Should one possess certain skills or experience



necessary for any particular franchise then it

may well be advisable to push towards a franchise

specialising in that area.

However, in my opinion, and put very simply

indeed, franchises fall broadly into two main

categories -- those that return a residual income

and those that require a new piece of work to be

carried out to gain any additional income.

This is not to say that in franchise

opportunities that do return residual income that

no work is required to maintain the customer base

but that it is much easier to maintain, the cost

is not prohibitive and continuous benefit is

derived by the customer from maintaining the

existing contract.

Additionally, if one of the reasons for choosing

the franchise was to be working from home then

this kind of defeats the purpose as all the

practical work will have to be carried out away

from home.

This is perhaps food for thought as many people

searching for franchises often do not know the

pertinent questions to ask or the correct way to

go about the investigation.

Furthermore, eventualities such as illness or

holidays need to be taken into consideration --

if the franchise is operating as a one or two man

operation then a simple event such as those

aforementioned could ruin the business's

reputation.

Following on from this point, when one goes on

holiday, it is nice to know that all the earnings

during that period do not stop.

One can just imagine, for example, a customer

waiting for two weeks to get their drains sorted -

- I don't think so! What about if one is ill? Net

result will be a lost customer and if the other

contractor is good, maybe a permanently lost

customer.

There is something else to bear in mind about

this type of franchise opportunity, and I'm not

picking on drain cleaning, it's just an example

and very, very necessary. The hard facts of the

matter are that the better the job done, the

longer it should be before any repeat business is

encountered again? points to mull over.

Having said all of this, the types of franchise

that offer residual, repeat income may require

greater or more excessive selling and marketing

skills and this is an area notorious for putting

the fears up for many people -- generally people

don't like rejection or approaching a situation

where they are trying to get something.

My own personal attitude to this is that we all

sell ourselves every day whether we are lawyers,

doctors, architects, accountants, franchise

owners, mortgage brokers, or stock brokers. Think

about it?

Thus, in summary, and I say this very generally,

I would suggest that unless a particular skill is

present or indeed a penchant for the franchise on

offer exists and one is confident of his/her

ability to speak to people and thus market a

product/service well, then the easier option is

to look for some kind of residual income

producing franchise.