers
you the highest possibility of success in achieving your vision.
The final step is working hard to build your business to make your vision a
reality.
Click here to download an exercise that can help you define your WHY and create
your vision.
“Follow opportunity, not passion”
Did you catch that piece of advice from Mike Rowe?
Many of the best franchises available are in fact businesses that were started
because the founder saw an opportunity that other people didn’t.
1-800-Got-Junk
Brian Scudamore started 1-800-Got-Junk because he saw an opportunity to
professionalize a fragmented industry and build the Fed-Ex of junk removal. He
wasn’t passionate about junk. He wanted to be a ski bum and needed a way to pay
for college. One day, he saw a ratty-tatty junk removal truck driving by and
recognized there was an opportunity to professionalize the business. He created
a vision, wrote it down on a piece of paper and started building the business.
He quickly saw success and wanted to help other people enjoy his success so he
invested in infrastructure, systemized his business, hired a staff of
professionals and made his business model available to others through a
franchise.
$100 MM+ dollars in system-wide revenue and over one hundred locations later,
1-800-Got-Junk is a household name. This organization has been so successful
that every franchise opportunity in the US has virtually been sold. I can
confidently say that each and every 1-800-Got-Junk franchise owner is just like
Brian – they were passionate about their vision, not junk. Each owner knew that
starting and building their own business was the only way to achieve their
vision. Rather than reinventing the wheel, they did their diligence and decided
1-800-Got-Junk offered them the opportunity to reach their vision.
Final thoughts
The decision to open start your own business is a massive decision. By starting
with your WHY and creating a vision that you can get passionate about you’re
setting yourself up for success in whatever business you decide you start.
These two key elements will help open your mind to business opportunities that
you may have been overlooking and ultimately lead you down the right path to
figure out which business is going to get you where you want to go.
If you’re serious about starting
your own business this year or perhaps making a career change and are curious
if investing in a franchise is something that could be a good fit, I’m happy to
chat with you and share with you all that I know about franchising (and I’ll
never ask you for a dime).
Just find a time on my calendar that is most
convenient for you and I’ll call you then. You can access my calendar online
here: https://calendly.com/dcarpenito/intro
Cheers to your success!
-Dru