Buying a Franchise is One of Seven Ways to Begin a Business

The business idea that you can use to start your own business are right in front of you. Sometimes we lose sight of the value of what is around us, all because it is free. Yes, these business ideas are free and they are there in your basement, inside of your garage and countless other places that you have been to. You will see them both online and off-line. They are present in the challenges that you face daily as well as in the somewhat insignificant successes that you achieve.  

Now you don’t need an MBA degree or a business guru’s instinct to identify these opportunities and profit from them big time. No! Identifying such business opportunities is as simple as taking note of the problems you or a lot of people complain about and providing solutions to such problems. 

Take the example of SurfStitch; an ecommerce business that was created in response to a problem being identified by some surf enthusiasts, namely; the sorry state of surf supplies in Australia. This problem was identified by the founders of SurfStitich as a business opportunity in 2008 and today you know the rest of the story.

Okay so are you thinking of doing the same? Well then, here are seven fantastic ways of starting your own business and becoming another SurfStitch.

1          Run with Your Passion

When it comes to starting your own business passion is king. Whether the business in question is as ‘common’ as selling drinking water in bottle containers or not-so-common as flying people to Mars, your success depends on where your passion lies. This will drive you to be persistent in the face of all kinds of challenges. Surely the level of success that you can achieve in your chosen line of business is directly proportional to your level of passion.

2          Consider Starting a Service Business

Evaluating your skill-set to determine what kind of services you can offer to others, is another way of knowing what line of business you should start. There are a lot of busy individuals as well as business outfits that are more than willing to pay others to take care of their everyday tasks. From house cleaning and dog walking to online writing and transcription, your services are much sought after by others with little additional expenses on your part for this to be provided.    

3          Allow Others to Acquire your Skill(s)  

Are you someone with skill(s) others will love to have and can teach them? If so, stop giving your expertise to others for free. Begin to charge for it!  

There are a number of ways this can be done. For example, if your talent lies with writing and you know how to teach about good writing, then you can write an eBook on good writing skills and sell this online. Also, if martial arts is where your expertise lies, with others seeking knowledge about this from you, consider opening a school and earn money by teaching others. 

4          Rework Old Ideas

Finding completely new ideas is not something you see often. Most new ideas that have brought about today’s businesses are actually spin-offs of previous ones. A very good example of this are inline skates, which are actually rehashed roller skates or ice skates. Now you don’t need to have the kind of funds plus management ability that was at the disposal of the corporate entity that first produced inline skates to come up with a great business idea.

No! Your business angle may be as simple as taking your service to clients in an industry where it is usually the other way round. What this means is that you will be ready to provide mobile services to your clients where such is non-existent or nearly so in the concerned industry. A good example may be a mobile auto-mechanic shop that has auto parts including tools. In this case, clients won’t have to take their vehicles to the shop, but instead the auto-repair shop will come to them.        

 

5          Use Free Stuff

One of the common excuses that people give, which has not made them start their own business is lack of funds (or lack of enough funds). Okay if this is the only reason why you have not started your own business, here are some resources that you can use without cost to start and grow your own business. This includes:

• Dropbox: this resource is for file storage and you have 2GB of storage space for free.
• PicMonkey: find a powerful plus fun photo-editing tools resource in PicMonkey all for free.
• Mail Chimp: it can be used for creating wonderful email marketing campaigns.
• A Weber:  make use of free auto-responder on A Weber to build a strong relationship with subscribers.
• Survey Monkey: create surveys plus get to know more about your clients with Survey Monkey.

Now these are just some of the free online tools or resources you can use in starting your own business and taking it to the next level.

6          Buy a Going Concern

Starting a new business can be quite daunting, but not so much if you are buying an existing business. For one, the infrastructure is already in place. However, you need to do your due diligence to know the true state of the business that you want to buy and not just rely on what the business owner(s) tell you.

Find out if the business gets enough traffic. Check town records including newspapers for any information you can get about this business. Also, consult an attorney as well as an accountant for advice before committing yourself.       

7          Purchase a Franchise

Buying a franchise is a straight ticket to owning a business. This is especially true if you are not thinking of developing your own product or even method of how your business should run. Now what you get with a franchise is basically a Create-Your-Own-Business kit.  

With this, you will get the rights to using a franchise name, distributing branded products, and possibly more depending on the franchise chosen and how much is invested by you.  

Conclusion

There are actually different opportunities out there to starting your own business. And, the seven ways listed here only offer some of the ways others have started theirs and how you can do same as well.

However, you will need to think through this properly and know which way will work for you. Probably carrying out a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis should be the first step you take.