Setting out on your own

Starting out in business can be a daunting prospect. Some folk just slide into it, perhaps part time, working from the back bedroom or kitchen table. For others, perhaps rudely thrown out of a well-paid job and with a family and mortgage to support, it can be quite a scary prospect, even if they have a saleable skill-set (Ugh! Horrible expression).
I started my first business as a single man (albeit with a girl-friend to support). Ignorant of virtually every aspect of running a business after some fifteen years of secure employment, 1974 found us almost penniless in a foreign country (Mallorca) and we simply had to find a way of providing a roof over our heads and putting food on the table. With good DIY skills (and a liking for woodwork picked up from school and my master-cabinet maker-turned vehicle-body-builder father) I swiftly found someone willing to pay for my services as a sub-contractor and very soon moved on to find my own customers. In those very easy-going times, hand-to-mouth it might have been, but we ate very well, and never either starved or made much money.
Later on, after our return to England with a small child, it was rather different. The constant need to pay a never-ending stream of bills meant constant risk-taking as the business simply HAD to grow to produce enough profit. That's where a better grasp of running a business rather than just working to make a living would have come in useful. Nevertheless, we must have done something right 'cos that first business - the ground work, so to speak - lasted twenty-five years, only foundering after a Dash For Growth (always a risky tactic) in an attempt to speed up the climb to the next level.

To get to the point, building a business from scratch can be a hard, slow process. I now know that, unless you have a clear idea at the outset of how to make money with your route to success already mapped out - and a certain amount of good luck to go with it - it's much easier to buy into an existing business and take a short cut to success by building on someone else's efforts, rather than doing it the hard way.
Had it been available all those years back, buying into a Franchise is a route that would have quickly given me the knowledge and support I lacked and which took so long to acquire.
The only issue these days is, with so much choice, which Franchise is the one for YOU?