How losing your job can help you find yourself

More and more people are discovering that redundancy presents them with a real opportunity to put all their hard-earned skills and experience to work by launching a new career as a successful franchise owner.

It may be a new dawn for politics, but on the employment front it seems we're still in the middle of a pretty dark night. According to the Office for National Statistics, the total number of people out of work rose to 2.47 million by May 2010, and that's the highest total since the end of 1994.

For many people, redundancy is still a very real prospect - and the road to rebuilding a career and finding secure employment is fraught with difficulties and uncertainties.

That's why more people are now deciding to take control of their own destiny and start their own business.

Indeed, redundancy can be just the spark people need to take stock of their skills and experience, and launch an entirely new career - by themselves and for themselves.

Actually realising such an ambition can be extremely challenging, which is why investing in a franchise is becoming an increasingly popular and attractive route into business ownership, even in such troubled economic times as these.

There are several factors which makes franchise opportunities ideally suited to people looking to start their own business for the first time:

• They offer a product or service with a proven demand
• They are based on a model with a demonstrable track record of profitability
• They benefit from established, national branding
• The business concept has been developed with professional systems and procedures
• They allow you to launch a business with realistic financial forecasts based on past performance
• They offer dedicated support from experienced management staff
• The new business immediately benefits from greater buying power than it would have on its own

Moreover, in counterpoint to the inevitable uncertainty that redundancy entails, franchising offers a relatively secure way of launching a business successfully. The NatWest bfa Franchise Survey 2010 confirmed the extremely low failure rate of new franchises - only 10 per cent, compared to the 50 per cent failure rate of small businesses in general. That's very reassuring news for those considering embarking on the journey to franchise ownership.

Reported by Fraser McKay