 |
 |
|
 Print Friendly
 Email to Friend
|
|
How To Choose a Franchise
|
|
|
Article 4: Does The Franchise Fit Your Work Style?
Running a franchise is unlike being an employee. It’s also unlike being an independent business owner.
The very characteristics that make franchises successful (predetermined operating models) can be a straightjacket if you prefer autonomy. Although some characteristics of the entrepreneur are compatible with franchises, devoutly entrepreneurial personalities can feel constrained.
Franchising probably isn’t a good fit for innovators. That doesn’t mean the franchise itself shouldn’t be innovative. Indeed, Robert L. Purvin says, “You shouldn’t buy a franchise in a company that doesn’t innovate. They won’t succeed in the long term.”
To determine if your work style fit is snug or confining, ask yourself threshold questions.
Why are you even considering a franchise?
If you want to be your own boss, you should realize that many franchisors hold a tight rein and require that operations rigidly conform to specific rules and procedures.
“You are agreeing to follow as strictly as any employee ever did someone else’s system,” Purvin says.
Susan Kezios, president of the American Franchisee Association, works to educate prospective franchisees on what they are getting into.
“Most of these people think they are going to leave their jobs and not have a boss anymore, but they will just have a boss of a different kind,” Kezios says.
“When evaluating whether to buy,” Kezios says, your mindset should be that you’re investing your own money “to help somebody else grow their business. It’s not like owning [your] own business … [You] are renting a stream of income for a period.”
Once you understand that franchising is not quite owning your own business or quite being someone else’s employee, you can explore whether the nature of the work suits you.
“We tell people if they have never worked in that business before, they should at least get a part-time job while in their regular line of work,” Kezios says. “There are too many engineers who think owning a pizza place is the thing to do. You better work weekends and evenings in a submarine sandwich shop, so you know what it is to keep the food at the right temperature and deal with customers.”
“That might be the best tip I can give,” Kezios says. “I’ve seen enough executives in ties go running after they see what’s behind the scenes in a pizza restaurant when the dishwasher doesn’t show up.”
Do you want to work out of your home? Not only must you have extraordinary self-discipline, but you must also be prepared to lose camaraderie of co-workers.
Build a business based on what you know you are capable of doing. Are you a middle manager jettisoned from corporate America? Are you comfortable in that familiar corporate pecking order with close oversight? Or do you respond best to looser supervision?
Do you like people? Executive skills in large corporations don’t necessarily transfer to smaller, more personal networks.
Do you like these people? If you enjoy being boss, do you prefer white-collar professional subordinates or dirt-under-the-fingernail blue-colors? Can you relate to the rank-and-file or are you more comfortable rubbing shoulders with executives?
Perhaps you don’t even desire to supervise others or to take orders. A franchise that requires a load of personal selling and marketing may be more up your alley rather than one locking you into a rigid administrative role.
Obviously, a retail location operating 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week is far different than a business-to-business consulting service that sets its own hours. Fast-food restaurants are demanding, but managing a network of resellers from home allows flexibility.
People coming out of corporate America’s upper management will probably never find the same type of challenge because they won’t have as many levels of underlings to administer. The greatest work style adjustment may be changing from an executive in charge into a jack-of-all-trades much more directly responsible for all aspects of an operation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Print Friendly
Email to Friend
|
|
|
 |
|
|
How To Choose A Franchise
|
 |
|
|
 |
| Select an online seminar from the Success Skills Archives:
|
|
|
 |
|
|
If you liked
this seminar, check out these related topics:
|
|
