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Technically speaking, the minimum requirements for buying a franchise is just money. But what happens after you bought your first franchise? For many, they are in for a big surprise when they found out that money was just one of the many problems ahead.
The idea of buying a franchise for the first business buyer is that you are paying for a name, therefore the job is already done for you; you do not need marketing and you do not need to invent anything as you are paying for all of these with the brand recognition that comes with the franchise.

While you get a lot of advantages by buying a franchise, money alone will not make your franchise an easy money maker. In fact, not only will a franchise require an big amount of work after you went into all the financing of a franchise, but you will need to do some serious franchise research.

One thing to keep in mind: product and location as one will make it or break it. Your franchise product alone is not enough, and having a good franchise location alone is not enough. Every location has different tastes, needs and culture. You need to find the perfect blend. Do not make the mistake of trying to sell something you do not care about. If you hate books, this will go against you. If you are passionate about electronics, your passion will boost your profits.

Another important point when buying a franchise is the support behind you. When you are buying a franchise, you are becoming part of a company that has established itself already. The company has succeeded with a plan and has good experience with what works and what doesn’t. Will they help you? Make sure you can always be in contact with the right people that have all the knowledge you need. Spend some time beforehand with these people to see what type of people you are dealing with. Are they always busy? Are they rude? Are they smart? You see, it might not be their job and part of the contract for them to help you, but there are always friendly and helpful people around, so it is better looking to buy a franchise in which you can find people to connect with.

Last but not least, you must have energy and desire. Do not embark yourself in this journey to be able to relax, but think of it as a great challenge with great benefits. This kind of business is something that will alter your life for years to come, it will not be something you can easily switch if you later decide to change your mind, so make sure you want to do this at 200%.

We all hear that we have to invest our money because banks just don’t give the best interest rates. Just by looking around and learning more about the investing industry, you can easily find out that with very little risk you can easily 2-3 times the amount of interest of your bank.

While investment is very current and is practiced by more and more people, one great aspect of investment that is overlooked is re-investment. Another term for re-investment is compounding. Compounding is the simple fact of taking the money you made with the interest or the profits of your business, and simple put it back in your investment pool.

The power of compounding really starts to show in the long term. This is maybe the cause why so many people don’t really think of re-investing. It also seems logical, as we don’t want to wait an eternity to start spending our money. However, each person should have at least a portion of this money that will be there only for re-investment purposes.

Let’s just take an example with a mutual fund that returns 15% a year. Ignoring tax for demonstration purposes, a $10,000 investment would bring in $1500 a year, every year, and in 10 years, you would make $15,000 had you not compounded your money.

Had you left all your money and profits in there year in and year out, your compounded profits would have been just a little over $45,000.

Do you see the point? This is a 300% difference. There is a downside of course. If the fund goes bust, you lose all money including profits and everything is gone. With careful management, this kind of thing almost never happens.

Waiting is probably the worst part when someone wants to get their profits, especially when you have to wait in years. This is why dedicating a percentage of your portfolio for compounding is the best option. A percentage as low at 10% or 20% can make a difference.

If you have a website, re-investing is also a great asset. Dedicating a certain amount of your monthly earnings in forms of advertising and development is a very smart move. If your earnings are just complimentary and a side hobby, re-investing 50% or even 100% of everything back smartly can show great gains.

Have you ever seen rich people or high ranked people in companies? You will notice that most of them are not only in good mood, but they are smiling, full of energy and always positive. Now you might argue that these people are in this state because of their status, but I’m pretty sure that there is a good portion of these people who were able to be where they are at now because of all these elements, and not vice-versa.

Positive people see life differently. They not only see the glass half full than half empty, but during bad situations they manage to stay up and find solutions, compared to someone who would feel devastated with the same kind of news. For example, let’s say a high executive in a company just heard a loss of $10,000 this week, when they usually make a profit of $30,000. A regular person would start panicking and think that something went very wrong and that it may be the beginning of the end. From there, he would proceed to irrational behaviors and start taking all kind of bad decisions. A positive person, on the other hand, would maybe not start jumping of joy, but may think that this kind of thing was meant to happen sooner or later and that it happens to everyone; time will tell this was just a fluke or the beginning of something else. In the meantime, he revises what happened to understand better. With all this, the positive person still is in a good mood, while our regular guy is stressing and panicking. The positive person will have a good day, will go home, have a good evening and sleep good, while the stressed guy’s day is ruined along with his sleep. The following days are crucial as the guy with the positive attitude is still happy and smiling and has tons of ideas rolling. The main difference between the 2 here is that one of them lives it almost as nothing happened and is advancing in the business with all new ideas, while the other one is still stuck at point A.

It is this lack of positive attitude in people’s lives that hold them back. A lot of us have good ideas and good plans, but never have this positive attitude with optimistic outcomes to deliver the great potential. Many experts agree saying positive attitude is the basic foundation of success. With our hectic and busy lives, there are constant problems that are there to distract us, you must absolutely maintain a positive attitude; ideas and plans are not enough.

Starting a small business can be very lucrative, but when you start reading the failure rates of small businesses, the numbers really start to scare you away. The fact is that a huge percentage of these failures are from very inexperienced entrepreneurs who are at their early stages of their development. And, since these entrepreneurs are young in addition of being inexperienced, there’s a few factors that come and interfere with their business.

All failures of small business have many grounds in common. Disorganization is high on that list. By opening a new business, being organized is as important as the business itself. Are the employees reliable? Are your costs clear? How is your inventory? Do you have any marketing plans? There are hundreds of questions to ask yourself and you should have answers to all of them. Eliminate guessing from your mind. There must be no guessing whatsoever. While you might think that guesses and estimations work from time to time, doing them will get you accustomed to it and will sooner or later get you in trouble for an important decision.

Little or no market research is another reason of business failures that ranks up there with disorganization. Just because an idea sounds good and looks good on paper does not mean that your business will be a success. The next thing to do right after your idea is not to open a business, but to research your market. Opening an electronic and gadget store in an area where the mean of the age population is 65 won’t necessarily work.

Not building customer relations will affect your business in the long run. If you think marketing is enough for a business to succeed, you will have some surprises. Small business start ups are dependent for their success with customer relations that with any other type of business. Word of mouth can mean the difference between success and failure.

Don’t be too proud and arrogant. When you make a mistake, admit it and move on. Staying in the game just to show your right will dig you deeper in trouble than you can imagine.

Lack of work is an obvious one, yet so many fail even knowing it. A lot of people are just tired of working and struggle even getting up in the morning to get to work. These people want to get out of the routine and start their business. What they don’t realize is that starting a business will require 10 times more energy and work than your regular job. If you just know that you are a lazy person, why even open a small business? If you’re the kind of person who needs tips and tricks to waking up in the morning, don’t apply!

When you are applying for a job, along with your resume you should write a cover letter. A lot of people forget that, they just hand in their CV and think the employer will find all the information they want. This is true, but your employer will need more than just raw information. Think of your CV as the engine and the inner workings of a car, and your cover letter as the outside and the body of a car. They are both needed. So how do you make a cover letter, and a good one?

The first thing you should remember is that your cover letter is means for introduction, it’s the first impression, you should really sell yourself! What you want is to have good and smooth communication, which is what the reader will notice first. The message you are trying to pass should be clear and elegant. Avoid extremes. Be clear about the position you are aiming and be serious. Do not try to be funny or incorporate humor.

You must explain in your cover letter why you are the best possible person for your position. List your qualities and link them to the job you are applying for. Make strong connections as strong connections will be better remembered.

Do not make your cover letter too long nor too short. Nothing more than a page, and make use of at least 3 paragraphs. An important point is that your cover letter must not repeat any information already found in your resume.

Try to customize your cover letter. Unlike your resume, where you send dozens of the same copies, try as much as possible to customize your cover letter for each position and for each company. Yes, this is more work, but it will pay off. If you know some information about the company, try to relate stories. You will stand out of the rest.

You can find many examples of cover letters online, you can try a few here.

The main aim of your cover letter is to incorporate your personality with the specific job position. Again, you might be aiming a different position at every different company, but after writing a few of letter, you will know get the hang of it and you will be able to write cover letters faster.