In the Beginning Was the Burger

Thanks to a series of iconic TV commercials, pretty much everyone knows that the late Dave Thomas started the Wendy’s hamburger chain with a single restaurant in 1969, naming the place after his daughter.  Eleven years later there were two thousand Wendy’s restaurants across the country.  Today Wendy’s is part of Wendy’s / Arby’s Group Inc., ranking as the country’s third-largest “quick service” restaurant conglomerate.  Last year the corporation enjoyed more than $1.2 billion in sales.

Wendy’s Franchise Review

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You know you need to change your career when …

1. You fantasize about working in a tollbooth on the M50.
2. The highlights of the day are tea breaks and lunchtime.
3. You know you have said all this before but you can’t remember when.
4. You keep ringing the talking clock because you know the clock at work is slow by a few hours.
5. You go to work and when you return home you have no memory of what happened in between.
6. You wonder what the new person at work is so enthusiastic about.
7. You volunteer to do the photocopying for everyone.
8. You wish your customers would leave you alone … they always seem to want something.
9. You pretend to be on the dole when people ask you what you do.
10. You create a calendar that shows how many days you have until retirement.
11. You mark off each day on your calendar with a big black marker.
12. You wonder idly what it would be like to spend time in Mountjoy … and speculate that it really couldn’t be much worse than this job.
13. You offer to swap jobs with the cleaning staff.
14. You begin to think about beginning to smoke … at least it gets you out of the office.
15. You wonder why all the stupid people of the universe congregate in your office.
16. You spend all week thinking about the weekend and spend most of Sunday dreading going to work.
17. You consider going to the zoo and hiring a monkey to do your job … you doubt if anyone would notice the difference.
18. You wonder what sort of deeds you committed in a past life to get saddled with your job, colleagues and boss…and speculate that you were probably Attila the Hun.
19. You have rung in sick with so many excuses that you are rapidly running out of dead relations and illnesses. You have already tried the Ebola virus and bird flu.

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You have just had another crap day at work. Some of these indicators may be familiar to you! You are tired and you wonder what went wrong. Everyone told you (family, friends, neighbours, the guy on the toll bridge) that this was a great job with great prospects. Now, you are just tired of it. Tired of the politics, the changing requirements, tired of your boss who always seems to be changing the goal posts?  You want to change careers not just change job. The problem is that you have no idea what you want to do. You have had vague ideas about working in the Third World or doing something to “help” people…whatever that means. There has been so much talk about life purpose...what does that mean anyway? How could you find your life purpose? And will you have to get fired before you do? And does a career change mean that everything you have done up until now is lost? The good news is that there are answers to all these questions.

• Yes, you can find your life purpose (and there are clues if you look back over your life)
• No, you don’t have to get fired…but sometimes getting fired or experiencing redundancy is what you need to get on track
• As for losing everything … nothing is lost. Everything you have done will benefit you, even if it’s only to teach you that you never want to do X again.

Laura Berman Fortgang outlines a powerful 12-step career change plan in her book: Now What? Uncover your Life Blueprint. Here are some of the tools she suggests you use to get back on track.

First of all get really clear about what you hate about your current life.

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One of the favored techniques in personal development in adult education is that of the life story. It is often a powerful way for people to connect to long lost dreams and to notice patterns in their life.

What may not be so well known is its power as a way to reveal what you were born to do, what your work blueprint is. Laura Berman Fortgang (in her book Now What? Uncover Your Life Blueprint) describes three tools to use with your life story to elicit meaning from it:

First of all, if you plan to do this exercise, here are some guidelines:   Keep it short (3-4 pages). Write it in bullet points. Also you could group it in some way. Some do it chronologically (5 year intervals). But I have also seen people do it by where they live. Write it over a couple of days and just let yourself remember what you remember (the story you write today is different from the story you would have written 6 months ago).

When you have written the story, read it back and watch for the following:

1. Driving motivators: These are often old-standing patterns that can keep you stuck. An example of that would be a woman who noticed from her life story that a constant theme was that of checking out. She felt that she could not cope with difficulties at home and school, and would simply withdraw into her own world while conflict and arguments swirled around her. This helped her through, but was now keeping her stuck.
2. Interrupted Dreams:  This is a dream you may have had as a child, but somehow it got forgotten along the way. It is often linked to creativity and play. I once had a client who had a long history of playing music since he was a small boy but when I read his life story, I was struck by its absence.

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Cash-Poor Entrepreneur
Many of us have dreams of owning our own business.  Franchise opportunities abound for people who have ready cash to spend, although it can take close to six figures ($100,000) to do a proper job of it - what with the initial franchise fee, start-up or build-out costs, inventory, supplies, and so on.  But what about those entrepreneurs who have a self-employment wish but little or no money to sink into the venture?  Breathe a bit easier, folks, because it CAN be done.

The Real Estate Model
In all kinds of financial times, but especially when things are a bit tight, there are plenty of stories about people who buy houses with “little or no money down.”  Although this article is aimed at actual businesses - “flipping” houses by buying, fixing up and reselling them is clearly a business, but outside the scope of this discussion - many of the techniques used by budding real estate magnates are applicable here as well.  And the secret to buying a business with no money down can be boiled down to a single word - financing.

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Time to Hang Up the Spatula?
As a restaurant owner, there comes a time when you wish to sell the business.  Perhaps you’re looking to relocate, or you want a change of kitchen scenery, or it’s time to lie on a beach and let someone else grill up the grouper.  No matter what your reason, your next task requires far different skills than those that made you a successful restaurateur.  By making some common-sense decisions, you will gain the maximum amount of profit and walk away from your food emporium with a satisfied smile and a heftier bank account.

How Much Is It Worth?
The first major decision any seller makes is to put a value on the business.  Too high, and you drive away potential buyers.  Too low, and you leave money on the table that is rightfully yours.  Many restaurant owners figure that the easiest way to price their business involves adding up the depreciated value of the equipment, toss in the market price of the real estate (or the remaining price of the lease, if you don’t own the building), and tack on a certain multiple of annual sales - anywhere from one to four times the net.  If you do all that, chances are you would be way over the true value of the place.  The best solution is to hire a professional restaurant appraiser.  These people know your area, recognize how different kinds of restaurants have different cost bases, and understand what motivates a buyer.  They will use one of three methods to help determine an asking price:

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In this modern consumer driven world, it is no wonder that established and affluent businessmen and women are looking for brand new opportunities to double their initial investment within two years. With their fingers in many pies, building up a business empire can be fruitful and rewarding if the right opportunities come along. If you happen to be looking to invest in a new and unique business in the very near future then you may want to look at investing in an optometry practice.

There are many optometrists qualifying to practice every year and many will not have a job when they do graduate so the labor is most definitely there, and the demographic nature of the population has facilitated a great demand for various aspects of health care. The population is undoubtedly aging and many individuals have optical conditions that require regular attention, including glaucoma and cataracts, as well as health problems that can affect the eyes, such as hypertension and diabetes. As a result, it is the right time to invest! The factors to consider are outlined below.

Profitability
The first factor to take into consideration is profitability to ensure that your investment is worthwhile. You will initially have to pay between $125,000 and $250,000 for an optometry practice. This is the going rate for practices in optimum locations, which will be discussed later. However, as the average salary of a newly qualified optometrist is $45,000, rising to $80,000 within five years, there is definite potential for profit. Tapping into that market is certainly inviting. However, to review an individual practice’s profitability, you should ask to see accounting records for the past five years. Take areas of loss and the potential for business improvement into account.

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In the Beginning…
Way back in 1957, two brothers living in Wichita [Kansas] borrowed a small sum of money and used it to open a pizza joint.  Fifty-plus years later and now part of a major corporation that includes such familiar fast-food names as Taco Bell, KFC and A&W, the Pizza Hut logo represents probably the most well known pizza brand in the world.  There are more than 6,200 Pizza Hut restaurants in the United States, and more than 4,000 restaurants in close to 100 other countries.

Starting Your Own Pizza Hut Franchise
Only two years after its midwestern launch, the original owners of Pizza Hut recognized the popularity of their concept and the value of offering franchises for sale to others.  This trend continues today, as independent operators own more than 80 percent of Pizza Hut locations.  The corporation will take a very close look at your bank balance in order to judge whether you have the financial resources to succeed.  After all, they want you to represent the Pizza Hut brand successfully.  This requires sufficient up-front capital as well as enough money on hand to help smooth out what can sometimes be a slow beginning, as your location builds its business.

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