When you think about buying your first franchise, a lot of fear and doubt may come to mind.  You may for example imagine that after you pay the money and buy the franchise that noting will go well and that the business will be a total flop.  I can assure you that if you plan on just buying the franchise, sitting back, and watching it progress without working toward business success, then it probably will be a total flop.  Now that you know how to make a well-honed business model carefully crafted and built for success fail, why not consider how to have more success in business and in life?

Consider the fact that when someone employs you, typically the only reason why they will ever hire you is because they are confident that you will succeed.  If you cannot convey to them that you are a winner built for success, then why would they hire you?  When you go out and look for employment, do you genuinely believe that you are the best person for the job or are you simply lying to the hiring manager when you try to prove that you are the one that needs to be hired?  If you cannot believe that the work you do at a job equivocates to the success of an organization, then frankly you may not be the best person to own your own business.  If, however, you know that when given a successful system that you will be successful, then you should certainly seriously consider owning a franchise.

One of the big reasons why you should expect to make more money running a franchise then working for someone else and being employed is because instead of someone else using a company’s money to take a risk on you, you are using your own money to take a risk on yourself.  In short, why would you spend money on a business if it does not reward you for taking a risk?  If there is no potential reward for taking a risk on yourself, then perhaps you should take a pass on the opportunity.

If you know that you can be very successfully with a successful system, if you can identify a successful system, and if it is a good fit for you, then why wouldn’t you expect to have success?  I will tell you why you wouldn’t expect to have success!  Other people that are not very successful themselves or who seek to ruin the success of others may work hard to tear down others to build themselves up.  Either that or some people are good at misjudging the potential of others and may error in favor of caution by constantly psychologically demoting the people around them.  When you constantly listen to the negativity of losers and take their advice, you join their ranks and become one of them.

Franchise companies typically don’t want to sell franchises to losers, and frankly, they don’t have to.  If a franchise company knows or suspects that you are a loser, then if they want to protect the integrity of their brand and be able to show good earnings across the franchise system, they will not award you a franchise if you are a loser.  Don’t come looking to buy a franchise if you know that you are a total loser.

If you are smart enough to be able to read this article, then you can decide today if you would like to join the losers who constantly build themselves up by tearing other people down or if you want to be one of the winners that works to build the success of yourself and others.  Consider this, if you are a winner that buys a franchise by employing a large staff that you mentor and coach to be better at life and at everything they do, then you will win from their success.  In fact, when the franchise company collects their royalties, they too will be glad that they awarded the franchise to a winner instead of a loser.

As I recall, when I was in the first grade I shot hoops with a basketball in gym class, and I think that I was naturally better then another student that was also rather good.  The two of us got much older and he practiced and joined the basketball team while I did not practice and did not play basketball.  I did not shoot the last hoop in the state championship that resulted in a victory for our high school because I did not play on the team and had not practiced, but he did shoot the winning hoop at the state championship because he in contrast to me had structured his life around winning for the team by shooting hoops with improvement as the goal.

If you want to succeed in business, then you need to know what winning looks like, and you need to be committed to winning.  Sometimes it is true that people lose not because they want to lose but because something is holding them back from winning that is beyond their control.  As an example, if you buy a franchise that requires a prime location to be successful and if you setup shop in a poor location, then you might not win no matter how hard you try.  If you buy a good brand and then the CEO gets replaced by someone who has an opposite vision and sacrifices the best things about the franchise system because he is a cost cutting loser, then you may find winning challenging at best.

Just think, if you are looking to buy your first franchise and are successfully employed somewhere and have the money to buy a good franchise, then you might currently be making let’s say up to 10% payroll to sales if you are working in sales at some places.  I realize that this figure can change a lot by sales volume and industry, and some places like insurance might pay their workers as much as 80% payroll to sales.  My point is that if instead of working for someone else and getting 10% of sales before taxes and deductions, what if you could own the business and get it all minus your royalties, expenses, taxes, and such?

When you are looking into buying your first franchise, your job is to carefully investigate the claims made by the franchise companies and to find a winning system that will allow you to win.  You might need to get expert advise to help you such as advice from a franchise attorney, a Certified Public Accountant, and such, and you need to know what to look for on the Franchise Disclosure Document or find people that can help you.  Having a good Franchise Consultant can refer you to some good resources that can help you in your research, but you need to be the one ultimately responsible for your own research.  If you find that one franchise attorney is not good for you, then find another one.

Your journey toward business ownership for a first-time franchise owner can be totally unique, personal, and an amazing journey through life.  If you can do your research and mark the pitfalls, talk to Franchisors, franchise owners, experts like franchise attorneys, and Certified Public Accountants, then you can work toward avoiding problems later on.  You may not want to buy the first business that you see, but instead you can work with a franchise consultant to find a franchise that is right for you and compare several business models.  You may also want to research the leaders of the franchise system as well.  Overall, take your time and do all the work that you know will lead you to success, but don’t be a loser!

Submitted by Franchise Consultant Matthew Enoch Mount