Outside Help

Q: There are so many franchise companies and service providers claiming to help me improve my business that I don't know where to turn. Any advice?

A: If you are considering entering into a financial arrangement with such companies, you first need to examine what you need to do to grow your business and why an outside company could be the answer. Perhaps you’ve realized that your strength is in selling. Unfortunately, you get so bogged down taking care of the necessary back office work that you have less and less time to sell. One solution is to hire a part-time or full-time person to help you with these tasks. If that’s not a viable option, you could consider working with a service provider such as Asgard to help you with financing and order management. They charge a fee based on your sales volume. Before you even consider using such an outside service, your annual sales volume should be at least $100,000. The other solution is to align your company with one of the larger distributorships such as Geiger or the Vernon Company.