Owning a franchise can help an entrepreneur gain new skills that will make him or her a better business owner as well as a better professional overall. While you are affiliated with another company and must follow their basic policies, you still have leeway as to how you manage your people and resources. Here are some of the specific skills you learn as a franchise owner…
How to Manage the Bottom Line
As an employee, you generally have little or no responsibility for managing your employer’s cash flow. Instead, you may spend your day operating a cash register, making sales calls or waxing the floors. While you may learn great customer service or organizational skills, you don’t have an appreciation for how much it costs to run a company until it is yours to oversee. This may give you new insight into why certain employees need to be let go or why some people need to multitask each day to keep the company afloat.
Reliance on Others
As a business owner, you must be able to delegate. If you try to take on everything yourself, you will stretch yourself too far and burn out quickly. Therefore, you need to identify and develop others to watch the store while you are gone or help you accounting tasks. It may also be necessary to find people who are good at customer service or good at convincing the corporate office to give you more leeway when making decisions about pricing or your product offerings.
The Difference between Leader and Boss
As an employee, you may not have been concerned with turnover rates or increasing the productivity of others. Instead, you probably did what you were told because that’s how you kept your job. However, as a business owner, you start to see that your words and actions can be the difference between someone wanting to work for you and opting to quit as soon as possible. When morale is high, productivity and profits tend to increase.
Using New Technology
When you run a business, you need to find new ways to lower costs on a regular basis. Using technology to create your schedule, do payroll and take care of other tasks can both cut costs and acquaint you with tools that companies use all the time. If you decide to sell your franchise in favor of being an employee or consultant, it will be easier to find work because you know how to work in a smart and efficient manner.
The Importance of Workplace Safety
If an employee trips and falls, it may be on you to pay the workers compensation costs as well as make up for the lost productivity. While one injury can be put into context, you don’t want to start a trend of many workers getting hurt or sick on the job. This could make you look like you don’t care about your people, which will haunt you while running your franchise and later on as it could harm your reputation. Therefore, familiarize yourself with OSHA standards and other ways that you can improve safety on the job to prevent injuries and keep morale up.
Looking into restaurant or carpet cleaning franchises can be a great way to earn money and be your own boss. Using an existing brand and help from your corporate office, you can learn what it takes to run a company without having to start from scratch. Once you learn how to manage a business and everything that it entails, you may be better prepared to start your own company or leverage your experience into steady employment elsewhere.
Your career mentor,
Bud
PS: I write this blog to help people create the life and career success they want and deserve. Now I’m going one step further. I’ve created a membership site in which I’ve pulled together my best thoughts on success. And, as a reader of this blog, you can become a member for free. Just go to https://budbilanich.com/join to claim your free membership. You’ll be joining a vibrant and growing community of success minded professionals. I hope to see you there.
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