Hey All,
8 months ago I purchased a home services franchise, the goal is that we could scale the business to a place where I could hire someone to run it and become a "semi-absentee" owner, I have a full-time job where I make 6 figures and have good health insurance, my wife also works too.
During the discovery period the timeline that was laid out to me was that by the 3rd month of operation we'd start to see consistent business through all of the different marketing that we were doing, it was also projected that marketing spend should be 10-20% of revenue.
Well after about 8 months and coming out of a horrible winter, we are actually moving backward. I still have plenty of cash to get us through another year or so, but the thought of closing the business is starting to creep into my mind.
I know that it takes a while to grow, but after talking to a few of the most successful owners I realized that they're all owner operators, meaning they work in the business every day, they have multiple territories, so double/triple the royalties and fees, and one of them who's doing $1M+ (#2 in the company) in revenue is only taking home $200K/year. Yes, that's a lot of money but I'm one promotion away from that as it sits now.
I'm not really that concerned financially, but rather that I don't see a path of how to get the business to where I want it to be and what I had envisioned when I paid for the franchise. I could definitely scale back, and that would help keep us in the black every month, but it'd still require enormous involvement on my part.
Lastly, my wife and I are trying to conceive our first child and the idea of running the business, working full time, and taking care of a baby does not seem possible to me.
There's also the idea of having to tell friends and family that you're shutting the business down. It's like telling them you're getting a divorce, you basically are looked at like a loser.
Not making any decisions yet, but curious for perspective from those that have been through it.
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