Are you looking to escape the daily grind and become your own boss? Has the stress of corporate America set in to rule your life at work and at home? Perhaps you have even suffered pay cuts or recently been laid off. There are so many advertisements that claim to be work at home opportunities. Beware — many of them are simply multi-level marketing or sales positions in disguise. Instead, consider owning a franchise as a manager or as an investor-owner.
Each franchise offers several options, ranging from direct management to investor ownership. As a day-to-day manager, you have control over operations, hiring and staffing, implementing change and making decisions. As an investor-owner, you are in a more strategic position to make business decisions for the franchise, but not necessarily be involved in day-to-day management.
Experienced investors may hold more than one franchise. One of the benefits of owning multiple locations of the same franchise is the increased ability to survive economic cycles. If some locations are not performing as well as others, higher performing locations can carry the burden, so the overall financial picture is sustainable. One strategy may be to close or temporarily close a poorly performing franchise location and still have enough viable operating franchises to serve customers.
Investing in more than one type of franchise is another money-making strategy. Selecting related or co-located franchises allows you to co-market related products and services. For example, consider purchasing a child-care franchise and a restaurant franchise next door or within the same shopping center. Offer coupons at the child-care franchise for 20% off dinner at the restaurant. At the restaurant, include coupons for a free hour of daycare in each customer’s check. This is a brilliant way to stretch limited advertising dollars and build repeat customers.
Investment in multiple franchises gives you the opportunity to be a regional manager. You may hire managers to run individual franchise locations, but you will be traveling between locations and providing needed support. Depending on your particular franchise, different levels of training and operational support will be provided. Consider this carefully when selecting a franchise. For example, a high level of support means you will not need to spend as much time training employees directly. Simply point the managers toward the franchise resources and check-in regularly to offer assistance. Individuals with experience supervising managers in a company environment are excellent franchise managers.
Investing in a franchise is a great opportunity to be your own boss and have a successful career. You will be more motivated to work hard and build a successful business if you enjoy coming to work each and every day. If you select a well-known and established franchise, you can benefit from the investment of time the franchise has already spent developing a proven business model. Investing in more than one franchise is another strategy to leverage resources. Investors with multiple locations of the same franchise, or more than one co-located franchise, benefit from redundancy and cross-promotion. Invest in a franchise today and invest in tomorrow.