The fragile business
No matter what sort of business you are in, it’s only as good as the next crisis is. Has that got you thinking? I hope so. You see many business people chip away at the coal face to get ahead, but do not stop to think about how to handle major challenges that might arise. Of course we do not want major challenges to arise but they can.
Example, imagine a franchised business, lets say it’s in an early phase of development and the main company has sold a few territories and is pushing to sell more. But the offering turns out to be a flop, (e.g. customers did not want a garden watering service…) so things start going downhill. When push comes to shove they end up with no more sales, no more fees in and it goes belly up.
Well apart from a poor business concept how well the main company does will also depend on what they do to develop their wealth.
Consider this. If the income stopped for the Head Office of this organisation, how long would it last? Answer, not very long (often it’s allegedly about 2 weeks for most). For the business owner/s this means their dream has gone up in smoke.
BUT, what if they had developed a “wealth creation program”, or a “debt reserve fund”. Often its as simple as a separate bank account where a % of funds from all income goes. Over time it compounds and provides a growing liquid asset. This is left alone to grow and provides the main company with a solid foundation to build on (The key is to never spend it.) When it builds, some of it can be put into other forms of investments that can be liquidated fast if need be (shares for example) to do this effectively I would suggest a % be agreed upon to retain cash in the reserve fund (cash is king…)
Although I have used a larger organisation as an example, it can be done (and in my view should be done) by all businesses.
The aim, to build a foundation that keeps the business solid and even if things go “down the tubes” the future has at least been allowed for, obviously the longer the business can run the stronger the foundation and if need be the security can be leveraged against to start another business (hopefully a MUCH better one than the first!)
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Herman Najoli: