Deciding on franchise ownership can mean an exciting time for you. Being a new franchise owner may not, at times, be easy. Yes, you do get a bit of a head start on business owners who choose to go it alone because you get the backing of an established brand, but it’s still a lot of work. In fact, it can even seem like too much work.
The fact is that if you talk to a new franchisee (and we talk to them all the time), you will likely hear that in the first two years of operating their franchise, they were working very hard and perhaps not balancing their work and personal life during the early years.
With that amount of work, it’s common for a healthy franchise to become profitable within two to three years (no guarantees, though), but it can take a toll on other aspects of your life, especially if you have a young family.
Before you take the plunge into franchise ownership, take a moment to consider how it will affect your work/life balance and take these steps to help mitigate the long working hours.
Starting a Business Requires Focus
Starting a business and starting a family can both be challenging. They both require a lot of attention and neither of them deserves to be put on the back burner (especially your family). Starting a new business is rather like having a child. It’s takes a ton of commitment and you need to make major sacrifices for it. Plan accordingly.
Explain the Benefits to Your Family
When starting a business, talk to the whole family and help everyone understand that this is an exciting time but there may also be challenges and sacrifices. You may be super busy for the next little while and you may not have a lot of time to spare. But explain the benefits to them. Once the business is up and running, your lives are going to get a whole lot better and it will be worth it in the end.
Schedule Time for Family
You schedule meetings and phone calls and all kinds of things for your franchise business, so make sure you schedule in family balance. You are doing it for them, afterall. Be consistent and try to make it a nightly thing. And don’t forget to take the odd weekend off so you can really spend time with them. It will be well worth it.
Train and Delegate
The reason that some new franchisees end up working so much is because it’s their business and they want to make sure that everything is done correctly. After all, it’s their money on the line. Franchisees can help ease the burden by making sure everyone — especially top managers — are trained correctly so you can delegate more responsibility to them. Obviously you have to trust your managers a lot to be able to do this and that bond of trust starts with the hiring process. Hire the right people and everything after that will be much easier.
Look for people who have experience managing and ascertain whether they exude what you want your corporate culture to be.
If You are Ready We Can Help
A new franchise business could end up dictating much of your life for the first few years of existence. It’s tough to balance work and life, but it’s not impossible. If you are not yet involved with a franchise, but you think it’s time to take the leap, FranNet can help you find the perfect franchising fit. Sign up for a free FranNet franchise search and consultation today.