Joel Libava, The Franchise King,® is the president of Franchise Selection Specialists Inc, a franchise consulting/advisory firm.
For some people, the word “change,” is one of the scariest words in the English language. Some people get all weak in the knees, with just the thought of possibly having to change one or two things in their lives. Others thrive on it. I think that I’m the latter.
Before I get into my own experience with change, I’d like to talk about Gini. Gini Dietrich.
I “met” Gini about 2.5 years ago. I was a paid blogger over at AllBusiness.com, and I saw her name mentioned in a post about social media. Being the social guy, I started to “follow” her around. (Not that kind of following around.)
If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably only had face to face interactions with about half of the folks that you hang with, online. That’s just the nature of present day communication.
Anyway, I read some of Gini’s posts, and of course, liked her right away. I was attracted to her wit, her style, and her… shall we say, straightforward personality. She doesn’t hold back, and I generally like that in a person.
One day, while I was engaged in some intensive blog scanning, I came across a post from Gini, which included these scary words;
“I’ve written, and rewritten, this blog post in my head the past two months and, now that the time is here to announce our news, I don’t have the perfect post yet.
So…I’m just going to write it.
Arment Dietrich is no longer a PR firm.
Yes, I’m serious. We are no longer a PR firm.”
Wow. I wonder how scary that post was to write.
Have you read it?
I really haven’t been having that much fun the past couple of years, in my role as a franchise consultant-broker. There are lots of reasons for it, but trust me; it was time to move on.
So, I changed my business model. I decided to become a franchise “advisor,” instead of a franchise “broker.”
When I was a broker, the franchisor would pay a finder’s fee upon successful placement of one of my “candidates.” The paydays were large, and I had a couple of solid years.
As an advisor, I would be doing individualized coaching. Basically, I’d be teaching folks how to properly select and carefully research franchises. It didn’t turn out the way I had planned.
In my heart, I knew that I would be able to save a lot of people lots of grief. Most of the people that I’ve met, and worked with over the years, really didn’t know how to choose a good franchise for their unique situations. Most of them were pretty lost when it came to researching them, too.
Only a few folks ended up using my advisory services, so I’ve closed that door.
So now, like Gini, I’m changing transforming my business. It is a little scary.
I’ll be working with the franchisors. I’ll be providing franchise content and franchise social media marketing services.
Now, I’ve been providing content for a few franchisors off and on for a couple of years. I’ve written articles for them, I’ve done some guest posting, and I’ve helped them spread their messages through all of the social media channels. I’ve even set-up their blogs.
The difference now is that it’s my focus.
I know what franchise buyers want in a franchise. I’ve managed franchises. I was a franchisee. I’ve helped people buy franchises.
I’ve been entrenched in social media, publishing one of the first franchise-related blogs, almost 6 years ago. It’s not like I need practice.
Finally, I’ve built a very large and very powerful network of small business professionals who work together, to help get the word out about each other’s clients. And we do business.
I have a feeling that I’m really going to enjoy this transformation…
Joel Libava, The Franchise King,® is the president of Franchise Selection Specialists Inc, a franchise consulting/advisory firm. He’s quite active in social media, and provides franchise content and social media services to the franchise community. Check out his blog to learn more.