What a great show we had today! We were joined by two great guests–both of whom are very successful in the franchise arena. David Asarnow, CEO of Clix Portrait Studios and Stan Friedman, President of Retrotax helped to break down the process of becoming a franchisee and what they, as franchisors, look for in potential business owners.
They both agreed that you must do something you are passionate about. You don’t want to own a restaurant if you hate food preparation for example. However, you don’t have to have much experience in something you know you will be passionate about. You can still be successful owning a portrait studio franchise even if you’ve never been a professional photographer. As with anything, it’s a lot of hard work and persistence. Just because you are buying a “turnkey” operation, you still have to do the leg work to find your customers, connect with the community and grow your business.
And, unlike starting a business from scratch, a franchise offers you the opportunity to be in business for yourself but not by yourself. As cliched as that might sound, it’s nice to have the support of a corporate office as well as a community of franchisees. You have a road map and systems already in place as well as operations manuals and proven methods for being a profitable franchisee. And, the franchisor can project with much more accuracy how long it will be before you will be profitable since they’ve already done it before.
For more information, listen to the podcast and let us know what you think. Thanks to both David and Stan for joining us! Have a stellar week!
