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John C. Anderson

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Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

My Story – How I left the corporate world for franchising

John C Anderson, Lakeport Franchise Group

My business career and exposure to franchising started early. In 1988, as a junior at The University of Southern California, I joined my first franchise, Student Painters. For a college student, I learned a ton about real world business and franchise operations. I soon settled into a corporate mortgage-banking career in Orange County, CA working for several different firms until 2006. My wife Melanie was also in mortgage banking and both of us were feeling burned out by 2005 or so. We knew there was something better for us.

I hadn’t known much beyond mortgages t Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

My Story – How I left the corporate world for franchising

John C Anderson, Lakeport Franchise Group

My business career and exposure to franchising started early. In 1988, as a junior at The University of Southern California, I joined my first franchise, Student Painters. For a college student, I learned a ton about real world business and franchise operations. I soon settled into a corporate mortgage-banking career in Orange County, CA working for several different firms until 2006. My wife Melanie was also in mortgage banking and both of us were feeling burned out by 2005 or so. We knew there was something better for us.

I hadn’t known much beyond mortgages though. I knew I didn’t want to go work for someone again and would be happiest if I could build a business. But Melanie is fairly risk-averse and frankly, I didn’t have any grand idea to get behind. I quickly looked to franchising as franchises mitigated a lot of risk. They served up the product or service to get behind. Plus they had a business model to follow with support and coaching.

I began investigating, online mainly, and struggled with overwhelming amounts of information. It made sense that a franchise was like following a recipe and as long as I did so, my odds of success should go up significantly. I got it. But I had trouble finding the right opportunity for us. I really needed someone to guide me as the amount of information and how to break it down was overwhelming.

One day I came across a franchise consultant. Having spent 16 years as a mortgage broker representing hundreds of banks, the idea of working with a consultant who represented all the franchises at once immediately resonated with me. When I came across the consultant, a light bulb went on. Much like franchise companies themselves, he had a process and as long as I followed his process, I was assured we’d find a business that was a good fit for our background, skill set, lifestyle, finances and of course a business we like as well! We had a series of consulting calls including one where we reviewed an online assessment of my values and compatibility (Try it out for yourself! Assessment link at the bottom of the page). I quickly got to the stage with the consultant where he presented a few franchise ideas. One of the concepts was called BounceU. ...more