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.