More and more professionals are becoming absentee or semi-absentee business owners as a way to maintain the benefits of a job, while creating additional revenue and wealth.
What is it?
1. Both job and entrepreneurship!
In the past, entrepreneurs were either forced to choose between a job and starting a business. Or, their business was part time, created to work around a traditional job, and family duties. It stayed a part time business because it received only part time effort. Today, many specialty franchise concepts have intentionally systematized a successful, manager-run business, empowering you to keep your job and/or your job options open while investing in a business. This is an ideal and viable solution for people who don’t want to leave their full-time careers for business ownership.
2. Creating wealth
Absentee and semi-absentee ownership allows you to create an additional revenue stream while you continue working. You can spend time building an asset that you understand, and proactively grow and maintain. Some people aim to grow their businesses to a point of surpassing their full-time income, so they can leave their career to either focus on the business, or lead a life of leisure, while continuing to create wealth.
3. Creating choices
Many people plan to continue working well beyond the traditional age of retirement, either consulting, working part time or volunteering. If you’ve spent the time to create a strong business while working, you no longer wonder about your plans after your job ends. The business you’ve spent time growing can now become a business you can transition to when your job no longer holds its security. You’ve also created another option for yourself in a world where layoffs and reductions are the norm.
How do you get started?
1. Assess
After helping thousands of people interested in entrepreneurship find success, we’ve learned the first step is to determine if entrepreneurship is even right. For anyone interested in considering business ownership, they take our Business Evaluation and Suitability Test (B.E.S.T.). It helps identify core competencies, values, and business motivations. Armed with this information, we can strategically help you identify franchises which would be a strong fit with your goals and strengths.
2. Discover
Researching businesses is a new experience for most people. It’s interesting to explore industries of interest, and often easy to rule out those which aren’t a consideration. We can help identify franchises which are well suited to your interests, goals and business passion. With over 3000 franchises available, we’ve identified over 100 businesses representing over y industries, we think are the best. We’re well versed in their businesses models, characteristics and the entrepreneurs who fit well with each.
3. Match
There is an abundance of information available to prospective franchisees, but the trick is understanding what it means, what to ask, to whom and when. We have an established process which helps a person undergo thorough due diligence, which can often determine the success of the business. 92% of our franchise placements were still in business after 2 years (compared to 67% of other small business ventures, according to studies by the U.S. Census Bureau). After a 5 year period, our matches were at an 85% success rate compared to only 50% of other small businesses.
Foray into Fitness
Dan Wynkoop’s background included 40 years of finance and accounting. After the 2008 economic downturn, Wynkoop decided it was time to start looking into other options. Today, he is the owner of a Club Pilates franchise in Portland, Oregon, which focuses on strength-training workouts for people of any age.
“I started thinking that it would be really nice to do something on my own,” said Wynkoop. “After the economic downturn I got to thinking there’s got to be another way, but I could never come up with something on my own.”
After recommendations from Emily Anderson, FranNet consultant of Portland, Oregon, and a thorough due diligence process, Club Pilates rose to the top. There were many factors which led Wynkoop to the choice, but one priority Anderson identified was the need to have fun.
His advice to potential business owners, “Franchising has higher initial risk but it goes down as the business progresses. This has remained true with my own experience,” said Wynkoop. “Also expect that something will come up that you didn’t originally foresee, so build that into your model and be encouraged that this happens to everyone.”
Connect with us to learn more about exploring business ownership. It might be the right path for you if you’d like to stay employed while taking on entrepreneurship.