New Venture Lab: Equipping Christian Entrepreneurs

If one does not have an entrepreneurial personality, but a good work effort, are franchise ownership a reasonable direction? How does one evaluate franchising?

Franchises are a viable option.  Think of it as a business in a box that tells you what to do, how to do it, limits your territory, and charges you 5% of your Revenue in royalties with no guarantee of success.  But it is usually a major brand behind you that assists you with marketing and operational know-how.  A franchise will not exactly make up for lacking an entrepreneurial spirit, but it does give you a template for potential success if you work hard at it.  One downside is that you will typically be stuck in a retail business model, long retail-like hours, and high fixed lease costs while you wait for customers to walk through the door.  I would recommend that you use our free Venture Analysis to analyze any franchise opportunities, as it will give you a good due diligence template and 50 excellent questions to ask the franchisor about.  You can do the analysis on as many franchise opportunities as you want, save them all on the NVL site and then go with the franchise opportunity that scores the highest that is in your target cost range.