“Recessions are better for us than booms” explains Jim; the founder of Jim´s Mowing, in his book "Every customer a fan". Apparently, this is because Jim´s have more work than they can handle and not enough franchisees. Fortunately for Jim´s, during recessions many middle-managers were given a golden handshake and with their new-found-wealth, invested it in a Jim´s franchise.

You can imagine their consternation, when Jim admitted to them that Jim´s Mowing was going broke: Ongoing franchisee fees had been priced too low and were not enough to fund the call centre. It was all the new money coming in from the sale of new Franchisee Agreements that had kept the business afloat. Jim explained that they would lose their investment unless they agreed to a hiking of their ongoing fees, which they reluctantly did. Apparently, since then, Jim´s has flourished?

Franchises are clearly a large upfront commitment, which can have a big payoff if done right. Another approach, with much lower costs, is by freelancing for work. When compared with buying a franchise, working with marketplaces like Freelancing.hk has the advantage of building up business, whilst keeping costs low. Along with a dramatically lower requirement for startup capital, lower ongoing costs means more income from your billable hours ends up in your pocket.