Top Five Businesses for Entrepreneuring Families

Top Five Businesses for Entrepreneuring Families


A “familypreneur” is an entrepreneur who designs and grows a business around his or her family. This means they are motivated primarily by their family's needs, and by considering how their business affects their loved ones. Familypreneurship comes from a deep consideration of the opportunities that are available and what limitations a business might impose on their lives. One thing is certain, they always put their family first.

The term "Familypreneuring" has been recently popularized by John and Michelle Humphrey of Familyprenuering.com. Based out of San Diego, CA. the couple have created a webinar and ebook on the subject.


Famous examples of entrepreneuring families we see on TV include the hit CBC TV show Heartland, which chronicles the adventures of a single mom managing a dude ranch where her teenage children have full time jobs. The series explores the challenges of raising teenagers, running a business and offers a glimpse at the extreme fulfillment found in both commercial and familial success.

The path to familyprenuership is always intriguing, and different in every single case. It usually comes as a solution to a life problem, for example, unemployment, the collapse of a marriage, or forced migration, but sometimes it’s born out of the decision makers in the family coming to the realization that the road they’re on may not be leading them to where they want to go in life. There are many paths leading to the decision to own a business, and to striking out on one’s own path to change their future.

Here are the five most successful familypreneur business models, measured in terms profitability, scalability and quality of life.


Become a Compact Refreshment Centre Operator

 










Families that stock their own compact refreshment centres in hockey arenas, office buildings and factories and who work together every day, enjoy great lives together with lots of personal freedom. They only have to work a few hours a day, yet they are probably more connected to each other than any of their neighbors, because of a shared responsibility and social interaction with the community.

The Compact Refreshment Centre program offers a simple, proven and sensible way to start and grow a business that you can enjoy for many years to come. But becoming a successful Compact Refreshment Centre Operator does not happen overnight; it takes perseverance, and passion for service and a personal plan for success, which Compact Refreshment Centre helps its operators develop and execute.

There are lots of jobs for family members of all ages in this business, including accounting, buying stock, stocking machines, collecting and sorting coins and rolling them up for the bank, marketing, finding new locations and growing customer bases around them.

Open a Frozen Yogurt Cafe, or a Family Restaurant
Whether the founders buy a restaurant franchise or start a concept from scratch often depends on the whole family’s passion and experience with a particular type of food. For example, does the chef have dozens of decades-old family recipes they 'd love to make and share with dinner patrons? For those who dream of being successful restaurateurs putting these recipes on the menu can be very gratifying and lucrative.

Creating and managing a popular restaurant can be a very prosperous affair, but with greater rewards comes greater risks and responsibilities. There is a much greater risk of robbery, theft, extortion and criminal prosecution for negligence in the restaurant game. And there are much greater expenses in marketing, insurance, training and the need to buy and take specialized courses for serving alcohol and for using propane, and other specialized kitchen equipment.

On the upside however, with restaurants there's always a job for everyone in the family; even the youngest children can distribute flyers, prep vegetables and wash dishes.

Operate an Organic Food Delivery Business
A rapidly expanding byproduct of the digital age is the grocery delivery business that delivers fresh food from the grocery store direct to the consumer, and a rapidly expanding niche of that sector is the organic food delivery business. The demand for organic food is higher because obtaining certified organic commodities is often only possible at organic markets or travelling farmer’s markets which are hard for working parents to find and access during the day or on weekends.

Organic’s Live was founded by a group of concerned dads with a shared belief that strong, prosperous communities can be fueled by good, clean food that has been produced with environmental, health and economic stewardship at the fore. They market food that has been grown free of chemicals and in harmony with its surroundings.
The Canadian organic industry has grown at a rate of 300% since 2006, making it one of the fastest growing segments of the economy. As more people become aware of the dangers of conventional farming practices, the demand for access to clean, safe, chemical free food has exploded.

Organic’s Live seeks passionate franchisees to join their team and expand their footprint across the country.

Open a Family Owned Retail Store
Buying retail stores and providing jobs for everyone in the family is actually the number one choice of new Canadians who become family entrepreneurs in order to better adjust to this society. In many cases the catalyst to business for them was highly disruptive, and now the rigours of buying and running a store in Canada seems like child’s play. They seek that passive environment for collective learning and a road to prosperity depending on the success or failure of the business which of course is a measure of the success or failure of the family’s integration into the community.

The passion and experience of the would-be retailer are two other factors that will decide which store concept they invest in, and how well they succeed.  A popular choice in franchises is dollar stores and Canadian dollar stores in particular and so are Bulk Barns, Party Max, and 7-11 stores.
 

These retail chains advertise to find applicants, and in their brochures they stress quality of life and employment for the whole family. The 7/11 store owner program in particular makes it very easy to manage this complicated retail venue by providing checklists to follow for daily, weekly and monthly guidance.

Niche Service Business, like Molly Maid
Starting a niche service business can be as imaginative as the founders.  Eavestrough cleaning, driveway sealing, snow removal and grass cutting are some of the more unimaginative examples.

Many house or office cleaning businesses are available as franchises now, and these offer significant advantages over building a business from scratch, including a list of ready customers and mechanisms to quickly and efficiently find more. An office cleaning business may not be exactly glamorous, but it can be very profitable.

This quote is from a testimonials on the Molly Maid website's franchise page,
"As my children were growing older, I felt it was time to return to the work force. I wasn't interested in working for someone else, so I started looking at the possibilities of buying a Franchise. I wasn't interested in working evenings and weekends, and wanted something I could operate out of my house."

That's a textbook example of a familypreneur at the starting point. In most cases, mom or dad don’t want to make a fortune, they just want more time to be around their loved ones, and seek the added lifestyle benefits of working from home. They want to be their own bosses and savor the thrill of making it, or breaking it in the real world, as a team.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rob Campbell

Robert Campbell is a business storyteller and start-up enthusiast, author and creator of rich media attractions like Birds of Toronto . com He submits stories to Newsvine and Digital Journal quite frequently and maintains http://SMOJoe.com/blog  .   Rob Campbell is a big proponent of people who walk away from 9 to 5 lifestyles in search of more freedom and new careers that let them spend more time with family, and or focus on artistic passions, unusual skills or incredible gifts.  Read Fuel Ghoul,  http://roberrific.typepad.com

2 comments:

  1. If you want a business you can try this grocery shopping business which is very in demand these days.

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