Franchisor Franchisee ? Posted by Matthew

Everyone dreams of running their own business.  We are all full of ideas from a young age, everything from a music school business to a milk round and from turning our hobbies into a full time operation.  This could be horse riding or owning a model aeroplane shop.  The ideas are all there and the aspirations to turn what you love into a successful business that you can enjoy and profit from at the same time.  All these ideas can be franchised or bought as a franchise but what makes you a franchisor or franchisee?  Or even just a standalone business owner!

Life dictates to us the directions we take - many of us have the opportunities in life to start in business young but for others gainful employment for someone else may be the route to begin with, but usually everyone has the opportunity at some point to set up on their own.

This is where our entrepreneurial spirit comes in.  Becoming a franchisee does not stop you in the future from being the head honcho and can give you all the experience you need of running your own business, in fact, many franchisors started out as franchisees themselves at some point.

Lets look at my good friend Nick.  He started out as a welder at the age of 17 with an apprenticeship.  He left school with little to no qualifications and having completed his apprenticeship went from job to job until he was 24, from there he got sick of the long hours working for someone else and set up his own specialist welding company.  Nick loves cars, he is the guy with the old classic in the back garden that never gets completed and has bits of shiny steel hanging all over it.  He tinkers away and loves what he does and now he is broke but his own boss.  Now at the age of 32 he owns a very successful specialist welding company and is considering taking this business model and applying it to other areas of the UK, in effect becoming a franchisor. 

But his route could have been very different - had his parents for instance lent him a cool 30k when he was younger he could well have invested this in an automotive franchise of some description and although he would have his own business, he would not really be his own boss and this is why I say life dictates to us what we do a lot of the time.  However, had he become a franchisee so young, this would have given him a wealth of experience to set up on his own later on in life.  You could almost consider the franchise fee an investment in your business education.

Franchisor or franchisee?  You could become either, at the end of the day though and like Nick, it's about choosing your own path and breaking from the mould.  Everyone has that dream and most people act upon it, either young or later in life.  Like myself, a happy website owner who has the time to work from home, enjoy his kids and dictate the hours he works and the people he works with.  I'm no franchisor, or even a franchisee, but I am a happy business owner.

Enjoy what you do and life can be so much better. :-)