Transitioning into Franchising

I've helped hundreds of people over the past 15 years get into franchising, and I think there's only one person that I've worked with that had industry experience in the business. They ended up running the rest of the business. So, how did they make that happen? Why were they successful?

What we did was we looked at transferable skills. When you're contemplating getting into a new business in a different industry, it's not really about doing the technical work. As an executive model franchise owner, your job is to be the CEO of a small business. That takes an entirely different skill set than whatever technical work is required to get done for the customer.

A really healthy way of looking at this is to think about the soft, transferable skills you've acquired in your career up to this point. Then, it's about finding the right business where the skills required for the owner to succeed align with what you're good at and what you enjoy doing.

Franchise Owners Lead, Not Do

For the mechanics of running the business itself, the franchisor will train you. This is a really important point. You don’t need to be the technician in the business. In fact, the franchisor doesn’t want you to be. Your greatest avenue for success is to run it like an executive.

You’ll learn all the tools to do that and get trained on how to be the CEO. Part of your role will be to hire those technicians to do the work that needs to be done, while you manage them and build your team.

No Industry Experience? No Problem!

So, if you’re wondering if you need industry experience, the short answer is no. If you’re wondering what kind of businesses would resonate with your soft skills and help you reach your goals, I can help you with that. Just give me a call!