I have been at a cross roads for the past year. Things with business are good - I’m not busy, yet make good money. I am just not motivated / inspired anymore to do the work & deal with clients. I have considered selling the business, but am not sure that is the best idea either. So, I have considered selling the ability to use my name in various different territories, while getting paid a start up fee and royalties. I feel I have a wealth of knowledge to help folks get the started so they can make good money from home, while being backed by some great portfolio work and testimonials. The problem is that I’ve just now been thinking about it and don’t know where/how to begin. I am sure I’ll do some reading, but what I would like is to hear from you all - anyone who has done this before. Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated! I don’t want this to be some huge conglomerate of stress/frustration. I want things to be somewhat passive for me, without having to deal with if a franchisee ends up doing something wrong and gets sued, etc. In addition, not knowing how to determine how to get paid, etc.
Before you get into franchising, there maybe a simpler solution to your problem. Is there anyone that you know that can do the work as well or better than you can? You can also automate the process in several ways, this may re-spark your passion. You can operate strictly online without having to deal with clients face to face. There are many things I can think of to help you out. What role do you want to play in your business now?
The main thing I want to do is not be the main person in charge of day to day operations. I understand that requires hiring someone, but I am not ready for that yet, as I don’t want to give the power to someone to kill or hurt my biz, as well as pay 40k + to do it all a year.
Hi,
I can’t share any direct experience, but have identified franchising as a future direction for business as well. My expectation would be to have a non-technical manager run the business before I would franchise it - this would be your master/demo franchise so to speak. If it is a labour based business (as you sound like as well) this means there must be a set of employees that work like a clock work, based on some sort of operations manual (which would then be renamed “franchise manual”)
HTH, Jochen
Franchising isn’t ‘passive’ it’s an aggressive growth strategy. You will need a serious plan in place because if you are going to charge franchisees a significant fee to use your brand/whatever they are going to expect a lot in return - your franchisees essentially become your clients.
It would be much more passive to hire someone to replace yourself and take it easy while they run the business - then you just have to train and manage one person. The fact that you mentioned paying 40k/year for that person makes me wonder what, exactly, you do that would be replaced.
What would your franchise offer, exactly? A brand? advertising? job leads? training? a territory? What is is that you do so well that someone would pay for your franchise rather than just competing?