Franchises - Emotional Fulfillment – Controlling Your Own
Destiny
Does A Franchise Meet Your Needs?
When you think of becoming a businessperson by making the transition from employee
to Franchisee, you don’t generally think in terms of emotional fulfillment. However, in
reality, the evaluation of emotional factors should play a significant role in making that
final decision to join the world of the capitalist, or remain in the realm of employee.
Of course, every analysis should include the standard of comparing risk to return. It
should include income projections, and cash flows. It should include the analysis of
financing avenues, site selection alternatives, and many other objective criteria to lead to
a final decision about becoming an entrepreneur. The course of due diligence should be
driven by a systematic approach to each of these items.
However, in the end, assuming the objective criteria have been ticked off your list in a
satisfactory fashion, it should boil down to emotional fulfillment. After all, we all have a
right to be happy. That particular statement – ‘we all have a right to be happy’ – has
changed the course of my life on several occasions. It was one of those statements that
was passed casually by an acquaintance over dinner one evening, and ignored by
everyone at the table, except it hit me right in the heart. It stuck to me like red on a stop
sign. As a result, I have made many important life decisions based on emotional criteria,
in addition to objective criteria. If it doesn’t pass muster on both fronts then I look for a
better course.
There are many employment situations that can meet your emotional needs, wants and
desires. Of course, there are also many that do not, and cannot. A full examination of
emotional criteria should include the analysis of several items, with the ultimate goal of
determining whether your needs can be met by a job, or whether it is more likely they can
be met by your own business.
Control Your Own Destiny
The degree of priority that this particular criterion holds for an individual is probably the
single most important factor to consider before making the decision to strike out on your
own. Just how important is it that you control day-to-day decisions about what you do,
and where you do it. How important is it to you to know that you have ultimate control
over whether you stay or whether you go at some point.
The reality is that it’s not really possible to control your own destiny with a job. Even the
most important CEO’s must answer to the Board of Directors. In more traditional
circumstances, when and where you travel, when you get promoted, how much you earn,
and how long you keep your job are items that are simply not in your control. The boss,
and his boss, and her boss, control those things. As we have seen, bosses change, as do
Boards, and status quo is sent for a topsy-turvy spin. When, and if, those things happen,
are generally not in the control of an employee.
As we have seen in recent years, decades really, right-sizing, down-sizing, out-sourcing,
and severance packages are the norm of the employment world. The importance of these
items, including the degree of control you require over them, should help guide you to
your own comfort zone. In addition to a systematic approach to the objective items in
making a decision to become an entrepreneur on your own, or to become a Franchisee in
a good system, these emotional factors should be ticked off the list as well. Are you
satisfied where you are? Can you achieve your goals and dreams in your current
situation? Are you more likely to satisfy the need to control your results with your own
business? How important is each criteria to you?
Did you have to travel over your son’s birthday? Did you have an expense disallowed
unfairly? Is the likelihood high or low of the bronze (as opposed to golden) parachute at
age 53, with a low chance of a comparable position in the job market? Did you get passed
over for a promotion, did you have to work overtime through the Christmas holidays, did
you miss your daughter’s volleyball tournament because you couldn’t get off early on
Friday? If these things eat at you, perhaps a change in course is due. If you accept that
these things go with the territory of employment, then change may not be necessary.
Of course, as you progress up the ladder of promotion, you gain some additional
autonomy for these types of issues. However, you must also try to determine if that next
rung also carries an additional risk of termination at some point.
On the other hand, will being in the business you are evaluating help solve the problems
that are important to you? Will your business cause the same travel issues? Will the time
demands, or strange hours of being a businessperson, be an advantage or disadvantage?
Evaluate these items honestly, and with as much empirical evidence as you can gather,
along with the other control issues that matter to you. Then determine which situation
meets your goals more appropriately. And determine how important that is to you. Then
it’s time to move on to the next evaluation criteria.
If you always use the ‘I deserve to be happy’ test with each criterion, and try to determine
which scenario is most likely to get you closest to that goal, then you will know which
column to tick. If you execute this exercise in a systematic fashion along with a
systematic evaluation to the objective criteria, it will help to provide clarity for you in the
decision-making process.
The exercise should then be repeated for a whole host of other emotional factors such as
financial independence, day-to-day motivation, building an asset of value, appreciation
for efforts, fair remuneration for results generated, free time for family & friends,
community respect, recognition of achievements, and several others.
The bottom line is you’ve got to look at ROI, cash flow, the system of support, the value
of building a brand, the marketplace, and all of the other objective criteria needed to
make a proper decision. However, in addition, you also need to examine what you want
out of life, and whether a Franchise will help you get there.
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