What actual business am I going to start?
A million questions are flying through anyone's mind that may be considering a new business venture and starting a new franchise business is no exception to that at all. There are still the big-ticket questions like “should I do this at all?” and “how do I make this business work given my lifestyle and finances?” But right between those two questions is, “what actual business am I going to start?” And that question may be the hardest one to answer. If you’re like me, you knew you wanted to start a business and you were confident in running it successfully once it was going but I got stuck on “what actual business am I going to start?” Here are some words of advice on how to think through that a little bit.
Make sure you want to be in that line of work. I have seen too many people go down the path of, “I don’t care what it is as long as I make money” and, let me tell you, they don’t follow it through very far. There are a million options out there that will make you money — obviously some more than others — and we always want you to have a comfortable living and lifestyle. But choosing a business you even mildly dislike because it pays more is a recipe for disaster. I’m not telling you that you have to head over heels in love with your every waking moment of a business (cause some days you’ll downright hate it). But I am telling you that if you start off disliking it — that feeling will only grow.
Be honest with yourself. If you’re the kind of person who works 20 hours a week, makes $150,000 a year and has unlimited vacation…I would think LONG AND HARD about making a switch to owning your own “conventional” business. There are no “hours” when you’re getting started. And vacation time is possible but the things you didn’t do while you were gone are just waiting for you. You are probably going to be the first one in and the last one out and no one is going to care more about your business than you do. I cringe when I hear people say “I want to start my own business because I’m ready to slow down” - well then we need to chat. In a few years that will be on the table if you do things the right way. But that is not how it is going to start unless you’re well funded enough to hire all the right people and pay them to stick around. If you’re in love with a retail model but don’t want to work weekends then you either need to accept that you will be working them or find the funding to pay for someone else to do it. If you’re honest with yourself and say, “I know I only want to work 9-5 no exceptions” then only explore businesses that make it clear that’s the expectation or be ready and able to hire the people you need to make that happen.
Know the lay of the land. People are constantly saying, “follow your passion!” and, yes, that’s true to an extent. But if you follow your passion right off the competitive cliff you’re going to tear up that inspirational poster on the way down. You need to know your competitive landscape, study it, see where there’s a need around you and then fill that need. You want to combine something you’re uniquely enthusiastic about in your area with an unfulfilled demand for it. Anything short of that will leave you scratching your head on why the phone isn’t ringing.
Lifestyle matters. I think this ties in with “be honest with yourself” in a lot of ways but is slightly different. If you’re the kind of person that doesn’t want to be in an office, doesn’t want to be in a van either, thinks of themselves as an independent person who likes to come and go as they please…then look at home-based opportunities! If you’re interested in working 8-6 Mon-Fri then not hearing a phone or seeing an email until your back in the office…then look at more structured or brick and mortar opportunities. If the thing that brings you joy is picking up and going to the beach or the mountains on a Tuesday when no one else is there (I GET IT!) then make that a priority. If you enjoy engaging with people when they walk in or call you then make that a priority too. You are probably going to spend more time in/on your business than on anything else on the planet for a while. You better make sure your lifestyle aligns with that choice.
Risky business tolerance. There’s no secret that investing is risky and people intrinsically know that already. The key thing they leave out is “tolerance” when discussing risk. If you are looking at businesses that are “revolutionary” or “groundbreaking” or “disruptors” (there are a dozen more synonyms to choose from) all I hear is “risky”. Maybe that’s short-sided of me as an investor but it’s the truth from how I see it. I completely believe in "high risk = high reward” and there’s a time and a place for that. Is that time and place for that here now for you? Maybe it is. But that’s something you need to KNOW when you’re exploring options. If your tolerance is super high (you have the deeper pockets and know-how) to take a flier on something then go for it? If you’ve saved up your entire life to make this one investment…maybe talk to me about more “tried and true” businesses. Sure, you’ll absolutely kick yourself because you could have invested in the new hot thing out there that went gangbusters. But for every one of those, there are 100 failures and I don’t want to see the investor with little to no risk tolerance getting involved with the failures.
At the end of the day, you can always talk to me or my team about these factors and let us help you! I like to say that the process is more about eliminating businesses that won’t fit than it is about finding those that do. Sometimes that decision process is just easier to focus on instead of trying to evaluate 5,000 franchises that maybe could be an option. I hope you found this article helpful and if you’d like to chat email me jeremiah@opendoorfranchises.com or call/text 720-361-8379 and I’ll coach you through.
Best,
Jeremiah Marquis