Monday, January 26, 2009

1) Buying a franchise

If you are like me, you think of franchises in terms of fast food places like Subway and pizza places that you eat in during your busy life. I've learned that there is a franchise for just about everything that you use in your life, you just need to understand what fits your business experience, personal goals, and financial status. To help you with your evaluation I would highly recommend using a service such as www.frannet.com, which by the way is a franchise that provides a free service to prospective buyers. The process takes you through a personal profile exercise that narrows the universe down to a few that match your criteria so you can investigate them thoroughly. One word of caution, the owner of the Frannet franchise gets paid by the franchisor when they connect and sell you a franchise...they will only show you franchises they have a relationship with so investigate others on your own at websites like www.franchise.com.

There are several advantages to purchasing a franchise that you should be aware of:
1) Proven business processes
2) Proven Marketing and Advertising Materials
3) Overall business playbook (business model)
4) Brand recognition and advertising assistance

One thing you should be aware of, if you think you can do it better than they do or have done, you either shouldn't consider their franchise or maybe you're not a good fit for a franchise at all...be honest with yourself, it gets expensive.

Next time I'll tell you about the franchise that we bought and the mistakes we made! We knew that we should have stopped the process before we spent anymore money but went ahead anyway....don't make the same mistake we did!

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Enough background, let's move forward!

Sorry for the delay in getting my next post up but what I haven't told you is that I'm in the middle of getting another start-up off the ground!

My current start-up is a company called CoGoJets.com. If any of you actually followed the Senate hearings with the Auto Makers, you heard the question asked, "Why didn't you at least Jetpool to Washington?". We thought that was a great question given that we had just launched the first Jetpooling community and have a patent pending on the business process!

The Jetpooling concept like carpooling, is very simple to understand. You build a community of like minded travelers who would like to share the costs of private jet travel on a prorate basis. Our website allows members to post the flights they would like to take so that other members can see and join them in order to share the cost.

You maybe wondering how in the world did you come across this idea and why was this better than the other options you were considering...here is the answer!

There are always several options for you to consider when you finally make the decision to leave corporate America and work for yourself. Here are a few that we will discuss:

1) Buy a franchise
2) Buy an existing business
3) I have a great idea, let's start it from scratch
4) Partners or no partners, that is the question!
5) Join an existing business owner who wants to retire in a couple of years

All of these options are viable depending on your personality, goals, and financial strength. I have done or been a part of each of these transactions/decisions in my career and will share my insights with you over the next few posts. Stay tuned and ask your friends or partners to follow along with you.