Retirement is often viewed as a time to relax and enjoy the fruits of a lifetime of hard work. Many retirees are hard pressed to sit still and hang around, even if their retirement funds are in great shape. The franchise industry offers retirees the opportunity to put their business expertise to work while keeping their minds and bodies sharp.
Open schedule
The challenge of running a successful store requires a serious time commitment, notes AllBusiness. The open schedule of a retiree will give potential franchisees plenty of time to prepare for owning a franchise. Those who take their time reading over franchisor paperwork, researching market trends and surveying potential store locations will put themselves in a position to succeed. Likewise, retired owners are able to make their own schedules that reflects the needs of their stores.
Flexible financing
It takes sufficient funds to open a franchise store. Most investors go through the franchisor for financing or sign a loan with a bank for small business capital. Older franchisees, however, have the opportunity to dig into their retirement funds. Investing in a business with a retirement nest egg may not appeal to every investor, but those retirees hungry to run their own stores can do so more easily if they are willing to leverage their retirement assets, according to Entrepreneur.
New experiences
Many retirees see retirement as an opportunity to try a new career or project. Franchising is the perfect post-retirement activity for a person who has always wanted to run a business. Retired owners would be responsible for hiring and firing employees, meeting specific sales quotas and dealing with customer feedback. Thankfully, a retiree's mental archive of personal experience is a powerful problem-solving tool. Instincts honed by years in the workforce are sure to come in handy when managing a franchise store.
Stimulating activity
A recent report in Reuters reveals that stimulating the brain helps to keep it sharp as a person ages. In fact, this is the very reason that many franchisees choose to begin another career after retirement. The challenge of managing multiple employees, balancing a store's budget and interacting with employees is sure to keep a retiree's brain firing on all cylinders. Extra exercise an older franchisee gets while managing the business will also help to keep joints loose and pain-free.