Why Fear of Buying a Franchise is the 51st Shade of Gray

Fear is an intensely unpleasant emotion in response to perceiving or recognizing a danger or threat. Fear causes physiological changes that may produce behavioral reactions such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the threat. Fear in human beings may occur in response to a certain stimulus occurring in the present, or in anticipation or expectation of a future threat perceived as a risk to oneself. The fear response arises from the perception of danger leading to a confrontation with or escape from/avoiding the threat (also known as the fight-or-flight response), which in extreme cases of fear (horror and terror) can be a freeze response or paralysis.

Why the Fear of Buying a Franchise is the 51st shade of Gray and How to Overcome this Fear

How can fear, based on the definition above, apply to buying a franchise? After all, most people define fear based on physical threats rather than emotional ones.  Buying a franchise would fall under an emotional threat as we are guessing not many have been physically injured, or died from buying a franchise. Therefore we must dig a little deeper to examine what are the causes of fear in buying a franchise, and how best to overcome them.

When it comes to acquiring a franchise, the fear that generally creeps into the equation usually just before the big "D" (decision day) and is a different kind of fear. 

Regardless of the kind of fear, learning how to overcome this fear can be an intimidating prospect if you don’t understand the mechanisms behind fear. Before you berate yourself for feeling afraid, recognize that fear is a normal evolutionary response. Although it may not feel like it at the moment, your body and brain are trying to communicate with you. When you learn to read the signals, you can overcome fear for good.

Stop for a moment, and think about your biggest goal.  Why haven’t you accomplished it yet, whatever it is? If you’re like most people, the answer is just plain fear. Fear is the limiting factor holding you back from working toward what you really want, or maybe it’s even greater for what you don’t want. Fear distracts us and leads to excuses, but truly it doesn’t have to. Learning how to overcome fear is one of the most liberating pursuits you can personally undertake.

It’s easy to step back and to pretend fear isn’t influencing you and causing you to make excuses as to why you haven’t achieved what you’re capable of, like buying a franchise. We suggest that to overcome fear, you start by making a list of what you DON’T want. Yes, you read that right. A list of what you DON’T want. It’s actually a lot easier to create than a list of what you do want. And it will help you better see the fear of what’s holding you back from doing what you need to do to get what you want. Your fear isn’t about buying a franchise. Your fear is about something else.

If you are looking for financial freedom, then tell yourself you are tired of being just over broke (which spells J-O-B by the way). You don’t want to be just over broke any longer.

If you are looking for something that will provide you flexibility, tell yourself that what you don’t want is giving someone else control over your time. 

As you see, you are likely a little charged up right? So, fight fear with greater fear. There is a reason for this. If you take a step back and look closely, most people don’t know what they really want, but they do easily know what they don’t want. So clearly stating what you don’t want is far more emotionally charging to take action than stating what you do want for most people.

Don’t believe us? Here is an example: the next time you are with your family or friends and everyone is getting hungry you would normally ask them, “What do you want to eat?” And guess what the answer is likely going to be. You guessed it, mostly “I don’t know”.  Next time you are with a group of people and you all are going to decide on what to eat, try asking “what don’t you want to eat?” and see how quickly you get real replies such as “I am gluten free” or “I don’t want pizza I had it last night”. 

So use this same technique with overcoming any fears you have about buying a franchise. If you do this, fighting fear with more fear, we likely won’t even have to even mention that franchises provide a proven system for success, and while 90% of new businesses started from scratch fail, 85% of franchise businesses succeed. 

Your strong emotions of what you don’t want will take control overcoming any fears you might have of moving forward with buying a franchise.  So to recap, you will likely end up with what you want, by focusing more intensely on those fears that you don’t want, which is why are likely reading this article. We like to think of the fear of buying a franchise as (False Evidence Appearing Real). Your real fear is what you don’t want, and why you are considering looking at franchise ownership to begin with.

Now it’s time to go for it. You got this!