Are you a good fit for the franchise?

Well, here we go, part three in the steps of evaluating a franchise opportunity. Are YOU a good fit for the franchise? No matter how good the franchise is from a branding perspective, or how good of a business system it is, there are skill sets that are required in order to excel. One must be a good basic and realistic self concept prior to purchasing a franchise. Are you the kind of person that can follow a system? If you are going to constantly be looking for ways to change or recreate what you purchased, why buy a franchise in the first place? Also, do you have the skill sets and temperament necessary to run that business. In retail or food service you had better be at least be decent when it comes to finding, interviewing, hiring and managing people. No matter how good the system is at McDonalds, someone still has to man the frier and flip the burgers. Without people skills to manage or hire the kind of management that can get the job done things are going to very challenging.

This is equally true for most service franchises. If you purchase a home based franchise, which I like to call franchised business opportunity, you better be pretty good or at least out going enough to be willing to learn how to market, promote and sell your business offering. No matter what I teach you as far as product knowledge goes or what service you offering, if you cannot get the business you are going to be in for a challenging business experience from a standpoint of revenue generation. Many people purchase home based or service business franchises because the entry costs and overhead are lower and the financial commitments such as executing a lease and purchasing a lot of equipment are not necessary. However, if you are the kind of person that cannot deal with rejection and do what it takes to establish your offering, you are going to be sitting at your desk playing a lot of computer solitaire rather than actually doing business. In this day and age, cold calling or telephone prospecting is not nearly as effective as it used to be. With the advent of caller ID, and voice mail, a lot of prospective customers just do not answer their phones any more especially if they know who is calling. Beating the streets has turned into doing networking groups, luncheons, joining the local Chamber of Commerce and putting on networking meetings yourself.

This brings me to another point namely, "computer skills". There was a day when you did not have to be very good on a computer to run a business. While that may be true for "certain" businesses, for the small business or franchise owner, computer skills are a must. One cannot hope to be productive in this day and age and get the kind of work done that one's competitors are doing without decent computer skills. So, if you are the kind of person that cannot use the basic Microsoft Office programs, including a decent email client such as Outlook, you better take some classes, get some private tutoring or something because if you don't you are going to get left in the dust.

To recap.

1. Can you follow a system or in this case the system of the franchise you are buying?

2. Are you the right for or can you hire and manage the right people that are if the revenue model affords more than one layer of upper management?

3. Do you have the kind of skillsets such as computer skills to run a successful business in today's environment?

4. Do you really want to do this?

Ah, ha! One should do a lot of soul searching before going it on their own even if that means owning a franchise. Regardless of what anyone tells you, you are for the most part going to make a decent amount of mistakes so make sure you have reserves, also it's going to be a lot of work, probably doing a lot of things that you are not naturally good at. So take your time, look at everything from both sides then decide if franchise ownership is right for you.