It was an odd request for a couple of reasons: First, my dad rarely scheduled a meeting with me or my siblings. If he had something to say, he just said it when the thought crossed his mind. Second, he was not one to offer unsolicited advice to me, or anyone else for that matter. So when my dad told me that he wanted to sit down with me at a specific time to “talk about your education,” I was not sure what to expect.

What occurred was one of those few “life changing” events that occurs when you least expect it. My dad sat me down to talk about my college major and the decisions that I would be making over the next few years. Since I was paying for my own education, my dad told me that my choice of majors was mine to make … but he strongly suggested that I major in something that I love so that I would get good grades, which was the road to getting a good job. He went on to tell me that he made a terrible mistake in his own major, choosing one that would make it easy to get a job, but not one that he was passionate about. My dad never loved his job and his career was truly a “job” and everyday was a “day to go to work.”

I took my dad’s advice and majored in Biology with an emphasis on my great love…BIRDS! I continued my education and got a Master’s Degree in Ornithology, not knowing how I would use it in my future career. Now, here I am, 23 years into my career at Wild Birds Unlimited. I don’t actually study birds anymore (at least not professionally), but I do get to talk about the hobby of bird feeding and help people turn their passion for the hobby into a business opportunity. I was lucky enough to turn my passion into my career.

So my point is that the best way to ensure that you never work a day in your life is to choose a franchise concept that appeals to your own personal passion. Entrepreneurship comes along with long hours and lots of hard effort, even when you join an established franchise system that has well documented and proven “Best Practices.” Working hard is only fun when you love what you do and are passionate about your concept.

That being said, passion comes in all shapes and sizes. You may decide that a fast food franchise is the right concept for you even if you aren’t a fan of the food. If you are passionate about operating a business, managing and developing a staff and having control over the way you spend your day, a fast food franchise might be perfect for you. Some franchisors don’t even want franchisees who want to work in their franchised stores. The hair cutting sector is well known for the fact that they often do not want stylists to be their franchisees. They are looking for franchisees who will manage the stylists and focus on the business operations- not the customer interactions. I have a friend who is an owner of a hair cutting franchise. He is not passionate about hair (he doesn’t even have any), but he is passionate about the business operations—and that is why he loves owning his hair cutting franchises. He is also passionate about the hobby of bird feeding, which is why he loves owning his three Wild Birds Unlimited franchises too!

Here at Wild Birds Unlimited, we need franchisees who are passionate about both the hobby of backyard bird feeding and passionate about the behind the scenes business operations. We are an owner-operated system that needs franchise store owners who will connect with their customer base and enthusiastically promote the bird feeding hobby. Wild Birds Unlimited franchise store owners become their individual community’s hobby expert—and without passion, it is impossible to make that happen.

So, when considering which franchise concept to pursue, take a step back and make a list of your own personal and professional passions. Let that list help you make the best decision possible of possible franchise concepts so that you can turn your passion into your career. Never “work” a day in your life … just follow your passion!

I was asked to be a panelist by Mike Rozman, Co-President of BoeFly, LLC. BoeFly is an online financing site that specializes in bringing prospective and existing franchisees together with more than 2000 lenders through the posting of a single loan request on BoeFly’s web-based loan platform. We have invested in this platform for more than a year and have been more than pleased with the number of Wild Birds Unlimited franchisees who have obtained their financing via the BoeFly site. Mike is a great guy, very creative and innovative, and made the panel seem like a conversation with friends, rather than a full on-presentation. That being said, the amount of information that was presented during our one-hour panel presentation was on-point, direct and very helpful.

The other panelist, Kevin Ellis, VP of Small Business Lending with Atlantic Coast Bank, was a wonderful co-panelist. It was so good to hear from the lender side of the equation. It was very helpful to learn, in even more detail, what the lenders are specifically looking for, giving me even more insight into how to help Wild Birds Unlimited prospective franchisees with getting their start up loans approved.

What always amazes me about meeting people like Mike and Kevin is how open they are about providing insight and advice, sharing “best practices” and supporting others- even when they are speaking to direct competitors. This attitude and culture of sharing creates such a synergistic energy; and is so refreshing in the world of corporate America.

One of two major take-aways that I left with was that Wild Birds Unlimited is doing a really good job of working with third parties and our prospective franchisees to help them get financing. We can always improve (and are committed to doing so), but we are on the right track.

The other takeaway is that I am very privileged to get to work along side people like Mike Rozman and Kevin Ellis. They both inspired me to get out there, share information and help others in any way that I can. As our founder, Jim Carpenter, likes to say, “When you raise the level of the sea…everyone’s boat floats a little higher!”

For more information on how you can realize your dream of owning your own Wild Birds Unlimited store, go to www.wbufranchise.com, call 888-730-7108 or send an email to pickettp@wbu.com.

Although the WBUFSC staff doesn’t get the pleasure and honor of working directly with our retail customers who are purchasing the great backyard bird feeding product in our retail stores, we do get the privilege of working directly with our wonderful franchise store owners.  Our focus is to provide support, tools, and advice to our over 275 store owners and to be the best at supporting them.

For a number of years, we have used an outside company, Franchise Business Review (FBR) to survey our franchise store owners to better understand their satisfaction with the support that we provide.  FBR surveys hundreds of other franchise systems in order to provide benchmark data on the satisfaction levels of Wild Birds Unlimited franchise system.  We use this information to gain a better understanding of what we can do here at the FSC to improve the support that we provide to our individual franchise store owners.

Wild Birds Unlimited has always been strongly ranked in the FBR Annual Franchisee Satisfaction Awards- but this year, we are proud to announce that we were:

#1 in Specialty Retail
#10 in Large Class Franchise Systems (systems with 200 or more franchisees)
#17 in Best of the Best- All Franchise regardless of size

We are so thankful to our individual franchisees, who are committed to helping us help them reach their goals and continue to “Bring People and Nature Together and Do It with Excellence”.

For more information on how you can realize your dream of owning your own Wild Birds Unlimited store, go to  www.wbufranchise.com, call 888-730-7108 or send an email to  pickettp@wbu.com