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Fear and Loathing in Franchising by Dave Cooley, Consultant, The Franchise Consulting Company But what, you may be wondering, One of my favorite “Gonzo” authors, Hunter are the next steps in moving S. Thompson, wrote a book titled, Fear and your interest in franchise business ownership Loathing in Las Vegas, and it was later made forward? Well … you most likely have already into a movie starring Johnny Dep. jumped the gun! It was a great book and an “ok” movie, but Jumped the gun? Why? How? thinking about it got me to realize … there’s fear Most people who are highly motivated to and loathing in franchising, too! investigate franchising simply do what they Huh? What do I mean? always do when they want to inquire about Well, I’ve been in franchising for over twenty anything: they Google it. years and I can honestly say the number one Yes, you can say to your Google connected reason why people don’t invest in their own device, “Hey, Google. What are the best businesses can be summed up in one franchise opportunities?” and I’m word: fear. Plain and simple. sure Google … or Siri … or Alexa … And, if you stop investigating THE NUMBER will respond with something. In owning your own business ONE REASON fact, I just asked Alexa about due to fear, it’s likely you’ll be franchise opportunities and loathing the people who WHY PEOPLE she yammered away for didn’t let fear stop them and DON’T INVEST about five minutes about became successful business IN THEIR OWN franchises for insurance sales, owners. Jealousy involves a sandwiches and dry cleaning. great deal of loathing, huh? BUSINESSES CAN Or, if you’d like to stare It’s like this: If you stopped a BE SUMMED UP at your phone, tablet or hundred people at random on IN ONE WORD: computer screen for a couple of the Strip in Las Vegas, crowded FEAR. hours, you can search online (via them into a room and then asked, Google, Bing, Firefox … whichever) by a show of hands, “Who here for “franchise opportunities” or simply would like to own your own lives by “franchises” or “buy a franchise” or the like, and owning your own business?” Most likely every your search engine will list dozens and dozens hand would go up. of websites advertising sometimes hundreds of If you then said, “Keep your hand up if you have franchises each. done anything — regardless of how minor — to Go ahead, enter your contact information into investigate actually owning your own business,” one of those sites and click on a dozen options most likely every hand would go down. at each site … you’ll be begging your cell phone You’d need about a thousand hands in the provider for a new number within a day or two as air before one hand would remain raised – and, you are bombarded by franchise sales people – since you’re reading this, that’s your hand! each of whom will probably tell you that you’re a So, congratulations for being motivated enough great fit for their opportunities. about owning your own business to have at least But … are you really a great fit … or, have you, made it to reading this article … but, you can’t indeed, jumped the gun? stop here. You need to keep moving forward.
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FEBRUARY 2020 | WWW.FRANCHISEJOURNAL.COM
