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“Follow your passion” is a rallying cry of entrepreneurship, but is it the best guidance you can receive as you choose which franchise to start? Maybe not.
On the surface, the quip seems like sound advice. Passionate pursuits hold your interest and motivate you to keep moving forward during trying times. Still, we’re often passionate about the same things we turn to when we need a little respite. That’s because they’re welcome distractions from the daily grind. Passions hold our interest and give our brains a break from thinking about work around the clock.
To illustrate this point further, look at this statement from entrepreneur Mark Cuban. “‘Follow your passions.' No. Follow your effort. No one quits anything they're good at. If I followed my passion, I'd still be trying to play professional basketball."
There’s a clear middle ground for finding what will capture your interest and fuel your efforts, and those areas where you can turn to when you need a break. In taking that lens, here are three steps to find a franchise without pursuing your passion.
1. Your Why Matters More Than Your Love
Why you want to start a franchise often differs from the areas of life you love. For example, you might love spending time with family around the dinner table, but that doesn’t mean you want to open a restaurant. Instead, your why might be more driven by freeing up more time for you to have with your family around the dinner table instead of getting stuck at the corporate office working for someone else.
Knowing your why allows you to know what will keep you motivated. That continual effort and pursuit of a bigger-picture life goal will bring you more success than dabbling in a role simply because you like doing the activity in your spare time.
2. Define Your Metrics of Success
Understanding your why allows you to pursue a business in an industry that interests you but doesn’t require you to do the work at the ground level. There’s a middle ground where you can stay close to an industry you love while leaving space to do the activities you love. One way to find that middle ground is to look at what success means to you more granularly.
Your why might be the visionary idea of success. Getting granular with your definition of success by attaching metrics allows you to solidify the goals you want to pursue.
Using the same example of the franchise owner above, who wants more time to spend with his family around the dinner table every night, we can look at what needs to happen to ensure he reaches that goal.
- How much money will he need to earn to leave his job?
- How much money does he have to invest to start a franchise that’ll get him to that point?
- What’s a realistic timeframe for the family to start and grow the business?
Looking at the facts behind starting a franchise allows future franchisees to get a more realistic idea of what’s possible rather than pursue something because it sounds fun.
3. Opt for Wise Investment Choices
Now that you have determined your personal why for pursuing franchise ownership and have defined the success metrics to pursue, it’s time to choose a franchise.
Starting a franchise for the sake of starting a franchise isn’t a wise investment decision. Instead, as you start whittling down which industries you want to immerse yourself in, look also at market conditions. What are consumers looking for. What industries have longevity? Which industries will get you closer to your success metrics and still allow you to live your why?
Researching franchises through this lens allows you to still pursue something that feels exciting. It simultaneously allows you a higher likelihood of success by giving you a clearer idea of where you’ll put your efforts for success and which industries that draw your attention will withstand the test of time.
Kimberly Crossland is the founder of Roadpreneur and Cruisin' + Campfires, two companies designed to keep families together and living in freedom through travel and entrepreneurship. The goal of both businesses is to inspire meaningful change through the power of a strategic, thoughtful approach to life and business. In her free time, you can find her looking for a new adventure together with her two boys.