Some women plan on becoming business owners practically as soon as they can talk and others fall into it by happenstance, but the motivation is often the same — they want to escape the drudgery of working for someone else and make their own business decisions.
Mary Ellen Sheets became an entrepreneur once her sons went off to college, leaving their after-school moving business behind. Before that, she was a systems analyst. “It’s a wonderful feeling,†Sheets says of running her business and watching it grow. “It’s so fun it was like not even working.†Sheets says one of the most rewarding things for her is being able to provide others with good jobs. She started franchising Two Men and A Truck in 1989, and the company now has about 190 locations.
Because so many women have already spent years in the work force by the time they’re ready to take the leap, becoming a franchisee is a great way for them to jump into business ownership without having to spend several more years doing research. Choosing a franchise still requires lots of due diligence, of course, but the biggest bonus of franchising is that it’s a proven system. For a lot of women, especially those supporting a family, knowing they won’t have to make the same mistakes the franchise’s founders did is key, says Sheets. Read more.