Many people don’t realise that not all home-based franchises are enabling you to do most of your work from home. Some do allow your home to be the ‘headquarters’, where business operations are done mostly outside the comfort of your home.

Let us get this straight – Home-based franchises are those franchises that allow you to, well, use your home as the franchise ‘base’ or ‘headquarters’. Although, in general, home-based franchises describe those that allow franchisee to stay at home and (mostly) work from home, some home-based franchises are mobile franchises – Those that don’t require a premise to run the business (the franchises utilise cars, trucks, carts or other ‘mobile storefronts’.) Mobile franchises could certainly be home-based, but most of the business operations are not being done at-home.

To avoid misunderstanding, let us clarify that mobile franchises are as lucrative as the home-based ones – It is the ambiguous categorisation (by nature) makes unaware franchisee candidates to pursue the wrong franchise opportunities.

Mobile franchise vs. Work-from-home franchise

Consider these examples to illustrate.

Aussie Pet Mobile, Inc. is a mobile pet grooming service that ranked #1 in Mobile Pet Grooming category (according to Entrepreneur Magazine.) It is definitely a mobile franchise, but the franchisor allows business operation to be situated at home, where absentee ownership is not allowed.

Fast-teks is an on-site computer repair service that ranked #9 in 2009 top new franchises and #45 in home-based category (according to Entrepreneur Magazine.) Fast-teks is a work-from-home franchise opportunity, in which working from home and absentee ownership is allowed. No computer-related experience necessary.

Both of them are home-based, but they are (very) different in franchise business operations.

3 things you should do in identifying the right home-based franchise opportunities: inquire, inquire, inquire

One tip: Inquire the franchisors: Never assume and be sure before you take any decision in buying a franchise.

You should ask the franchisors whether the home-based opportunities include mostly at-home business operations or not, suppose you are interested in staying at home – It’s better to ‘annoy’ franchisors with basic questions than buying a wrong franchise that will eventually cost you a fortune to run it or to run away from it.

Ivan Widjaya
Home-based franchise opportunities investigation
Top-left image by eyeliam.