"There's no such thing as a semi-absentee owner."
That's what Stephen Bialek and Tariq Farid, who have decades of experience working with consumer and franchise brands, tell Entrepreneur in a piece headlined "Three Myths About Franchises."
They explain that while it's easy to learn from a company's playbook when it comes to opening a new store, there's more to it than that.
For one thing, you'll need "grit, resilience, and an entrepreneurial mindset to succeed"and that means you'll need to be ready to do every single task you're asked to do, from building a store to dealing with labor and supply chain management once it's up and running.
"That doesn't mean you can sit back and everything be taken care of," says Farid, who co-founded Dunkin' Donuts and is now the president of Babson College's Franchise Institute.
That's why they offer the following advice to would-be franchisees: Don't think franchises are just for people who already know how to run a business.
"It takes as much creativity to scale something that already exists," says Bialek, who grew up on a Jiffy Lube farm in Kansas and now runs
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A Place for Grace, founded by Robin Nash and Mary Vivo, is a social enterprise boutique that will open in Midtown Fort Collins.