Case Study
Escaping the Corporate Age
Trap by Owning a Franchise
James Brumfield | Indiana
For some, one’s years of expertise is fated to become numeric derivatives of the mere organizational sort.
Owning a franchise is an excellent thing to aspire to—but it isn’t always a choice.
Despite working six days a week, a 60-year-old might garner as little as half the pay as some of today’s Millennials—falling into the same pitfall as many other multi-decade-long workers categorized by the number of years on their backs, alone.
An Endless
Work Grind:
James Brumfield’s
Story
James Brumfield was 63 years old when his own salary was reduced by fifty percent. The cut was without warning, and it occurred regardless of his six-day-a-week, 170-mile-per-day work slogs for his aerospace company. He’d been loyal to his company for years—yet, quite literally, spinning his wheels with no advancement. Even worse: His gears, failing to gain ground until now, were suddenly being forced backwards.
Age discrimination within the professional world is a reality: Studies suggest that as many as 61 percent of employees over age 45 have either personally experienced it. If they haven’t, those falling into the same statistic have seen it around them. This discrimination isn’t bound by conventional “day-to-day” work, either.
Rather, it’s pervasive across all aspects of professional management and human resources engagements—spanning from job searches to employment terminations, and from pay raises to salary cuts.
Despite James’s hard work, many companies simply search for those in their mid-to-late-20s, when it comes to employee searches—let alone when it comes to current employee retention needs. Paradoxically, the same companies seek said employees while asserting the need for over 35 years of experience within its respective field.
It’s easy to see how a multi-decade-long employee can fall into the humdrum “ever-grind” trap of constant work might never see the advancement stall as it creeps up. Fortunately for James, however, a persistent dream of franchise ownership—self-governance sustained via his own skill—kept his wits about him.
It was time to take control—not only of a career payoff rightfully deserved, but of a fulfilling professional life not defined and dismissed by age discrimination. To his company, he was a number; he was a statistic, glanced at yet never examined for his work’s worth. He was frustrated by years of wasted time. He was even more frustrated by energy-sapping, three-hour-drives undergone in both bad weather and bad traffic, all for naught, in good faith to a company which seemingly held little faith for anyone.
Modern Hurdles
to Owning
a Franchise
Clearing the Professional Gap
with Careyann Golliver, America’s
Franchise Matchmaker™
James eventually reached out for help—finding Careyann Golliver, America’s Franchise Matchmaker™, as a result. Initially seeking career transition advice, James would soon find an astounding solution taken form in several opportunities.
The solution was derived from several core day-to-day necessities James desperately wanted necessities most feel are reasonable, after years of hard work, but which are woefully rare in modern business: He liked working on his garden, fishing on his boat and spending time with his son and grandson. Undoubtedly, and until he met Careyann, James often found himself wondering when the proverbial “Golden Years” would roll around—if they were to roll around, at all.
Careyann’s approach to this problem was twofold: From one angle, the end result of franchising was a necessity. James’s years of experience, ironclad work ethic and desire to stay active, professionally, had installed most of this foundation already. From the second angle: Careyann helped him identify possible opportunities based upon the likelihood of profitability capable of sustaining the lifestyle he both wanted and deserved. James had undergone a divorce, just years prior, and couldn’t simply hop from his job into franchise ownership—however lucrative such a hop, eventually, might be.
Careyann and James soon identified a core metric for their franchising choice: a quick ramp-up to profitability models—a system requiring managerial input, but input which would be part-time. This model would give James the freedom to maintain his aerospace job, day to day, but provide some much-needed space to develop the new venture opportunities needed for final transition.
With the model in place, Careyann next helped James identify a specific franchising industry to enter. It’d need to offer a high investment return, a low entry cost and—of course, the flexibility to persist upon the semi-support of his retirement funds.
Before long, James was approved for—and purchased—a service-based, needs-based essential franchise which provided excellent scalability opportunities. It checked every requirement box he had, even giving his son the ability to join him on his adventure. Now, he could spend time building both of their futures—rather than slowly wasting them behind the wheel of a company car.
It really was a “best of both worlds” franchise ownership model he’d secured with Careyann’s help. Now, with plentiful opportunities on the horizon, James and his son could spend their days growing something they, together, would fully own—something neither affected by corporate policy’s restraints nor age, itself.
Owning a
Franchise,
the Family
Way
TESTIMONIAL
“I was recently laid off from my corporate job. Frustrated with my job search I answered an email about franchise opportunities. Through sheer luck, I was connected to Careyann Golliver of Franchise Logic and it was one of the best things that could have happened to us. As our Franchise Consultant, Careyann worked with my wife and I to help us understand the overall process involved in franchising.“
– RON BRAUN | MISSOURI