Doug Wants To Buy A Franchise, But He’s Scared As Hell
Doug: “Joel,” I’m scared as hell.”
Joel: “You should be. Buying a franchise is a big deal.”
Doug: “But I feel it’s more than that. It’s like I’m feeling a sense of impending doom.”
Joel: “Wow…that’s pretty heavy.”
Doug: “Maybe I should just re-enter the job market again. It’s seems like a more sane thing to do.”
Doug Was Happy
Doug Studer was as happy as a clam.
The company he worked for seemed to be doing pretty darn well. Everyone in his department (IT) received pretty generous bonuses the past two quarters, and his manager seemed happy with his performance. Until May 3rd.
A Normal Monday Morning
May 3rd started out just like any Monday morning.
Doug dashed out of his house, and stopped at his local Starbucks to get his morning jolt of caffeine.
He arrived at his office at 8:10 AM, which was the time he always arrived on Monday.
He sat down at his desk, and just as he was logging into his PC, Elliot (his manager) popped in to tell him that he needed him to pop by his office for a few minutes.
(Which, in hindsight, seemed kind of odd, since Elliot Randolph never came into work before 8:30.)
Gone
Elliot cut right to the chase.
“Your position is being eliminated, Doug. We’ve decided to go in a different direction”
(What direction, who knew. Who cared, was more like it at this point, in Doug’s mind. The only thing he knew was he was freaking gone.)
The next words from Elliot’s mouth really shook him up.
“You need to gather your belongings right away, Doug. Security will be escorting you out of the building as soon as you’re finished packing up. HR will contact you in a few days to go over your severance package. Best of luck, Doug.“
5 Months Ago
It’s been almost 5 months since that fateful day. Heck, it took Doug almost two months to “get over it.” To get over the anger he had. The resentments. The anger.
About 3 months into his new life-being unemployed, Doug started spending more time at the Outplacement office he was referred to by his former company. (Part of Dog’s severance package included 6 months of Outplacement.)
Are you familiar with Outplacement services?
From The Balance.com:
“Outplacement is a service that is supplied by companies that specialize in helping employees job search following a layoff or job loss. Outplacement services are contracted for by the employer who is laying off employees to help employees make a swift transition to a new job.”
Interview Hell
Once Doug started taking advantage of the wonderful services his Outplacement firm was providing, he scored a few job interviews. They actually went pretty well.
Unless you were Doug.
That’s because Doug wasn’t “feeling it.”
He felt like he was just going through the motions. Lots of firm handshakes. Lots of smiles. Lots of “This sounds like a great opportunity,” types of answers to questions pertaining to his interest in the jobs-posed by hiring managers.
And it wasn’t until after several more of those scenarios played out that Doug realized something.
He came to the realization that he didn’t want another “job.”
He didn’t want to go to any more interviews.
Scratch that; he flat-out refused to go to another damn job interview. And Doug was actually quite proud of himself for making that decision.
(He didn’t know what the heck he was going to do; he just knew what he didn’t want to do.)
FYI: My own story is eerily similar to Doug’s. Check it out.
What Doug Did
Doug decided to continue using the Outplacement services that his former company paid for-but in a different way than he had been. He approached Tim Jenkins (the career counselor he had been assigned to) and told him that he didn’t want to go job-hunting anymore. When Tim asked him what direction he was thinking of going instead, Doug told him that he was interested in possibly going the “entrepreneurial route.”
Choices
Tim turned out to be the right man for the job.
As luck would have it, Tim knew a thing or two about entrepreneurship. As a matter of fact, he had helped several of the people he had worked with become entrepreneurs.
So, Tim went through Doug’s personality profile (all of Tim’s clients are required to take a 40-question personality assessment), and determined that Doug may want to look into franchise business ownership. So he suggested it to him.
A Learning Curve
After hearing Tim’s idea, Doug, like most people (when asked what they know about franchising), named a few food franchises and mentioned a few things he had “heard” about franchising
You should read this franchise myths and franchise facts article to find out what some of the things are that Doug heard about franchising.
Anyway, Tim suggested that Doug take some time to learn about franchising. (Just to see if Doug felt it would make sense to start looking into owning a franchise.) So, Doug decided to start learning, and in the process, found this webpage, which was chock full of the type of information he needed.
Doug Got Interested
After spending time learning what he could about franchise ownership, Doug decided to start looking around for a franchise opportunity. He felt that Tim was right about him being a good fit for franchise ownership. (Plus, he had taken this free franchise compatibility quiz, and the score he received confirmed things.)
So, he went to a few franchise opportunity websites, and chose a few franchise opportunities to check out.
The ones he chose focused on technology, as that’s what he was comfortable with. Now, he just had to dig into each one and determine the quality of their offerings.
The One?
Doug, after looking hard at what each franchise offered, ended up focusing on one particular franchise.
He did so because both the concept and the franchise salesperson seemed to be top-notch. And he felt he could do it. All he needed now was a way to make sure he had chosen a good franchise opportunity. He thought to himself that there had to be a process out there…a step-by-step way to determine if he could make good money as a franchisee, and how to do research on the franchise company etc.
What Doug Found
Doug found a lot of information on how to go about buying and researching franchise opportunities.
Some of the articles he read were extremely thorough, and he used a lot of the tips and research techniques included in them. But he kept on going, even though the thought of investing $150,000-$200,000 on a franchise still scared him. The idea of going on anymore job interviews was way too depressing.
He also found several positively reviewed books on franchise ownership, and even found an online course that looked really good. (He liked online learning.)
And Doug was more than willing to invest a couple hundred dollars into his career. Especially if his investment could end up making him money! But he held off buying a franchise book or an online course on franchising because there was something missing. Something Doug felt he would need to help alleviate his fears.
A human.
Found: A Human. And More.
It turns out that there was an all-in-one solution that included everything Doug wanted (and needed) to intelligently guide him through the franchise buying process.
In other words, a way for Doug to learn, in a step-by-step way, exactly how to choose, research, and buy a franchise-which included private consultations with an experienced, unbiased (and credible) franchise professional. (A human who could help him figure everything out.)
But before I show you what Doug found, I need to tell you that Doug is very close to buying that technology franchise he’s interested in. He’s still scared, but not as much.
That’s because he invested a little money on the product discussed here.
The Franchise King®, Joel Libava, is a top franchise expert,and the author of Become A Franchise Owner! (Wiley Publishing) He writes for the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and created The Franchise Success Kit-his newest offering.
