Entrepreneur.com list ten franchise trends for 2012.  This list is not a recommendation but is only a guide on the opportunities available should you want to own a franchise.  Some franchises, like child and senior care, have been going strong for years and others franchises, like health and spa services, are just taking off. These franchise categories are expected to continue their growth next year.

What does the future hold for the franchise world? Some industries on Entrepreneur’s list of 10 trends for 2012, like child care and senior care, have been going strong for years–thanks to the ever-growing demographic groups they serve–and show no signs of stopping. Others, like spa services and health services, have just started taking the franchise world by storm in recent years. Whether they’re new or old, these are the franchise categories that are primed for continued growth over the next year–whatever the economic circumstances may be.

This list is not a ranking and is not intended as a recommendation of any particular franchise company.

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Jeff Haden lists down the legal requirements or basic infrastructure an entrepreneur must accomplish before starting a small business.  He says there are people at the courthouse or local treasurer’s office willing to assist you.  It will only take two days tops in most areas to finish the list.  Below is the list published at CBSNews.com.

Here’s a quick-start guide to starting your own business:

Determine your business name. While branding, unique selling propositions and business-identity considerations are important, keep in mind there is no perfect company name. So don’t worry about selecting the ideal URL, dreaming up the perfect website design or roughing out your promotional literature. Pick a name. You can always operate your business under a name that’s different from your company name. (That’s what a DBA, or “doing business as,” is for.) And you can always change your company’s name later, especially if you end up doing something different than you originally thought.

Apply for an Employee Identification Number (EIN). An EIN is a federal tax number that is used to formally identify your business. Although you don’t need an EIN unless you plan to have employees or form a partnership, LLC or corporation, it makes sense to apply for one. The process only takes a few minutes and is free. If you don’t have an EIN your Social Security number is used to identify your business for tax purposes. An EIN allows you to keep your Social Security number confidential. All you have to do is go to the IRS website and apply.

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During this period of economic downturn, people who lost their jobs or are uncertain about holding onto their jobs usually cannot find new employment. Alisa Harrison of the International Franchise Association said, “They tap home equity, severance packages and sometimes retirement plans to start a new business that they can own so they can have some control over their future”.  They go into franchising.  This year, there is a 2.5% growth in franchises compared to 2010, she added.  The State reports that fast-food restaurants top the list of franchises followed by personal services.

Altogether, there are about 785,000 franchised businesses across the nation, according to Alisa Harrison, spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based International Franchise Association. That’s about 2.5 percent more than in 2010, but still shy of the roughly 792,000 in 2008, when financial markets collapsed in the fall and funding for start-up businesses all but disappeared.

By far, quick-service restaurants account for the highest number of franchised establishments at about 153,000, with personal services trailing at about 131,000. Franchises provide 7.8 million direct jobs and pump about $740 billion into the economy.

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There are so many types of businesses for sale. But how do you know what is the right business for you? You, your friends and family have some idea about the type of business that is right for you. Consider the pros and cons. If you make the right choice, you can have fun, fulfillment, control and money at the same time.

Here are a few questions to help you choose the right business for you:

1. What do you want to do? What are you passionate about? For example, if you are into arts, buy a business selling art supplies, paintings, books, art lessons, framing, etc. You can be earning while doing what you enjoy.

2. Will you sell products or offer a service? If you want to sell an existing product, consider how to improve it. Offer the product to a new market or put a unique spin on it. If you want to offer a service, you should know what pleases your customers and how to address their needs, so they keep coming back. The right idea for a business should excite you and your market or customers alike. Find out what they want and give it to them.

3. What do you do best? Get into a business where you can make use of your interest, expertise, previous work experience and training. What are your strengths? Focus on making the business grow rather than on learning a new skill and probably making costly mistakes along the way. Think of your hobbies and what you do in your spare time. Can these be developed and be profitable? For example, if you know a lot about computers, you can sell computer units, peripherals and accessories, or offer repair and programming services.

4. What suits you? What business do you want – retail, manufacturing, service, home-based, online, etc.?

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If you’re a physician looking to market your practice or reach out to new patients, keep in mind that physicians, more than those in other professions, can benefit from an effective media campaign. Press coverage reaches their target market, drives patients their way and gives them validation and credibility. The public generally learns about the latest medical breakthroughs, news, or studies via the media. It is an avenue they trust and trust is the bottom line when it comes to health care.

Physicians that are featured in the media are seen as the experts, whether they are featured in their local newspaper or on the Today show. Doctors and health care specialists can present themselves as media go-to experts by offering the media relevant and timely stories.

Although marketing a medical practice via print ads or commercials can have some effect, that approach has inherent risks. No patient wants to feel that he or she is being “sold”. Patients want to see someone they trust, someone they feel is the best in their field. It is that validation and trust factor that comes with being featured in the media. For example, if a prospective patient reads an article that features a physician in the New York Times or USA Today, or sees a doctor interviewed on CNN or on a network nightly news segment, chances are that physician will be viewed as an expert, as a leader in his or her field who can be trusted.

Public relations is also important because a PR campaign is not just about marketing; it is also about educating the public. An effective media campaign educates and informs. Used effectively, media relations can not only build a practice, it can educate and introduce new concepts and perspectives and shape the ideas of a community. Because of that, it’s important that physicians see and present themselves as educators.

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OK – I have to admit, by the time I got to Z in this series, I had to be a little bit creative about the title, but actually being able to get in the Zone is an important part of running a business. 

Let’s face it, we all have projects – things we want to do in our business to get us to where we want to be. And it’s really, really easy to let these things slide because other priorities get in the way. 

I’ve got a ton of things that I plan to do between now and the end of the Year and it’s always a struggle to fit them in. There always seems to be something else that I need to do instead. So, in order to get them done, I need to enter the ‘Zone’ – in other words, set my mind to getting these things complete and actually do them. 

And that’s the thing isn’t it? It’s all very well saying I’m going to do something like get three new training contracts, but if I don’t do anything to make this happen, these training contracts are not going to materialise. 

Unfortunately, I see this happening with small business owners a lot. They say they’re going to go to 1 networking event every week, write articles, or contact 100 businesses to see if they’re interested in their products and services, but they don’t plan this activity in detail so sometimes, it never happens. 

Take writing articles as a task. This requires quite a bit of thought … and more than you might think. What topic shall I write about? What research do I need to do to write the article? When am I going to sit down and write it? Now it’s written, what do I do with the article? How do I generate business from it? 

Many of us wait until we have answered all these questions and more before we actually get going on the task and therefore, it’s very likely that the task doesn’t get done. 

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The one common denominator that most millionaires have is that they own their own business. Owning your own business can be a very financially rewarding experience. The thrill of being the boss and having complete control over your own destiny are the primary reasons people leave the work force to operate their own company. Owning your own business can easily turn in to a nightmare if you make mistakes. These mistakes are avoidable if you know what to look for in the business. You have a better chance of becoming a millionaire if you avoid these 5 major mistakes when buying a business.

1) Due Diligence, Due Diligence, Due Diligence
Not everything is as it seems and that is especially true when buying a business. The owner can produce financial statements that show a business is thriving. You need to do due diligence to make sure the information presented to you is valid and shows an accurate picture of the condition of the business.

You want to make sure you know what items the business actually owns, what is leased, what is owed to the business and what the business owes to others. You do not want to buy a business only to find out there is a huge pile of bills that are due and the income you were expecting does not materialize. Doing a solid job of due diligence will help you avoid buying the wrong business or paying too much for the business.

2) Not Having Enough Cash Reserves
Running a business requires capital. Successful businesses are able to generate enough revenue to cover the cost of their expenses. In times when the revenue is less than the expenses then you need cash reserves to cover the shortfall.

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The one trait the majority of all millionaires have in common is that they owned their own business. Every year thousands of people attempt to follow in their footsteps and start their own business. Failure rates are high for new businesses with over half of them out of business within five years. How do you avoid this fate? There are certain things you can do that will let you succeed at your own business. Here are the skills sets that successful business owners say are critical to have if you want to succeed.

Defined Goals
The one thing that separates successful companies from failures is planning. If you want to succeed then you need to have a well-defined plan. This plan should be in writing and it should include step-by-step directions. This plan will be your roadmap that shows the best and quickest way for you company to gain profitability. All actions taken should be measured against your goals to see if they are driving you one step closer to success. Not having a plan is the quickest way to failure.

Initiative
The hardest part of starting a new business is taking that first step. You have to have the initiative to get things started and to keep them moving forward. You will not have a manager telling you what you need to do nor will you have co-workers holding you accountable. It is very easy to procrastinate if something needs to be done or the task appears daunting. If something needs to be accomplished, you will have to step up and make sure it is completed. Nothing happens unless you make it happen.

Hard Work
There is no substitute for hard work when you start your own business. Usually you are the only employee. If things get done and the business succeeds, it is because you put in the time and effort to complete the task. You have to be willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done.

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If you want to own your own business, it is easier to buy an existing business than it is to start you own business from scratch. An established business allows you to skip past the startup phase entirely, which is where 50 percent of all new businesses fail. If you buy a business then you can concentrate your efforts on making the business larger and more profitable.

Buying a business does not have to be a challenge. You want to avoid overpaying for the business or buying a lemon. The easiest way to avoid this is to follow these three steps in buying your own business.

STEP 1: Due Diligence
The first step is due diligence where you determine whether or not this company is one you want to buy and at what price you are willing to pay for it. Find out why the seller is selling the business. This may involve talking to the employees, suppliers, and customers. Once you are satisfied that the reason is not to flee from something negative that you will be inheriting, you can do further due diligence.

Your examination of the company will start with analyzing the last three years of financial data. You should uncover any pending lawsuits, relationship with supplier and customers, intellectual property rights such as copyrights or patents, and any potential liabilities.

STEP 2: Make Offer
There are formulas that are commonly used to value a business and this should be the starting point to determine how much to offer. The value needs to be adjusted to account for any information uncovered during the due diligence period. Having an accurate picture of the value of the business will help you to decide whether or not to proceed and the maximum price you are willing to pay.

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Putting Down Financial Roots
One of the best ways to ensure personal financial success involves buying and operating a franchise business.  There are literally thousands of opportunities out there in hundreds of different disciplines, and all it takes is commitment, dedication, and cash.  The question prospective franchise owners ask more than any other has to do with franchise costs.  Before you can decide what sort of business to purchase, you need to know the franchise cost and exactly what it covers.  While every business is different, there are enough commonalities from one franchising system to another to make some educated guesses about franchise costs.

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This is not “brand new” news, but it is news small businesses should be taking note of and considering ways to utilize it for their marketing efforts.

Your target market watches television, listens to the radio, observes roadside billboards and building banners, reads newspapers and magazines, reads ads in their email and on the internet… seems it doesn’t matter what they are doing, if they are awake, they are exposed to marketing at some time, if not most of the time. And then, just when you thought marketers had run out of ideas how to expose their ideas to you, along came the smartphone.

Mobile phone users are increasingly switching to phones with added features like larger touch screens, internet connectivity, ease of using social media applications such as Twitter and Facebook, email, etc. The days of just using your phone for calls is over. The days of just expecting to receive calls on your phone is also over. These days you don’t need to concern yourself only with getting your website up on the internet, you have to have your website accessible through a smartphone or lose customers who will find your competition instead. Busy people with smartphones don’t have to wait until they get back to the office or their home computer to browse the internet to buy goods and services.

In 2010 and onwards, our attention will turn to maximizing our use of smartphones to access our customers. More and more businesses will be developing mobile websites, taking advantage of the increase in mobile broadband services. Today and tomorrow’s mobile phones are yesterday’s laptops and notebooks. Furthermore, more people use mobile phones than laptops – think of teenagers and the elderly. This means more people can access the internet at any time now. Google and Yahoo are already strong browsing presences.

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The loss of a job can hurt, especially if you have invested a lot of time into a particular career or a company. However, it is never the end of the world. Many unemployed people find a new passion or decide to shift to a completely different career path, reaping much more satisfaction in return. One of the factors that allow you to do this is unemployment insurance, which can cover up to a half of the living costs for a certain period of time. However, it is essential to know how to apply for unemployment benefits and to do this as soon as possible.

Unemployment Qualifications
To begin with, you must find out if you are eligible to apply for unemployment benefits. The specific requirements vary from state to state, so one of the first steps is to pay a visit to your local Unemployment Office, or at least check its website, if it is available. Unemployment insurance is aimed at helping workers who lost their jobs without a fault of their own, and lasts for a certain period of time or until that person finds a new job, whichever comes sooner. A phrase “without a fault of their own” is essential – depending on the state, any of these factors could disqualify you:

• Quitting your job without a justifiable cause
• Getting fired for misconduct
• Resigning due to illness
• Leaving to get married
• Being self-employed
• Being involved in a labor dispute
• Studying at an educational institution

There are also requirements for your salary or employment time during a certain period. These factors can be quite diverse, depending on which state you live in, so there is no single answer on how much you must have earned or for how long you must have worked to be eligible for unemployment insurance. Again, you will need to check with your local Unemployment Office to find out the unemployment qualifications.

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A job is not just a collection of tasks that you have to complete in order to receive a salary. Self-actualization is also very important. The same applies to the job search as well – you are probably not only looking for any job that pays, you also want to find a job that suits your interests and values. In the current economic downturn and a stressed job market, finding a job can be difficult.

Still Looking For Your Dream Job?
If you have a lot of work experience and are still yet to find a job which you could easily call your dream job, you probably need to adjust your approach to job searching. The most important thing to have in mind is your own aspirations. From this point of view, a temporary unemployment can be even liberating.

To begin with, you need to have a good idea of what your goals are to succeed in your job search. Do you want to earn a lot of money? Do you want something money cannot buy? Do you want to achieve self-actualization in a certain field? All these questions have to be answered before the job search begins, as aiming blind is rarely a good approach when you want to find a job that suits your needs.

Second, you will need to determine the positions that would help you achieve your goals. What kind of characteristics should your dream job have? Should it give you a lot of freedom? What about self-actualization and rewards? Will they depend on your efforts and insight? Will you be able to create something valuable and useful to society?

These questions may be hard to answer immediately – yet, you must think about them to find a job that is the best match for you. With the situation in the job market still grim, you need to play smart. After all, what is the point of job searching, if you know in advance that you will end up with something you do not really want?

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Just between you and me, how do you feel about pricing your work? If you’re like many accidental entrepreneurs, pricing is not your favorite topic. Charge too much, and you lose clients. Charge too little, and you can’t earn a living. It doesn’t have to be this way. Charging enough to make a good living is, in fact, one of the keys to getting and keeping committed clients and customers. How does charging enough relate to getting clients to commit?

Like this.

The splurge that wasn’t a splurge.
A few years ago I treated myself to a pair of Bose noise-canceling headphones. For me, this was a significant investment, and I questioned my choice more than a few times both before and after I made the purchase.

When the headphones were less than two years old, I stepped on them, cracking the casing. I felt awful. Wasn’t this a sure indication that I shouldn’t have spent so much money? I’m hard on things, and I should have known better. I duct-taped the headphones together and used them that way for several months until the tape wouldn’t hold.

Finally, I phoned Bose to arrange for a repair. The representative explained that I was eligible for a free upgrade to a newer model if I returned the old set.

“Wait a minute,” I said. ‚”You mean I can get this upgrade for returning my beat-up and cracked headphones?”

“Yes.”

I shipped off the broken headphones and a week or so later, I received a sweet new and improved replacement. Instead of feeling bad about spending so much, I feel very wise.

Pricing for commitment.
When I paid Bose a premium price, I was making a commitment to myself to make that choice worthwhile.

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There’s no mystery about why marketers appeal to fear. Fear mongering works. Before Madison Avenue taught us to fear it, body odor was just a fact of life. Same with gray hair, weeds in the lawn, and dingy whites. Advertising has transformed what were at most minor disappointments or inconveniences into occasions of fear and shame.

We’re right, I think, to deplore the wholesale manipulation of the consumer mind by appeals to fear. But we’re wrong to avoid appeals to fear in our own marketing.

How fear led me to bodywork
Once upon a time I thought massage was a luxury for the unforgivably self-indulgent. Of course, I’d never had a massage, nor was I close to anyone who had.

One day I learned about a body worker who specialized in working with recovering addicts. I read about how the body can keep us stuck in old ways of being and how massage can free us so we can heal. I made an appointment, and it left me feeling more intact and present than I’d felt in a long time.

Appeals to wellness and well being don’t work
The thing is, I never would have scheduled a massage just so I could feel better. I didn’t know from feeling better at the time. It was only when body work appealed to my fear of being locked into a pre-recovery body that I scheduled an appointment.

The same principle holds true for your just-right clients and customers. You know what they’ll have or experience after they give your work a try and, from where you sit, that should be enough for them to buy. But they can’t hear that from where they are now. They’re preoccupied by all the worries clamoring for their attention.

If you really want the best for your clients (and I know you do), you need to appeal to their fears.

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The wealthy man is not he who has money, but he who has the means to live in the luxurious state of early spring. ~Anton Chekhov

Have you ever had a friend who always seemed to date the wrong people? Often this is the result of a confusion of values and standards. If your friend is choosing prospective mates based on certain standards, perhaps looks, he may be unwittingly overlooking the woman who is a good match for his values.

When your standards don’t match your values or vision, the harder you look for what you want, the worse your results. As they say, you are looking for love in all the wrong places.

The same thing happens in your relationship with money.
You start out with good intentions, only to find yourself operating according to standards that feel inauthentic, intimidating, or downright cheesy. Ouch! Yuck!

If you get down on yourself or try to muscle your belief system or behavior into line, it just gets worse.

The financial conflict gets turned inward, and now you are at war with yourself. With friends like this, who needs enemies? As long as you argue with, resent, or reject your current experience, it keeps biting you. When you finally stop fighting what is (usually when you are utterly exhausted), things change. It’s enough to make a person crazy.

Here’s the deal: change starts with acceptance. To learn more about this and get an exercise you can use to incorporate acceptance into your financial life, read The Four Pillars of Acceptance below.

The Four Pillars of Acceptance
Acceptance is the foundation for all creative action. Acceptance is finding the “you are here” place on the map, the place you can take a confident stand and then move toward your goal. There’s simply no way to move forward if you don’t start from where you are.

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Have you ever wondered what the highest paying jobs are and how to get them? Finding this out is not very difficult, but we would like to save you some time. Further down in this article, you will find a list of 10 highest paying jobs, along with the most important information and advice on the characteristics and requirements for such jobs.

What are the Ten Highest Paying Jobs in 2009?
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, top highest paying jobs in the U.S. in 2009 are:

1. Surgeons – $206,770
2. Anesthesiologists – $197,570
3. Orthodontists – $194,930
4. Obstetrician and gynecologists – $192,780
5. Oral and maxillofacial surgeons – $190,420
6. General Internists – $176,740
7. Prosthodontists – $168,810
8. Other Physicians and Surgeons – $165,000
9. Family and General Practitioners – $161,490
10. Chief Executives – $160,440

  
As you can see, all professions except one lie within the medical field. It is not surprising as the health care sector is both highly lucrative and largely immune to economic downturns, such as the one we are experiencing now. However, getting such jobs is not easy – to begin your medical career, you would first have to spend eight to twelve years in a medical school, which is one of the most demanding places to study in. School loans are also going to be extensive. In addition, almost any position in the medical industry, especially if it is among the highest paying jobs, can be extremely challenging and risky, as human lives can literally be in your hands.

For these and many other reasons such high pay jobs, though attractive at first sight, are not the best match for many individuals. The rewards that these jobs offer may not be worth the challenges they entail.

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The basic concept of business value is that the future benefits (return) of owning a company must be adjusted (discounted) for the risks associated with owning the company. The sales or earnings of a company are typically used to represent the benefits (return). Multiples and rates are used to represent the risks. The sales and earnings figures are already recorded as numbers, but how can risk be quantified? Multiples and rates are the results of various methods to quantify these risks.

Specific Risk Factors 
One way to accomplish this is to evaluate a number of specific factors affecting your company and ranking their level of risk. The factors considered should cover all aspects of the business like management, operations, financial, workforce, sales and marketing, legal, environmental, regulation, and competition. A simple scale from 1 to 3 can be used to assess the risk level – 1 = very high risk, 1.5 = high (above average) risk, 2.0 = normal (average) risk, 2.5 = low (below average) risk, and 3.0 = very low risk. The average score is multiplied by the cash flow or earnings of the company.

Payback Period
Another way to calculate a multiple is to consider how quickly you would want an investment in a company to be recovered through its earnings. A riskier company would require a shorter payback period. Small companies are often expected to have a payback period between 1 and 3 years. The average score from the specific risks method (from the previous section) can also be used as the payback period. The payback period is multiplied by the cash flow or earnings of the company.

Expected Return on Investment
Another way to look at risk is to determine what rate of return would be required to make the risk level of the investment acceptable. For example, a bank certificate of deposit is very safe and has a low rate of return (interest rate).

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One of the most important principles of being a business owner is to run your business; don’t let it run you. To run your business is to create a vision of what is possible – a vision that’s bigger than doing the day-to-day work associated with your skill or trade. To lead your business is to forge a path based on your strengths and to take inventory of your weaknesses so that you can fill in the gaps.

To run your business is to leverage the opportunities that present themselves and to find the resources that you need. To run your business is to become aware of the limiting beliefs that you hold and replace them with beliefs that empower you, motivate you, and propel you forward. To run your business is to own a business and have a balanced life, not have the business run you.

Letting your business run you means:

• You settle for what is, and ignore what can be.
• You spend your time doing the day-to-day tasks that you are familiar with and comfortable doing.
• You ARE the business – that without your time and energy, the business is nothing.

To determine if you are running your business or if it is running you, keep a daily activities list for one week. Every 15-30 minutes, momentarily stop whatever you are doing and make a note of what you did during that time period.

Keep your notes brief – you don’t need to write a novel and you don’t want to spend more time writing your notes than getting the work done. Do not judge the activities you are writing down, just write them down. You will analyze your activities with your coach when you are done collecting your notes for one week.

After one week of writing down your activities, take a good look at what you have written.

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Is Owning a Business in Your Future?
At one time or another, nearly every employee dreams of owning a business.  Perhaps you’re tired of all your hard work ending up helping someone else achieve his or her entrepreneurial success, or you may fear for losing your job in a weakened economy.  Whatever your motivation, the compulsion to own a business is strong in many of us.  But the risk involved in turning that dream into reality has, all too often, acted to derail even the best-laid plans.

How to Own a Business
Every prospective business owner is forced to wrestle with many different kinds of questions.  Concerns about money certainly lead the pack, but knowing what kind of business best suits you is even more important.  The best place to start is by examining the reasons why you want to own a small business.  Here are some benefits to ponder:

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