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I wish I had known MJ and his books before purchasing this franchise…
I moved to US 4 years ago with my family looking for the old and great “American dream”. Not that it matters for this discussion, but just a quick FYI: legally!
I had a pretty decent life in my home country. I owned a construction company and still own it, but I don’t work there anymore - I was able to find partners that now work full time and it’s finally generating some passive income.
But seeking this new adventure at the age of 36, married and with a 3y old kid, we decided to act and move. Lots of reasons for this decision, and money of course was a good one, but I could say this was my FTE. I realized I wasn’t going anywhere with my company for many different reasons and decided to change drastically the course of my life.
After almost 1 year living in the country, basically burning my lifetime savings, I decided to buy a franchise with an old business partner. We (but mostly I) decided to buy this franchise for many different reasons:
I’ve read in another post when I was searching if anybody else had posted any content about buying a franchise, that most franchisees failed in most of the CENTS commandments.
Today I understand and agree this is true. If I dissect the commandments, that’s what I see:
Control: I have good but not total control under my business. I mean, I can use any trades I want, I can use/sell any products from any brands (as long as they are good) I want. But of course, I’m limited on territory - which limits my marketing and I obviously must comply with some corporate standards. But in general, I do have a lot of control to my business. I can’t complain.
Entry: competition is everywhere. If you get discouraged by competition, you’ll never start anything new never. Sometimes I feel like there is anything else to be invented anymore and anything you try to do, someone else is already doing. That said, entry wasn’t a great factor to me. Being a full service with a lot of integrity and transparency, differentiate us from most remodelers out there. But again, we are not offering anything “NEW” and easily anybody with some carpentry skills can proclaim themself a “remodeler”. So, it wasn’t hard to entry the industry.
Need: One of the best at least. People need remodeling. Always will. I live in a dense community with houses 50year old with original kitchens. There is a good opportunity here. But again, I suffer a lot with unfair competition such as John Doe and a van, two brothers and a hammer type of company (totally different from what I do, but CHEAPER).
Time: I have almost zero physicality. My company basically doesn’t function without me. At least for now. I know a few other locations (other franchisees) that could make the business self-working and theoretically speaking the owner like myself hardly work on the company anymore. But that’s hard, you need to come up with a very specific process and it takes a long time to reach that. In my case, time doesn’t work for me. I work for time.
Scale: I believe from all of the commandments, this is the worse. I have a big limitation on scale. I have bought a specific territory from franchisor, to act. Not that he wouldn’t sell me a bigger territory but the service I offer is local. I can’t drive more than 40-50 minutes to a remodeling job. Customers won’t drive 40-50 minutes to meet me at my showroom with a few exceptions. The only possible way to get more territory is expanding, like opening more showrooms in different locations. That’s a beautiful concept when you own the franchise being a franchisor. But not when you’re the franchisee. I’m very limited on scale since I’m limited in territory and the number of multiple locations I could handle at the same time if I open more showrooms.
All that being said, what do I think my options could be? That’s what I would like more specifically to hear some feedback, if possible. What are the options that I THINK on the table for now:
Any feedback would be appreciated
BTW, @MJ DeMarco don't know if you're going to remember me, but maybe one day we can get that dinner, or maybe a coffee since you don't do dinners anymore, together
Thanks
I moved to US 4 years ago with my family looking for the old and great “American dream”. Not that it matters for this discussion, but just a quick FYI: legally!
I had a pretty decent life in my home country. I owned a construction company and still own it, but I don’t work there anymore - I was able to find partners that now work full time and it’s finally generating some passive income.
But seeking this new adventure at the age of 36, married and with a 3y old kid, we decided to act and move. Lots of reasons for this decision, and money of course was a good one, but I could say this was my FTE. I realized I wasn’t going anywhere with my company for many different reasons and decided to change drastically the course of my life.
After almost 1 year living in the country, basically burning my lifetime savings, I decided to buy a franchise with an old business partner. We (but mostly I) decided to buy this franchise for many different reasons:
- Being new to the country - culture, rules, regulations, taxes etc. It would be very hard for us to learn all that by ourselves, in the hard way and we thought that if we would be successful one day on our own it would take forever.
- We did try a few things on our own such as house flips, car detailing service, ATM machines and commercial construction. But I didn’t put any of these “business ideas” out of the paper, or into real action. I even got my home country company’s website translated to English and “tried” to start a commercial construction company in US. But didn’t go too far. So the franchise was a real possibility and ready to go.
- Didn’t have too much money to invest in something bigger and the franchise had an affordable / decent price.
- But one of the most important decision factors, specifically for me, was the franchise’s values. They are good people. They want the good. They seem to really care. And the business model they offered was the closest I had as a professional with a construction background: they were a Home Remodeling franchise. Full service, specialized but not limited in kitchens and bathrooms, leaning more towards to high-end projects. To me seemed to be a pretty good deal back 4 years ago, again, before knowing the Fastlane and MJ’s books.
I’ve read in another post when I was searching if anybody else had posted any content about buying a franchise, that most franchisees failed in most of the CENTS commandments.
Today I understand and agree this is true. If I dissect the commandments, that’s what I see:
Control: I have good but not total control under my business. I mean, I can use any trades I want, I can use/sell any products from any brands (as long as they are good) I want. But of course, I’m limited on territory - which limits my marketing and I obviously must comply with some corporate standards. But in general, I do have a lot of control to my business. I can’t complain.
Entry: competition is everywhere. If you get discouraged by competition, you’ll never start anything new never. Sometimes I feel like there is anything else to be invented anymore and anything you try to do, someone else is already doing. That said, entry wasn’t a great factor to me. Being a full service with a lot of integrity and transparency, differentiate us from most remodelers out there. But again, we are not offering anything “NEW” and easily anybody with some carpentry skills can proclaim themself a “remodeler”. So, it wasn’t hard to entry the industry.
Need: One of the best at least. People need remodeling. Always will. I live in a dense community with houses 50year old with original kitchens. There is a good opportunity here. But again, I suffer a lot with unfair competition such as John Doe and a van, two brothers and a hammer type of company (totally different from what I do, but CHEAPER).
Time: I have almost zero physicality. My company basically doesn’t function without me. At least for now. I know a few other locations (other franchisees) that could make the business self-working and theoretically speaking the owner like myself hardly work on the company anymore. But that’s hard, you need to come up with a very specific process and it takes a long time to reach that. In my case, time doesn’t work for me. I work for time.
Scale: I believe from all of the commandments, this is the worse. I have a big limitation on scale. I have bought a specific territory from franchisor, to act. Not that he wouldn’t sell me a bigger territory but the service I offer is local. I can’t drive more than 40-50 minutes to a remodeling job. Customers won’t drive 40-50 minutes to meet me at my showroom with a few exceptions. The only possible way to get more territory is expanding, like opening more showrooms in different locations. That’s a beautiful concept when you own the franchise being a franchisor. But not when you’re the franchisee. I’m very limited on scale since I’m limited in territory and the number of multiple locations I could handle at the same time if I open more showrooms.
All that being said, what do I think my options could be? That’s what I would like more specifically to hear some feedback, if possible. What are the options that I THINK on the table for now:
- Grow my franchise business and be as successful as possible inside my limitations (scale and magnitude). I don’t think I could ever be a fastlaner doing this but at the life circumstances I am today such as my age, supporting a family (and a new baby now), it would be very hard to restart everything again. Besides I don’t have much money to invest in some new business (at least for now). The money I’d make in this option, I would use some for living and some for saving and small (and conservative) investments since my focus would be the company.
- Option 2 in my opinion would be to make as much money I could with this business in option 1 but use the money I earn to start something new, a side hustle, an investment group in a larger scale, real state, etc. and gradually move the focus from the franchise to these other things.
- As I said on the commandment of time, I could work hard on creating a working process where my presence wouldn’t be much more necessary and open a few more locations to expand my territory therefore my scale. I don’t think I could open more than 3 or maybe 4 locations being the sole owner though.
- Make my company stronger and sell my business after a few more years (because right now this business is not worth a lot since I’m still very new) and take the money and start something else. Something mine. Something I don’t need to be hitchhiking someone else’s Fastlane (my franchisor). But if that is the answer, I’ll have sooooo many other questions…
- Another option on the table?
Any feedback would be appreciated
BTW, @MJ DeMarco don't know if you're going to remember me, but maybe one day we can get that dinner, or maybe a coffee since you don't do dinners anymore, together
Thanks
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