1. Start by creating your own personal model of who you are, what you’re good at, and what you want your business life and personal lifestyle to be if you enter into and ultimately succeed in your own franchised business.
2. Be honest! Don’t feel you need to have every skill in the universe. Additionally don’t let your model include items that you just don’t want any part of.
3. Be candid and uncompromising about who you are and what you want. For example, if you don’t want a business that will require you to have a lot of employees, or if you want your weekends reserved for family, not business, put each item into your model.?
4. Measure any business you look at against your own personal, unique model. Use your model to create a “level playing field”.?
5. Feel free to change your model in midcourse. If you find that, as you look at businesses you find that something you first thought was okay no longer is, it’s okay. Change your model. Don’t accept a business that has too much or too little of something you feel strongly about.?
6. As you look at businesses, compare yourself to the franchisees that have come before you in that business. Talk to both the successful and the unsuccessful franchisees. Of course you want most of the people in that franchise to be happy and successful, but you also want to see how you compare to those on each end of the spectrum. If you and your skills match up well with the successful franchisees, you are probably headed in a good direction. If not, you most likely will want to look into a different concept.
7. Don’t buy a business because a friend or colleague did. They’re not you. Buy a business because it fits you, not someone else.
8. Use professionals. Organizations like FranNet specialize in helping people like you build models that become the foundation of your all important personal research.?
9. Seek the advice of those you trust, and who know you well. At the same time, be careful not to let their point of view overshadow your own. Listen carefully to any good input about what direction you should take, but reserve the final decision for yourself.??
10. Don’t settle for a business that isn’t right for you. Of the literally thousands of choices that franchising affords you, don’t you think that there’s at least one (and probably a whole lot more) that would be very successful when matched with the skills and abilities that you possess?