Loose Your Job - Buy a Franchise?

In past posts, we discussed the reasons to buy a franchise and why not to buy a franchise.

I understand that franchise sales are down across the board, but of the people that are interested in buying a franchise right now, many are people that have lost their jobs.

That brings us back to whether or not you are buying a business or buying a job. The ideal situation is for you to be a business owner, not self-employed. A business owner owns a business and the business goes on day after day whether the owner is around or not. If you are self-employed you are the number one guy and if you didn't show up for a month, the business would be down the drain or close to it.

Visiting franchisees, I see both business owners and self-employed people while visiting within the same corporate franchise. My business owners meet me for lunch, go to training days, stay up on business trends, budgets, vendor prices, and just spot checks that things are being done the right way. They go on vacation and enjoy their families.

The self-employed franchisee rarely has time to meet with me. They are always behind, tired from working long hours, always broke, cutting back on marketing and quality when times are tight. The self-employed person goes out of business 90% of the time in the first 5 years because they are under capitalized. Then 90% of those that made it the first 5 years, go out of business in the 6-10th years. This is due to being tired and completely worn out from all the work.

If you are thinking "I have always wanted to own my own business, and now that I don't have a job I think I might buy a franchise", please think about all this first. Buy a business, but don't buy yourself a job.