Why You Should Keep an Open Mind in your Entrepreneurial Search.

It’s hard to be completely objective when searching for business opportunities, but when going into your search its vital to helping you find the right opportunity for you. It’s our basic instinct to stick to what we know and to fear the unknown, but doing so may not always benefit you. Let’s evaluate why aspiring business owners, and specifically those considering franchises should keep an open mind when going into their search. For those you who’ve never considered a franchise – read on (franchises are not just restaurants-they are in over 80 different business industries and thousands of different businesses).

Don’t Limit Your Search

There are many ways that prospective entrepreneurs may limit their searches from the beginning without even being aware that they are doing so.

One of the most common I find clients doing is limiting their franchise search from the get go. A limited view of the possibilities can cause an individual to invest in a franchise mismatch, which may set the franchisee up for failure from the start.

For example, if you go into your search thinking “I am only going to look into the IT and computer services segments,” then you may actually miss the perfect opportunity for you. In fact, I find that 95 percent of clients end up discovering a business prospect they may not have considered beforehand or admittedly had prematurely dismissed.

Similarly, many people go into their search thinking that they should only invest in concepts they are familiar with or have past experience in, but this actually falls into one of the top 5 franchising myths. Believe it or not, but businesses that are built upon a business owner’s past knowledge and expertise have a high incidence of failure. Past experience oftentimes leads business owners to overthink their decisions and look at each of their decisions from a microscopic lens, failing to see the bigger picture and leading to bad decision making.

How a Coach Can Lift Your Limiting Beliefs

There are thousands of franchise systems out there, so it’s natural to feel overwhelmed at first. How is someone to sift through all of these franchise concepts to find the right fit for them? That’s where an alternative career coach can help. Coaches are experts in the field of franchising and know the ins and outs of the industry. (A coaching process should not be quick. By that, I mean if the coach has one meeting or discussion with you and starts sending you all kinds of businesses to research or think about, they are doing you a disservice. A true coaching process should involve meetings, assessments, and educational discussions.)

Coaches will guide their clients through the discovery process, which is aimed at helping individuals define their goals, needs and expectations while also educating them on the franchise industry. This oftentimes proves to be an empowering experience for aspiring entrepreneurs because they learn not to jump to conclusions based on their previous perceptions of a business. Together, a coach and a client will uncover the client’s possibilities, options, and dreams (POD), and with collaboration will find the right franchise fit. Even if the opportunity isn’t what the individual may have previously considered, Alternative career coaches will help explain the factors that make the optimal opportunities at hand better for that candidate than the rest. So weather you’ve been downsized, realigned out of your job, transitioning out of the military, currently keeping your job and looking for supplemental income, there are options to fit your specific criteria. 

And by the way, you don’t have to be a C-Suite executive, a director, a manager, a captain, a lieutenant, a colonel, a major, a sergeant, a manager, or a sales professional. There are options for most any individual.

For more information about how a coach can help you lift your limiting beliefs, contact me and we’ll talk (I can work anywhere in the U.S. or Canada).