While it may seem counter-intuitive, starting your own business can actually be your low-risk career move. That’s because continuing as an employee is a risky proposition in today’s economy. The data shows that the longer you remain an employee, the higher your risk of being laid off or downsized, while the longer you remain a business owner, the lower your risk of finding yourself without a job.

While it’s true that the first year of business ownership can be riskier than the first year of new employment, just like building equity in a new house, you create a future with a business of your own. One of the reasons starting a business from scratch carries risks is that you have to operationalize your vision. You need to figure out the cost of your expenditures — for everything from marketing, setting up an office, hiring employees, etc. — to get your business off the ground. Then, the big question is how much revenue will you earn to cover those expenditures? And do you have the capital to keep it running while you figure it all out? Obviously, revenue-building is a gradual process as you establish a customer base. Unless you’ve done it before, you have to guess your likely costs and eventual revenue. A great way to minimize your risk and remove the guesswork is to invest in a franchise — where everything has been done many times before. A good franchise already has a proven operating system that can nearly guarantee success — so long as you’re committed to follow that system. Sure, being a business owner requires entrepreneurial thinking, but so does being an employee these days. Employment experts now estimate employees will need to reinvent themselves every three years. The difference is business owners get to keep all of their profits. So when you factor in the reduced risk of buying into a great franchise system and the increased risk of continuing as an employee, it certainly seems worthwhile to start looking into whether you might be able to find the perfect franchise to match your interests and your skills and take control of your career destiny.

The Perks Of A Good Franchise Include:

A system of support and training.

Not only will you have lots of phone and in-person meetings before you ever sign any contracts, you will also have training for yourself and your employees on everything from how to set up your store or office to ongoing support to answer questions as they arise.

A network of fellow franchisees.

As part of your research, you should interview lots of franchisees to see how they’re doing, whether the franchisor has lived up to its promises and whether they would make the same purchase again. Are their profits what they expected? This group can offer invaluable insight into the ongoing issues they face in the very same business you will enter.

Knowledge of how much it will cost.

All franchise companies are required by law to file a Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD), which lists everything from the initial and ongoing costs, plus details on operations. Some franchisors will even list earnings claims.

A full accounting of potential financial pitfalls.

You can also learn in the FDD if the franchisor has any financial irregularities in his past, from litigation to a history of bankruptcy filings. Other questions you can get answered include: What types of restrictions might exist for selling the franchise? How are territories allotted? After all, you don’t want the same business locating across the street from you. While you can learn a great deal from your own research, we also strongly recommend you consult a franchise attorney and accountant to help with some of the fine print. A good franchise coach, who has already vetted many of the franchises, can also offer invaluable advice as you go through your selection process. So, when you open your business, you can feel confident that you’ve got all the answers you need to succeed.

Ready to make your dream of becoming an entrepreneur come true? Get your free evaluation today! Contact Dan Citrenbaum to help you create the career you’ve always wanted. As a business coach, Dan brings years of experience helping people select and buy a franchise or existing business. You can reach Dan at dcitrenbaum@gmail.com or at (484) 278-4589. 

Always wanted a career that allowed you do well and do good? Whether that be tutoring, promoting the use of green energy or helping people cope with aging, franchising offers many opportunities to advance your career while satisfying your spiritual goals.

For starters, you can enter a career based solely on interests rather than experience, allowing you to make a clean break from a 9-to-5 existence that provides no personal fulfillment and toward something about which you care deeply. So if you hate spending your days looking at spreadsheets full of numbers or selling the latest throwaway widgets from China and wish you could have a direct impact on people’s lives, a franchise can give you the tools you need to succeed in this entirely new line of work. A good franchiser will help train and guide you in your new profession and offer a proven system for operating your business. You will also gain the advantage of a network of franchisees, who can offer additional support and expertise. By contrast, with an independent startup, you would have to figure out your operating model from scratch and guess how much working capital you will need to succeed. With a franchise, you can get answers to your questions: How much money will it take to get your business up and running and how long will it take to get to profitability? And you can find out well before laying out any money whether you have the skills and the inclination to operate this type of business.

5 Steps To Feel-Good Franchising

In five simple steps, find your way to a feel-good franchise that is right for you.

1. Set Your Goal

You need to figure out exactly how you want to have an impact on your world. Look around and notice the arenas in which you might have the most to contribute, whether this connects more to personal skills, such as sales expertise, or interests, such as working with children. Browse the web. Make lists.

2. Inventory Your Personal And Professional Strengths

You may not want to stay in your current career, but what skills have you gained that can transfer well to another field: Are you good with people? Do you have a knack for the mechanical? Are you detail-oriented? Or do you prefer to work on your own? You will likely fare better in a field where you can draw on strengths you’ve honed over years of professional development.

3. Research Franchise Categories

Let’s say you want to help improve the environment but know nothing about environmental science. Did you know there are franchises that help people adapt their homes with everything from insulation to solar panels. Or maybe you want to work with children. You’ll find everything from tutoring to child care among franchise opportunities.

4. Meet With A Franchise Coach

Get a whole extra layer of extra vetting through the franchise coach, whose profession it is to study different franchisors and whether their support systems are up to snuff. Their experience matching clients with franchises makes them a font of expertise about why some systems work better than others.

5. Talk To Franchisees

Once you have selected a franchise or two to research in depth, get their Franchise Disclosure Documents — which they are required by law to provide to prospective franchisees — and find the list of franchisees, currently operating and defunct. Write up your list of questions — you may want to consult your franchise coach for help with these — make your calls. Politely ask them for their time, then, at their convenience, learn how they’re doing, whether they would buy this franchise again, and how long it took for them to start operating in the black. If you’re ready to find meaning in a career of your choosing and expand your financial horizons, start your five steps to feel-good franchising today!

About the author

Ready to make your dream of becoming an entrepreneur come true? Get your free evaluation today! Contact Dan Citrenbaum to help you create the career you’ve always wanted. As a business coach, Dan brings years of experience helping people select and buy a franchise or existing business. You can reach Dan at dcitrenbaum@gmail.com or at (484) 278-4589.

Franchisors offer incentives to help veterans start their own franchises.

Don’t know anything about starting a business but are determined to take control of your employment destiny?

If you’re a military veteran, the International Franchise Association (IFA) thinks you’re particularly well-equipped for a franchise. And they’ve got a program to help you take a leap into entrepreneurship and a career in which you can use the skills you’ve acquired in the military.

VetFran was founded as a special program within the IFA in 1991 to help veterans returning from the first Gulf War as a way to thank veterans for their service, according to the IFA.

Then in 2011, the IFA launched Operation Enduring Opportunity, a partnership with several organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, to help the large influx of veterans transitioning to civilian life get into franchise careers. The program has been a great success.

Through VetFran, many franchisors will waive 10 percent to 25 percent of the franchise fee, which can help veterans hire staff as they get their new businesses up and running.

In the last three years, more than 150,000 veterans have started careers in franchising, more than 5,000 as franchise owners. Now, one out of every seven franchise businesses is owned by a veteran of the U.S. military, according the IFA.

This is clearly a win-win partnership for both sides.

Franchising offers one of the very best paths to starting your own business for those with little or no experience in the business. With a proven system, training and ongoing support, novices get a franchise team to show them the way to success, helping them troubleshoot the rough spots along the way. As the IFA points out, the system is not dissimilar to the structure of military life.

While veterans can expect a little extra special treatment as thanks for their service to the country, franchise companies benefit from the particular strengths veterans bring to the franchise.

Before you or a veteran you know starts second-guessing all the ways he or she is not qualified for a career in franchising, consider the following list, compiled from articles written by Franchisors or IFA officials.

The Treasured Traits of Veterans Prized by Franchisors

Integrity and Honor

Ingrained through their military training, veterans learn firsthand the importance of executing orders with dedication to accomplish a common goal.

Respect for Rules of Operation

A military operation requires everyone to do his job. A franchise requires franchisees to follow the proven system of the franchise company to succeed. In both one person implements a plan prepared by others with proven experiences.

Leadership Training

Business ownership requires the type of leadership the military teaches. An owner is responsible for the business, its employees and, of course, accountable to its customers.

Discipline

When the buck stops with you, you need a disciplined work ethic, especially during the early days as you build your business to profitability.

Character

Overcoming obstacles, an everyday activity for soldiers in the military, builds the kind of character necessary for business ownership.

Teamwork

In the military, soldiers learn to put the success of the mission ahead of their own interests. This dedication to teamwork well suits the needs of franchisees to work with franchisors in a cooperative manner to maximize success.

To pursue the opportunity available through VetFran, veterans should check out the website and complete the toolkit at www.vetfran.com/toolkit-sign-up/. You’ll find a list of franchises that offer incentives to veterans, as well as greater detail on what it takes to purchase a franchise, such as investment of capital and time for research.

Ready to make your dream of becoming an entrepreneur come true?

Get your free evaluation today!

Contact Dan Citrenbaum to help you create the career you’ve always wanted. As a franchise coach, Dan brings years of experience helping people select and buy a franchise or existing business. You can reach Dan at dcitrenbaum@gmail.com or at (484)278-4589.

© Dan Citrenbaum 2023

Imagine you could build a business of your own, bring in extra income, and still find time for hours of leisure, hobbies — or your full-time job. Sound appealing? Franchising offers just this opportunity with a specific category designed for the part-time owner. Called semi-absentee, these franchises are perfect for the early retiree looking for an additional source of income or for folks who aren’t ready to leave their jobs but want to start planning for the future. Some may just want a little extra stimulation and a way to bring in some extra money. Semi-absentee franchises tend to be storefronts, business types where customers find you. Examples include hair salons, nutritional products, and ice cream or yogurt. A semi-absentee franchise usually relies on a manager to run the shop, while the owner manages the manager. The franchise company gives you the tools and technology so that you can know exactly what’s going on in the business, even if you don’t visit it. If your plan is to one day leave your job to be in business for yourself, it can be a great relief to know you’ve created this viable second career that you control, and that the business is already earning a good income before you hand in your resignation. You will need a talent for multitasking, but if you can juggle a couple of tasks per day, a semi-absentee may be a business avenue worth investigating. Still, if you’re one of those people who plans to keep a full-time job while running a business on the side, you may find yourself burning the candle at both ends, a schedule that’s not for everyone. The financial payoff can be significant. A typical semi-absentee hair salon, for example, might net you $70,000 per year. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but if you expand to five stores, like the average owner, you not only benefit from economies of scale, but now you’re generating a very nice annual income, indeed. With this model, an owner might own three or five or ten locations. In addition to the store managers, a larger operator will hire a general manager. Then, the general manager manages the store managers, and the owner still has only one or two direct reports. That’s how one owner can own many locations, but still work only 15 hours a week. Managing a multi-store business certainly requires a good head for detail, but by this time, you may be interested in leaving your day job. And you can still find plenty of time for a regular game of golf or bridge. Document. And unlike independent businesses, which have to make educated guesses, you have a network of other franchisees to help guide the way. 

Ready to make your dream of becoming an entrepreneur come true? Get your free evaluation today! Contact Dan Citrenbaum to help you create the career you’ve always wanted. As a business coach, Dan brings years of experience helping people select and buy a franchise or existing business. You can reach Dan at dcitrenbaum@gmail.com or at (484) 278-4589.

Bob Riesenbach happily left behind corporate America to forge his own path building a business of his own, even if that has meant working as many hours as he did in corporate America.

Is there a catch? Not when you love what you do and know it’s all for you!

Mirroring the desires of many MBA-ers of his generation, Riesenbach always dreamed of starting his own business, and so, after 23 years of working for big corporations, he left his marketing position at a large retail chain of convenience stores and ventured out on his own without a safety net.

“I was tired of bureaucracy and politics,” he said, so he started researching his options. While he started looking at businesses for sale, he didn’t find much in his area beyond pizza joints and bars.

Before long, he decided a franchise made the most sense because “I didn’t want to start from scratch, and I thought I could learn from other people’s experiences,” he said.

After meeting a franchise coach at a Philadelphia area networking meeting, Riesenbach started looking closely at several franchise possibilities, eventually choosing to buy a franchise that took the most advantage of the skills he had spent his career acquiring.

Almost four years down the road, Riesenbach is happily building his new business, CMIT Solutions of Cherry Hill, a provider of information technology services for small and mid-sized businesses, with the support of a strong network of fellow franchisees.

“The strength of the organization comes from our partnership with other owners,” Riesenbach explained. The franchisor sets up formal networking groups, and he talks to fellow owners at least once a week.

Advantages of a franchise include fully vetted resources, such as vendors, marketing services, and annual conventions. Franchisees have the ability to leverage the size of their network to attain for clients discounted prices on services from vendors, such as Dell, that would likely not be available to a small independent business.

Riesenbach’s company continues to grow. He has been honored by his franchisor as Rookie of the Year, and has also received honors from other local business organizations, including the Philadelphia Business Journal.

Riesenbach’s top tips for prospective franchisees:

1. Look for a good match with your skill level and interests.
2. Talk to a lot of existing franchise owners, whose contact information can be found in the Franchise Disclosure Document. Don’t only talk to those the franchisor may recommend.
3. When people say “Why not just do it on your own, so you don’t have to pay royalties,” ignore those people… I feel I’m getting a lot more value than I’m paying for.
4. Have realistic expectations – Know it takes a while to get a new business going.
5. Be prepared to work hard.

Ready to make your dream of becoming an entrepreneur come true?

Get your free evaluation today!

Contact Dan Citrenbaum to help you create the career you’ve always wanted. As a franchise coach, Dan brings years of experience helping people select and buy a franchise or existing business. You can reach Dan at dcitrenbaum@gmail.com or at (484) 278-4589.

© Dan Citrenbaum 2023

So, you’re thinking about opening a little shop around the corner where your friends can always find the bauble of their dreams or, perhaps, a charming little bed and breakfast to be your own vacation paradise. Maybe you’ve got the TV ideals in mind, like the bar in “Cheers” — “Where everybody knows your name” — or the little Vermont inn that Bob Newhart called home for years. But running a business is much more than sugar plums and fairies. Your most important consideration: The business of the business. While it’s good to have lots of ideas and a passion for creating a business you enjoy, you don’t want to skip the mundane-but-essential practicalities. The danger: Instead of getting the business of your dreams, you may end up with an efficient mechanism for draining your savings.

5 Basic Questions To Help You Get The Numbers And Sense

So, while you enjoy the romantic ideal, ask yourself the practical questions so you can determine if this ‘dream business’ endeavor is really for you.

Do you mind getting to work at 5:30 a.m.?

Because when it comes to that little B&B or a coffee shop, that’s when business hours begin. Or maybe even earlier. When it comes to the hospitality business, if the customer has a problem, the buck stops with you – day or night.

Will your marketing generate sufficient earnings?

You may think you have the perfect concept to attract folks who didn’t know they needed what you have to offer. And maybe you do. But you’ll need to know how to generate buzz. Then keep them coming for more.

Have you figured out how much sales you need to cover your costs?

While you need to be prepared with sufficient capital to run your business until you can earn a profit, if the romance — high-end design, fancy Italian espresso machine — in your shop costs more than your earnings will ever cover, you will have a problem.

Will the local labor pool support your needs?

Hiring and retaining a good staff is critical. Can you find the workers you need in your area? Are you prepared to manage a staff to promote conscientious reliability?

Are you prepared to work 50-plus hours per week to start?

Many businesses require a lot of heavy lifting at the beginning. New business owners need to take into account a demanding work load, at least to start. These questions can be difficult for those new to business, which is why we suggest you consult an entrepreneurial coach, one who brings years of first-hand experience with multiple categories of companies to help you choose a business in which to invest yourself and your money for maximal success. So, go for the gold — but make sure you’ve done the preparation! 

Ready to make your dream of becoming an entrepreneur come true? Get your free evaluation today! Contact Dan Citrenbaum to help you create the career you’ve always wanted. As a business coach, Dan brings years of experience helping people select and buy a franchise or existing business. You can reach Dan at dcitrenbaum@gmail.com or at (484) 278-4589.