The Right Franchise Search Starts With You

This is a transcript from Episode 50 of The Franchise Champion Show.

Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

Alan: Here's the way that most people start exploring franchising. They open Google, ChatGPT, or Claude, and they ask, "What are the best franchises to buy right now?" And then they read what comes back. A few sound interesting, so they start reaching out. That's the path most people take.

And I want to tell you something. The information they're getting is probably better than it's ever been. AI can give you a solid overview of a brand, model, investment level, pros and cons. It's good stuff. But it's still the wrong place to start.

Why the Research Reflex Isn't the Problem

Here's what I see all the time. Someone gets serious about franchising. Maybe they've been thinking about it for months. Maybe they just decided last week. Either way, the first thing they do is research brands. They ask ChatGPT for the top franchises in a certain category. They dig into what Claude says about specific brands' economics. They cross-check with Google, browse franchise directories, read profiles.

They land on a business that sounds cool. I get it, it's exciting. Maybe it's a service they use themselves and love. Maybe it's a category AI told them is growing. Maybe it just had a great pitch. They get excited. So they reach out. They start collecting information.

And I want to be really clear, the effort is not necessarily wasted. That research reflex is exactly why I'm probably going to enjoy working with these people. They're driven, they're doing the work, they're taking this seriously. The tools they're using now are also genuinely better than what people had five years ago. And I use them too.

But there's still a fundamental problem with starting the process this way.

The Question That Actually Matters

When you begin with a brand, you're asking the wrong question first. You're asking, is this a good business? The question you actually need to answer is, is this a good business for me? Those are two completely different questions. And no matter how good the tool you're using, it can't answer the second one for you.

The problem with starting from a brand is you're evaluating the wrong thing. Most people, when they look at a franchise, focus on the product or the service. Does the concept sound good? Is there demand for it? Is it profitable? These are valid questions. They're just not the most important ones. The question that matters most is: what does the owner actually do, day to day? Because that's the job. Not the concept, not the product, the owner's role. That's what you're buying.

Where AI Hits a Real Limit

And here's where AI hits a real limit. An AI tool can tell you a lot about a brand. It can pull public information, summarize FDDs, compare unit economics across categories, and all of that is useful. What it can't do is understand you. Not really. It can only work with what you feed it, and most people don't feed it the right things. You'd have to tell it about your career, your family, your marriage, your money, your day-to-day energy, what you actually enjoy versus tolerate. And even then, it's not sitting across from you noticing the way your face changes when you talk about managing people, or the way your energy shifts when you describe your ideal day.

You could ask ChatGPT what franchise you should buy and get a smart-sounding answer. That doesn't mean the answer is right for you. It just means it's plausible.

I know what some of you are thinking. Fine, then I'll just have the AI interview me. I'll feed it my career history, my goals, my family situation, and let it ask me questions. And honestly, that's not a bad start. An AI interview would probably surface more than you'd surface on your own. That's real, that's good. But here's where it stops short. An AI is trained to be helpful and agreeable. It's not going to push back when your answer doesn't match the rest of your life. A coach who's done this several times will hear you say you love managing people, and knowing your career history, ask the question that surfaces whether that's actually true. That kind of pushback is uncomfortable, but it's exactly why it's valuable.

There's another piece too. Even a perfect self-understanding doesn't tell you which brands actually fit. You still need someone who knows what a given franchise is really like to operate. What kind of person thrives in it? Where is the franchisor strong, and where do they fall short? What's happening in the industry right now that isn't in public data? That's not something you can extract from a language model. It comes from actually being in the industry.

The right question isn't AI versus human. Use the tools, they're good, they're getting better. Just don't confuse a smart conversation with a real decision-making partnership. This is a six-figure decision that reshapes your life. It deserves both.

What Fit Actually Looks Like

Let me give you two examples of what fit actually looks like.

Say someone is a little more introverted. They've had a long corporate career, they're a great analytical thinker, but they've never done sales and have no desire to learn how to sell in someone's living room. Now imagine they find a franchise on paper that looks amazing, great margins, great reviews, a growing category. But the model requires the owner to be out doing in-home sales calls, selling in the customer's space, building rapport in someone's kitchen. The business could be excellent, and it would still be the wrong business for this person.

Here's another one. Someone is looking at a service business that requires managing a large team of hourly employees, lots of turnover, a younger workforce, constant hiring, training, and managing. If that person has never managed people in that demographic and doesn't want to learn how, and has no patience for that kind of team dynamic, they're going to struggle. Not because the business is bad, because the operator role doesn't fit them.

AI can describe both of these businesses accurately. It can't tell you which one would break you and which one would make you thrive. That's the fit question. And the fit is the whole game.

The Right Process Starts With You

So what should it look like instead? The right process starts with you. Not with brands, not with categories, not with a list. The first step is a real conversation about who you are and what you want. This covers a lot of ground: where you live, where you want the business to be, your family life, career history, skills you've built, what you love about work, what you hate about work, your financial goals, lifestyle goals, investment level, your purpose. Your why. Why are you actually doing this?

This isn't a checkbox exercise. It's the foundation. Because unless we understand all of that, there's no way to filter through the thousands of franchise brands that exist and land on the ones that actually make sense for you. From that, we build a profile. We use that profile, combined with what I know about the franchise industry and specific brands, to research options and narrow the field. Then I present a small set of options, not fifty, not twenty, just a handful of brands that fit the profile.

From there, you explore them. You get introduced to the franchise development team. You see the FDD, the franchise disclosure document. You look at unit economics, review the territory, do validation calls with existing owners, and, if it makes sense, eventually go to the franchisor's headquarters for what they call a Discovery Day or Meet the Team Day. Through all of that, I'm guiding you, answering questions, helping with funding options, connecting you with legal, making sure you're headed somewhere real, not just going through the motions.

The whole process takes about eight to twelve weeks for most people. And here's what I want you to hear: this process isn't slower than the brand-first path. It's actually faster, because you're not wasting time exploring options that were never going to fit in the first place.

A quick note from Alan: If you want a more complete walkthrough of the process, I put something together called the Franchise Fit Playbook. It walks you through what to consider before you look at a single brand, and how to evaluate options once you're in the process. You can grab it for free at athletetoowner.com/playbook.

Okay, back to it.

If You've Already Done the Research

I know some of you listening are already doing this on your own, and you might be doing it well. You've read the books, you've listened to the podcasts, maybe this one. You've spent hours in franchise directories, you've asked AI dozens of questions, you have strong opinions about brands and categories, you feel confident. And that is great. The process doesn't change for you.

Here's why. Even for someone who has done a huge amount of research, the intake conversation matters, because the right questions, asked by someone outside of yourself, will surface things you didn't know you were thinking. Goals under the surface, tendencies you haven't examined, priorities you didn't realize you had. I've never met someone who went through this process and didn't learn something new about themselves, about franchising, or about the brands they thought they already understood.

If you're already convinced you know what you want, that's totally fine. Sometimes people are right. But even then, the intake is worth doing, if only for validation. It confirms your thinking with someone who has industry visibility you don't have. My job isn't to sell you a franchise. My job is to help you succeed. And those are very different things.

If you show up already locked onto a brand, and the process confirms it's the right fit, that's great. Let's move forward with confidence. If the process reveals something you hadn't considered, even better, now you're making a decision with more information than you had before. Either way, the intake is not the step to skip.

The Two Hardest Steps to DIY

There are two steps in this process that are the hardest to do well on your own. If you're going to try this DIY, these are the places where I see it break down the most.

The first is the intake itself, the self-understanding piece. It sounds like it should be the easiest step, because you already know yourself, right? But it's actually the hardest. Not because you don't know who you are, but because it's incredibly difficult to interview yourself. Someone outside of yourself, asking the right questions, can uncover things that are under the surface, things you don't think about consciously. Goals you haven't articulated, tendencies you haven't examined. That process almost never works well when you try to do it alone, even with AI.

The second is validation calls. When you go through the process, the franchisor will hand-select owners for you to talk to. Sometimes they'll do group validation calls. Any validation call is good, and I want to be clear about that. But you also need to be talking to a variety of owners, not just the ones the franchisor picked. You want to talk to high performers. You want to talk to people in the middle. And you also want to talk to people who are not performing to the average.

And then you want to ask why. Ask what they're doing differently. Ask about the franchisor's support. Get their honest read on the model.

Here's the part most people miss. When you talk to underperformers, listen closely to whether they're taking accountability, or whether they're blaming everyone but themselves. That tells you something important. If someone is blaming the franchisor, the market, the customers, the economy, and everything except their own execution, that tells you about their approach to the business. And then ask yourself the honest question: who am I most similar to? The high performer who's owning it and executing? The middle performer who's competent but not extraordinary? Or the person who's stuck blaming everything but themselves?

That's the mirror moment. And it's not one you can get from a franchisor's recommended list.

By the way, I provide my clients a complete list of questions for those validation calls. If that's something that interests you, please contact me, my info is in the show notes.

What Changes When You Start With Yourself

When you start with yourself, and you use that self-understanding to filter into a small set of brands that actually fit, something changes. You stop chasing shiny objects. You stop getting excited about businesses that don't match your life. You stop wasting time on due diligence for brands that were never going to work. You end up looking at three, four, maybe five options that could all work.

And your job at that point isn't to figure out if the business is good. Your job is to figure out which of these businesses is the best fit for you. That's a completely different exploration experience. It's calmer, more focused, and it leads to a much better decision at the end.

The Real Decision Is About Trust

I'd like to end with the thing that's really underneath all of this. At the end of the day, this decision comes down to trust. Who are you going to trust to help you make it? Are you going to trust an AI tool and the collective information on the internet? Are you going to trust your own research and your own instincts, working through this alone, or maybe with family or friends? Or would you have more confidence working with an actual person who knows what franchising is all about, who's been there and done that, and who's done what you're trying to do?

I'm not going to tell you what the right answer is for you. Some people will do this on their own and it'll work out. Some people will use AI tools well and land in a good place. That definitely happens. But if you're spending six figures changing your career and reshaping your family's life, the question of who you trust to help you get it right is worth asking honestly.

If you're at the beginning of this, or if you've been at it a while and you're realizing you might have started at the wrong place, here's what I suggest. Take five minutes and get some clarity on where you actually stand. I built a tool for this called the Franchise Owner Fit Assessment, fifteen questions on financial and ownership readiness. It's free. You'll find it at athletetoowner.com/fit. If the results tell you you're ready to have a real conversation about what fits, you can book an intro call with me directly at athletetoowner.com/ready.