Two wrongs don’t make a right, but when you’re deciding on the best franchise to own for your needs, a whole bunch of rights will certainly lead you to the right choice.
Here are some of the things you’ll consider:
- Is it right for your personality?
- Do you have the right strengths?
- Do you have the right skill set?
- Does it allow the right relationship for you?
- Is your local market the right one to support it?
- Is the marketing plan right for you?
- Are you in the right financial position?
But there’s a question that’s easy to overlook, but which also has to be right for you… and no one else will know whether it’s right or not.
How prestigious does your business have to be in order to be right for you?
For roughly the same investment of time, money, and effort, you can own a business that provides coaching to businesses, or one that captures and recycles used cooking oil from restaurants. At a networking event or cocktail party, though, you’ll have the choice of saying, “I’m a business coach” or “I collect used grease.”
Will that difference matter to you?
A franchisee who supplied portable toilets for construction sites and public events told us about his choice of franchise. “Nobody in town was doing it really well,” he explained. “I knew that if we did the job very well, we could make a lot of money.”
He and his brother bought into the franchise together after thoroughly researching both the market for the business in his area and how his competitors operated. They might have been following the franchise system, but they weren’t making sure that every detail was perfect. That was what set the brothers apart from the competition, and sure enough, they were able to dominate the industry in their city and neighboring towns as well.
This businessman is now known primarily for his involvement in local charities. He’s on the board of several major organizations and his picture shows up in the society pages. Being able to do what he wants for his family and for the causes he cares about is completely satisfying to him. He has sold the business that made him his fortune and he’s involved in some other deals now, but he’s never shy about how he started out.
Someone who cared more about prestige might not have been able to make such a success of the business as this man and his brother did. If you cringe at the thought of admitting that you own a particular franchise, don’t hope you’ll get over feeling that way; just recognize that you’ll never be the kind of spokesperson that business needs and deserves.
Choose a business that’s in line with your values, a franchise you’ll be proud to own. If you don’t take this into account when you’re choosing your franchise, you might be surprised later when you discover that you can’t represent your business the way you want to.
