I’d like to start this article by telling you about two franchise owners who made similar changes in their franchise careers.
Chris, who owned several car service franchises, wanted to expand the number of franchises he owned. So, he bought a scoop shop franchise and started dishing out ice cream.
Karen, who owned a franchise that cleaned up water and fire damage, wanted to expand too. So, she bought an exercise franchise. As you can see, both Chris and Karen were making big changes. They could simply have bought additional locations in the franchises they already owned. But no, they wanted something new. But there is a surprising plot turn in their stories. Chris was extremely happy and successful in his scoop shop. He was incredibly excited to do something new and his excitement brought him success.
But Karen had an extremely negative experience. She found her new clientele of fitness enthusiasts difficult to work with and discovered that fitness didn’t excite her as much as she thought it would. Only a week into owning her new franchise, she was already wondering how soon she could sell it.
I am relating their stories to make the point that sometimes, acquiring franchises in a new and unfamiliar business category is a great thing to do and sometimes not.
The question, which we will explore in this article, is how to understand which decision is better for you.