Is Franchising For You?

One of my favourite topic is franchising. I read about and heard about many people who got retrenched in their 40s or 50s went into franchising business and ended up losing their life savings. Frachising is like any other businesses. The difference is that in franchising, you are buying a "working system". However, you also must remember that you are paying for it (usually at a very high cost.)

I had spent about 6 months exploring various franchising opportunities. I spend 6 months talking to 5 franchisors and surveyed no less than 30 sites in Singapore. What I found was that to find a good location is very difficult. I was exploring F&B retail business. This kind of business is heavily dependent on location. There three key words to success: Location, Location & Location. Nothing else.

In Singapore context, typical F&B franchise cost about $200K to $250K. Because of large capital outlay for ordinary people, I never encourage people to take up franchise. I have visited many franchisees and I calculated their earnings etc. I belive only top 10% of franchisees are making good profit. Another 30% are making some profit. Yet another 40% are just above the water. The rest of them, 20% are under the water.

One of the biggest problem of franchising is that you lose the freedom to shape your business. You are not different from working for people. The difference is that you have to pay to work for people. You really need to choose very carefully in franchising. Make sure that the franchisor is of good reputation and the system really works. Go for proven systems like Subway, 7-Eleven, you will have better chance to succeed. Other good franchise maybe Kumon (children education) but all these needs good location. I can emphasise more, Location, Location & Location.

Sometimes, you'd be better off to start a small store run it on your own. In that way you can have your freedom to shape your business.

Develop Good Habbits

We pick up different habbits along the way as we grow. There are good ones and
bads. Each of them shapes our daily life. They shape our personality and
character. If you need to bring up your children, observe their habbits and
make sure they have mroe goods ones and less bad ones. Slowly change their bad
ones into good ones. In that way, your children will be able to live happier
life in future.

What about us, grown ups? Can we also shape our own habbits? I believe we can
if we will. If we can constantly reflect upon ourselves what are our good
habbits and what are our bad ones, we can act on them one-by-one. There is no
need to be too ambitious. If we can tackle one of them each week or even each
month. Starting from the worst. Imagine if you change 10-12 bad habbits into
good ones every year, how powerful would that be? This is what I learn from a
recent book that I read. I am reading that book again. There are too many
useful tips in there and I want to implement them one by one.

This One Tip Can Change Your Life Forever!

Just this tip alone, I believe will give me tremendous improvement to my life.
I am sure it is going to shape my future if I can implement it successfully.
Firstly, I need to be focus. Act on one at at time and change the bad one into
good one. For example, being late for appointment by 5 minutes. That is a bad
habbit. I must make sure I add attional 10 minutes before I head for my next
appointment. In that way, I will always be 5 minutes early. That is an easy one
to do, isn't it?

Next, instead of bursting into answering questions people ask, I should try to
listen more carefully. So, I should be breathing in and counting 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5
before I answer any questions instead of shooting off immediately.

Start now, look out for your bad habbits. Listen to your spouse, friends,
children etc. Take note and start to make corrections. I am sure you will
achieve wonderful results.

Survival Skill #15: Develop Good Habbits