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Here at the Franchise Blog, we enjoy a good book about franchising now and again. Buying a franchise is a difficult decision that involves some serious self-analysis before you even get down to dealing with banks, investors and franchisors. There’s tons of social media devoted solely to question of whether or not someone is cut out for franchising, but maybe a book-length meditation on the subject is really the only way to truly evaluate one’s fitness for the task at hand.

So we’d like to recommend the latest book on the subject: Mitchell York’s alliteratively-titled Franchise: Freedom or Fantasy? York has a proven track record in business coaching. A Columbia MBA, he’s coached executives for over 30 years and is the president of E2Ecoaching. He also blogs on the always-interesting All Business website, and recently wrote an informative post on the decisions that franchisees need to make to be successful.

The purpose of this book is to answer that question that seems as old as Shakespeare by now: to franchise or not to franchise? In the book, York discusses the steps you’ll need to take to open a successful franchise and the mistakes you’ll have to avoid.

Initial reviews of Franchise: Freedom or Fantasy? sound positive. According to Angie Shaw of The Entrepreneur’s Source, “this book is a must-read for anyone who is considering owning a franchise. Business ownership is a life-changing event that must be carefully considered and this book is a great first step”.

If you’re wrestling with the idea of franchise ownership, this is definitely the one franchising book you should buy this year.

Making the leap into entrepreneurship is one of the most challenging choices a person can make, and a global recession doesn’t make the decision any easier. Across America, there are many people continuing their 9 -5 grind, doing unfulfilling work simply to pay the bills, uncertain about the future with their employer and dreaming of owning their own business. Those people need a guide telling them how to break free from their cubicle chains. Luckily it exists in book form, and it has been written by author and blogger Pamela Slim.

We blogged recently about Escape From Cubicle Nation, which takes its title from Slim’s popular small business blog.  Her aim is to help people achieve business success on their own terms and create something personal out of their  skills and creativity. Her first book is a primer on how to attain that dream.

Slim admits her suspicions with corporate life from page one. Her main complaints are that the corporate world is unstable and its leadership is stubborn to change. Over time, Slim begins to create her portrait of “cubicle nation”: a place where creativity stifled, meaningless work is done over and over and workers spend most of their time responding to mountains of email. Slim calls on workers to escape the corporate system and go out on their own.

Escape From Cubicle Nation is a very handy resource for aspiring entrepreneurs. Slim outlines the realities of starting and owning a small business, and provides helpful insight about what needs to be done to get a business off the ground. She stresses the importance of consulting with other people. Slim says entrepreneurs should enlist a mentor for their new business as well as a High Council of Jedi Knights, who you can go to during pivotal moments in the life of your business.

The book has a streamlined lay-out reminiscent of other business books, but what makes Escape a vital read is Slim’s compelling story and her clear and concise writing style. Escape speaks to a real economic truth of the moment. Given the harsh economic realities of today, entrepreneurship is the only way a person can truly control their future. Slim provides a lot of insight about how to break free from the corporate world.

Once you do, may I suggest owning a franchise?

You can buy the book it here.

The business world is fixated with entrepreneurs like Matt Zuckerberg of Facebook or Muziic’s 15-year-old founder David Nelson. These are prodigious young talents, 21st century businessmen, changing the world with a new technological concept. But these are not the only types of entrepreneurs. As Mike Michalowicz would like us to remind us, there is another type of business person out there, toiling outside of the limelight, a person he portrays in his new book, The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur.

Michalowicz brands the Zuckerberg’s of the world as Media Darling Entrepreneurs (MDE’s). They won the plaudits of the media with their lucrative and trend-setting ideas. In his book,  Michalowicz tells the story of the everyday entrepreneur, someone who struggles in order to make their business work, starting with little more than a dream,  forced to do more with less. His book is a primer for these entrepreneurs, people who don’t have millions in their savings account or investors lining up outside their house.

The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur is an insightful and irreverent take on entrepreneurship.  The ‘how to become a successful entrepreneur’ market has long been oversaturated and it’s nice to finally read a fresh voice. One feels that entrepreneurs, especially young ones, could learn much, much more from someone like Michalowicz than any MDE.

In his book, Michalowicz charts his own career arc, from the owner of a small computer programming company, which he started from scratch, to the founder of Obsidian Launch and a multiple winner of the Young Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Along the way, Michalowicz discusses the various attributes that he thinks are necessary for becoming a successful Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. Belief is crucial, as is passion, the desire to succeed and the ambition to work in a career that you actually love. At the same time, Michalowicz is crystal clear that entrepreneurs are born, not made. If you don’t have an instinctual drive towards entrepreneurship, odds are, you will be lost at sea.

Throughout the book, Michalowicz filters in the life stories of other Toilet Paper Entrepreneurs, people like Bill Hewlett and David Packard, who started their famous company with only $538 and a ‘beat-up drill press’. Or Simon Sinek, who stared failure straight in the face and emerged as ‘the leading authority for entrepreneurs who seek their purpose’. Or David Tyreman, who after seeing his antique business fail, spent his last $20 on beer. He woke up the next day satisfied with himself and ready to start from scratch. From there, he founded successful branding companies like Propaganda and World Famous. In their meager beginnings and flirtations with failure, each of these entrepreneurs discovered the blueprint to their own success.

These inspiring anecdotes are almost as important as the entrepreneurial advice that Michalowicz offers. If you’re passionate, driven and ready to succeed, you’re probably a Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, even if you wouldn’t describe yourself as such. This book offers a guide to rewriting the rules of business and a path to becoming a resilient and driven entrepreneur.

Finally, if you’re curious about the origins of the title of the book, we recommend you purchase the book for the introduction alone.  Michalowicz defines the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur in truly vivid detail.

Find out how to buy The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur here. In the mean time, check out Michalowicz’s blog and especially this post on the 163 ways to become a successful entrepreneur.

Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about the legalities of franchising are now available in An Introduction To The Laws Of Franchising, an exhaustive, 452 page tome authored by attorneys David J. Kaufmann and David W. Oppenheim of Kaufmann, Feiner, Yamin, Gildin & Robbins. By all accounts, this book is an essential companion for franchisors.

The book includes all the latest state requirements for franchise, tips for acceleratingthe  franchise registration process and a variety of information intended to help franchisors achieve compliance.

Click here for more information on purchasing the book.

How to Open & Operate a Financially Successful Retail Business

By Janet Engle

Have you ever wondered how to set up, operate and successfully make a profit from investing in a retail business or franchise opportunity? Well wonder no more!

In this book, Janet Engle like most franchise authors I have reviewed so far introduces the reader to a brief history of the retail industry, and then a chapter on assessing the skills and qualities that make a good franchise retail owner (Chapter 4) and this section serves as an prelim to the more interesting chapters which are added later.

These following chapters are an excellent and comprehensive study of the important aspects of setting up a retail franchise and should be bookmarked by you for further reading :

- setting up a retail franchise (Chapter 8 Buying a Retail Franchise);

- understanding the financial obligations associated with your new business (Chapter 10 Financing Your Business and Chapter 13 Accounting and Bookkeeping);

- marketing and advertising (Chapter 16 Marketing and Advertising);

- customers and suppliers (Chapters 17-19);

- employees and other labor costs (Chapter 20 Employee Relations and Labor Costs).

Not only are these chapters very useful in guiding you through the process of setting up a successful retail franchise business it also provides you with a practical CD-Rom which has some really good features, including how to write up an effective Business Plan (using Word template) and much more.

You should definitely invest in purchasing this book if you are seriously considering setting up your own retail franchise business…

BEST FRANCHISE BOOKS

If you are interested in purchasing a franchise or business related book - you should check out Best Franchise Books - a comprehensive website which provides a list of all relevant business related books.

This website is the only portal of its kind in the industry to provide a dedicated resource for franchise and business related books.

It is worth checking this website out…

Franchise Reporter