What “following your passion” means to a franchisee

If you’re of working age, you’ve no doubt been given the advice to follow your passion to find your career. Or perhaps, you’ve heard it as, “Do what you love and the money will follow.”

Well-intended advice, for sure, but turning your passion into work may not produce the results you want.

I have a colleague who spent more than a decade working in professional baseball. He lived what seemed like a dream life, hobnobbing with professional athletes and celebrities, calling ballparks “the office,” and most of all, getting to watch baseball. Lots of it!

Hard to believe he gave it up, until you speak to him about it.

“By the end, I could barely stand to watch baseball at all,” he said. “Five years later, I still don’t watch baseball unless it’s my hometown team. It was great, and it was certainly something I was passionate about, but by the end it was just work.”

I think about that when I’m getting to know franchise candidates. It’s a rarity for us to find a franchise that offers work in line with their passion, and that’s just fine. Because franchising offers people a far better outcome than a passion for their work.

Franchising indulges their passion for life.

At its core, what franchise consultants like myself want to do for people is find them a franchise system that matches their life goals and dreams. Many times, they have no experience with the work that the franchise does, but their skills are a good match. Beyond that, what the franchise should offer is a path to the life they want.

For instance:

They may have a passion for control. At some point in their careers as employees, most candidates have dealt with the realities of job insecurity. Whether it’s through layoffs, cutbacks, or business failures, they realize how fragile their incomes are when they are depending on someone else. People with a passion for controlling their own destiny turn to franchising for that opportunity so they can be their own boss and control their own income.

They may have a passion for family. The work week continues to spiral out of control, with most employees citing several occasions when they had to miss an important family activity, be it a birthday, a sporting event, a dance recital, or maybe just family dinner. Franchisees work as hard as anybody, but they decide when they work. Some get up early to work on their business before the sun rises so they can spend breakfast with their kids. Others will work after the kids go to bed so they can have dinner together. They can hire help so they don’t have to miss special occasions. They may even buy a franchise that is well-suited to growing as a family business.

They have a passion for stability. Franchise candidates coming from the corporate world speak of travel schedules that put them on the road 70 percent of the time. Others speak of getting transferred every few years, not just to different states, but different countries. Franchises give them the opportunity to grow roots in a community. They can be a part of local organizations and charitable groups, develop long-term friendships, start a family or provide consistency for their children during their upbringing.

They have a passion for power. Franchise systems are built to own multiple units so candidates aren’t just limited to owning a franchise unit. They can build a franchising empire! In fact, many franchisors favor people wanting to develop an entire area because they are such a good bet to succeed.

They have a passion for freedom. If you like the idea of making tons of money without working tons of hours, there’s a franchise system for that! It’s called semi-absentee franchising and it allows franchisees to own the business without having to operate it on a day-to-day basis. In fact, most semi-absentee franchises are successfully run with the owner spending less than 20 hours per week working in it!

Ready to explore your passion and try franchising? I've helped thousands of franchise candidates make that decision, free of charge. Give me a call at 919.846.7111 or send me a note at [email protected].

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