Happy New Year!!!!

How To Match A Franchise To Your Personality

With thousands of franchises for an array of budgets available for purchase, you may wonder, “How do I narrow down my search?”

Start your research with yourself. You can eliminate certain sectors that probably are not a good match for your personality and start to focus on franchises where you can maximize your chances for success.

Maybe you’re the sort of person who is comfortable focusing on your work at a desk for hours at a time, pouring over Excel sheets, charts, and graphs. Or possibly, you prefer interacting with people, a front-of-the-shop type personality, great at making people feel comfortable walking through your doors and coming back again and again.

Each of those strengths is fantastic!

A franchise coach is an important resource to help you locate franchise opportunities you may have not yet considered to match your personality and expertise.

We always suggest you play to your strengths. Consider these core areas:

Management Strength

Can you or have you ever managed people? If you have experience managing people, so much the better, but if you don’t and need to manage employees in a franchise you have your eye on, don’t panic. So long as the business isn’t management focused, the franchisor will have support services to help you learn to manage employees. If management is your strength, you might consider a maid service, catering, or retail.

Business Development/Natural Salesperson

Growing your business involves selling, but these days, most franchises don’t require cold calling. Rather, you will likely spend more time networking to get your name out among people who could use your product or service in their businesses.

What’s great about franchises is you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Franchises will have programs to help you get started. If you’re the type of person who is comfortable giving presentations, attending industry or Chamber of Commerce meetings, businesses like workplace drug testing or medical staffing might be for you. Other franchises, like a painting company, might rely on outside companies to do much of your marketing.

Detail-Oriented

If you like to keep your finger on the pulse of absolutely everything, from the number of hours your employees work to inventory control, you should use this talent to get into some of the businesses that reward a good head for detail, such as a hair salon or a home decorating business. Still, depending on the size of your business, even the most particular owner will need to learn to delegate.

Relationship Builder

Do you love establishing new relationships, building and strengthening ties between yourself, your vendors, your customers and then networking outward? You might want to consider senior care, home modifications for seniors or water damage repair.

Any business, such as academic tutoring or alternative energy solutions, where word-of-mouth is critical favors relationship builders.

People Person

Just as you wouldn’t choose to spend your career working in a lab hunched over a microscope if you craved meeting new people all the time, likewise, you likely wouldn’t choose a business that required a lot of time in the back room. You want a business where you have an opportunity to meet lots of new people and capitalize on your talent for making people feel comfortable making a purchase. While the retail or restaurant businesses might be obvious choices, there are so many more franchise types in which a people person can flourish, such as selling IT services to other businesses or modifying homes for seniors or the disabled.

If you’re not sure about your greatest strengths, interview people you know. Sometimes, friends and family members might recognize talents you tend to take for granted.

Worried About Starting Your Own Business? Try A Franchise

Tired of having little control over your work life? You may be ready to take the leap and become your own boss. Before you balk, owning your own business isn’t as risky as it sounds. In fact, if you look before you leap, the potential upside should outweigh the risk.

For one thing, you don’t have to start from scratch. You can find a tried and true method for starting your own business that comes with all the systems in place, from a marketing strategy to IT.

All you have to do is choose a franchise that stands up to high-level scrutiny and meets your own business and personal criteria. And you can forever slip off the constraints of punching someone else’s time clock.

The franchise business is a far cry from your father’s idea of franchising —which grew quickly along with interstate highway system in the 1950s and 1960s and primarily comprised fast food joints and hotels, notably McDonald’s and Holiday Inn.

Today, the franchise business is a far bigger pie than you probably realize. Franchises operate within 75 industries and encompass far more than fast food. In fact, whatever business you started in most likely has applications in some type of franchise business.

A franchise coach can help you choose from a wide array of opportunities in businesses as diverse as direct mail, maid services and senior care services. These and similar service businesses are expected to lead the growth in franchising over the next year, according to the International Franchise Association.

The key to recharging your career in a franchise is to answer the question: Which franchise is right for me?

First, you’ll want to assess your skills and experience, along with your interests. What do you want to spend your days doing? Or maybe you want something where you can work less than full time. All is possible in the world of franchising.

How do you know it’s a good franchise? You just get the Federal Trade Commission required disclosure document from the franchisor, read it, and start calling franchisees. They’ll tell you. The more thorough your research, the better off you’ll be.

Before you spend a dime on your new business, you can learn about the franchise company’s:

• Support services
• Training
• All upfront and ongoing costs
• Number, location and success rate of franchisees
• Financial condition, bankruptcy and litigation history, as well as the executives’backgrounds
• And, most importantly, firsthand testimonials from franchisees on how all this actually works

As you gain skills as a business owner, your long-range earnings potential exceeds what you will likely earn as a cog in the wheel of corporate America. Most people realize that when you work for corporate America you probably make a lot more money for your employer than you make for yourself.  When you own a successful business, you can keep both of those types of profit for yourself.

When you work for yourself, your risk can actually decline over time because your employees are better trained, your suppliers are more willing to give you special terms and your customer base is more established. Best of all, you control your own destiny.

Certainly, franchising isn’t for everyone. If you’re the type of person who wants to make a unique impression in the market and  you don’t wish to follow someone else’s system, then do not buy a franchise. You may instead want to consider buying an existing business or starting your own.

But if you can follow a simple set of guidelines, you might be able to find wealth, liquidity, and success through a franchise.

Ready For A Career Switch? Consider A Franchise

If you feel like you’ve spent too long in your job, are bored and losing hope of advancement, don’t despair. Take charge and consider starting a business of your own to fully realize your talents.

A great way to minimize your risk is to consider a franchise — which offers hundreds of ways to start anew as a business owner. You get to be the boss while taking advantage of the experience of other franchisees and an operating system that has been tested over time to help maximize your chance for success.

All you have to do is be willing to follow the franchisor’s system. If you are, you can reap the rewards for yourself. Not only do you get to take charge of your day-to-day life — no more clearing days off with six layers of bureaucracy — you have the potential for far greater income than you ever would stagnating as a management executive.

As a matter of fact, most millionaires in the United States made their money by operating their own businesses, according to a study by the authors of “The Millionaire Next Door,” Thomas Stanley and William Danko.

Franchises offer a way to reduce your learning curve in a business you may have no experience in. With more than 3,000 franchisors in 75 industries to choose from, the hard part is making the right choice, which is why it’s so important to do your research and consult expert advice.

Your reward for doing your due diligence is the potential payoff of operating a successful business.

5 Tangible Advantages Of Franchising

With a franchise, you get:

A Proven System

A franchise operation has over time developed a system, complete with specifications on how to set up the operation, hire employees and run an advertising program. In addition, you get advertising material and computer software. All of these elements help you succeed. Of course, some franchises are better than others, and your research should help you weed out the worst and find the right match for your talents and expertise.

Support And Training

The franchisor will teach you how to do it all, and the company offers ongoing support to get you through the learning phase. You will get to meet the support staff and become acquainted with the corporate culture before signing any contracts, so you can ensure a copacetic working environment for the long term.

Lots Of Available Information About The Business

The single most important source of information you have about this new business is the experience of franchisees.  You will be encouraged to speak to many of the franchisees – as many as it takes for you to fully understand exactly what the business is like. They can tell you how the system has worked for them, if the numbers add up as promised, if the company has been good to work with and whether they are making the kind of money they expected. Remember to expect regional differences.

Franchise Disclosure Document

By federal law, every franchise must disclose a great deal of pertinent information in its FDD. Once you show yourself a serious potential buyer, they will provide you a document written in standard English, no legalize allowed, that has 23 items. The FDD covers everything from the franchisor’s business experience, litigation or bankruptcy history, a complete accounting of all costs you should expect, from startup fees to royalties, restrictions on the sale of the business and a complete list of current and former franchisees.

Higher Success Rate

Franchises generally have a higher success rate than independent businesses. From my experience, we feel we can confidently say our clients can achieve a 90 percent or better success rate, as a result of the research we walk them through. A recent study shows that 91 percent of franchises were still in business after two years, and 85 percent were still in business after five years. Even with all the above items available to reduce risk, you can still get in over your head if you don’t plan for enough capital to get you through the start-up phase to profitability.

 

Want To Buy A Franchise? Be Prepared To Follow The Model!

If you want to go into business for yourself, one of the best ways to get started is with a good franchise, particularly if you have no experience in the business you choose.

A franchise can lower the risk of starting a new business for two main reasons. First, you can learn everything you need to know to succeed before you pay out any money, and second, the business comes with a time-tested model that has been shown to work for dozens, if not hundreds, of people before you.

All you have to do is operate the system as designed.

During your period of investigation, you learn everything the system entails. If you don’t think you can do any part of it, this is the time to opt out. Once you buy the business, you should be comfortable with the system and have confidence you can follow it.

Don’t despair if the first franchise you investigate has a system that doesn’t work for you. There are franchise systems to suit every range of talents and experience.

For example, if you don’t like to cold call potential customers, you shouldn’t buy a franchise that requires that kind of sales. There are plenty of franchises in which the customer finds you.

If you don’t want to hire employees, don’t start a business that will require staffing to grow. There are plenty of choices where you can work on your own. A good franchise coach can help steer you toward businesses that suit you best.

The one thing you want to avoid is hitching your star to a business you think you can remake to suit your skill set.

We had a client who was once the fastest growing franchise in his region who for some reason didn’t want to hire the necessary staff to cope with customer demand. As a result, he ended up strangling his business. Instead of growing, he stagnated.

Another reason people sometimes don’t want to hire necessary staff is because they don’t want to spend the money or they think they can do the work themselves. Then it gets to be too late. They’re so overwhelmed by their business; they don’t have time to hire someone to help.

The lesson: If you liked the business model enough to buy it, use it! That is the way to maximize your earnings.

Merry Christmas

From all of us at

How2Franchise & Franchise News 24

We wish you a Merry Christmas

and a

Fantastic New Year!

Mister Tacho

Closed For Christmas

8 End-of-the-Year Tips for Entrepreneurs

The holiday season means different things for different companies.  For some, it’s the busiest time of the year.  For others, business wanes as customers focus their attention elsewhere.

Regardless of which end of the scale your business falls, consider these tips to get the most out of the last month of the year:

1. Reflect on what worked – and what didn’t. Congratulate yourself on the things that went right in 2016.  You devote enormous amounts of time and energy to your business. It’s important to celebrate the victories along the way.

2. Meet with your accountant. With the year almost over, you can get a clear picture of how your business numbers look for 2016 and what you may need to do next year.  The operative word here is “may” since no one knows (yet) what the new presidential administration will mean for businesses.

3. Expect holiday schedules. People like to take time off during this time of the year.  Anticipate this and plan around it.

4. Donate. Make any last-minute tax deductible contributions that you’ll want to take for 2016.

5. Thank your customers and vendors. You wouldn’t have a business without them.

6. Thank your employees. You wouldn’t have a business without them, either.  Let them know how much you appreciate their support!

7. Carve out some quiet time. The stress of the holiday season can be magnified for entrepreneurs — especially if you have adult children, grandchildren or other relatives staying with you this month. Give yourself some tranquility by getting up a half hour earlier – or going to bed a half hour later – than your houseguests.

8. Get a jump on 2017. Don’t wait until January to make New Year’s resolutions. Use the weeks in December to set goals so you can hit the ground running.

One more thought: Many people become entrepreneurs because they want to control their schedules. Why not take advantage of this flexibility to spend time with family and friends during the holidays?  That’s what makes the season truly special.

5 Reasons In-Person Meetings Still Matter

Here are five reasons:

1.Reduced distractions

How many times have you attended a virtual meeting only to be sidetracked by incoming emails from your colleagues or boss?  I am guilty; we all are. It is simply unavoidable.  
A recent InterCall survey found that of the 340 marketers surveyed, only 62 percent said they would log on from their office. Yet, more than a quarter of respondents were attending from bed (14 percent), their car (9 percent) or from the beach or swimming pool (5 percent)!

When attending an in-person event those innate virtual distractions are removed for participants. Also, it may sound odd, but the peer pressure of the other attendees in the room helps to keep attention on speakers.

2.Beyond the content

When event-goers pony up cash, invest time and take a flight to attend; they’re committed. And these attendees are more likely to take part in breakout sessions, post-event dinners and other networking events, leading to a more involved and complete experience.

Related: These 5 Mistakes Make Meetings a Huge Time Waste

When meetings are held in-person, there is a unique opportunity to get creative and leave a lasting impression about your brand and company culture. A live experience means that attendees can engage multiple senses that just cannot be duplicated with a computer.

3.Comfort zone eliminated

There is something invigorating about being in a room full of people who are as excited to talk about the same topic as you are. It can renew attendees’ excitement and focus about the topic of discussion.

Attendees are physically in a room with others that have the same learning goal but different backgrounds. This allows for meaningful relationships to grow beyond their industries.

4. Networking hurdles removed

Behind the screen is a not an effective place to meet people. The hurried nature of online events may help attendees “meet” a larger number of people, but the virtual world allows for less quality time to interact with others. 

An article, which recently appeared in Psychology Today, suggests that too much time behind a screen could hinder people’s ability to recognize emotions — a vital tool for building successful social relationships.

5. Let’s keep this ‘off the record’

When attending an in-person event, there is an opportunity to speak more freely in one-on-one situations. There is also a heightened sense of trust when meeting with someone in person vs. just speaking online — and less of a chance something will be taken out of context.

The next time you consider whether there is enough room on the budget to meet in person, consider these points. While the time and cost is a greater investment, it is worth exploring to reach the goals your organization is looking to achieve.