Computer Consulting: Should You Buy a Franchise?

You can approach the decision whether or not to buy a franchise in many different ways. There are many pros and many cons with franchise organizations. In this article, we'll explore the pros and cons with franchise organizations in computer consulting.

The Pros

o You get the trappings of being part of a larger company.
o You get a peer support network that's built into the organization.
o You get a lot of tools and resources.
o You have people to go to with problems.

The Cons

There is a flip side to each of these. The biggest drawback for many computer consulting entrepreneurs is that there is a substantial capital investment to get started. Plus, you'll be paying a percentage of your revenue or profit each month (a royalty) to the franchiser. On top of that, there will be some restrictions on what you can and cannot do with your business.

Computer Consulting Requires More Time than Money

Typically, starting a computer consulting business is a relatively low overhead investment. It's more time intensive than capital intensive. What does that mean? It means it can take you anywhere from three to six months (or more) to develop enough contacts, prospects and project opportunities in your sales funnel to be booked up at least a 50 or 60 percent utilization rate (i.e. 20 to 24 billable hour each week).

When You Can Expect Some Decent Revenue

Even going out there and pounding the pavement, and going to all of your local networking events, and going out on sales calls, three to six months is generally a good estimate of how long it can take to get to the point that you can start to generate some substantial cash flow. If you want to be able to hire multiple technical staff members and sales people, it can take years.

You need capital. After all, you certainly need to be able to continue paying your business expenses. Keep your overhead reasonably low so it's not any more stressful than need be. You need to decide whether buying a computer consulting franchise is a good decision for your business.

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