TES Insights
The Entrepreneur’s Source®: Helping Women Achieve Self-Sufficiency and Greater Equity
Franchising has helped many women achieve self-sufficiency and greater equity through business ownership. By embracing equity and inclusivity, franchising offers women a unique opportunity to become business owners while at the same time providing the resources they need to succeed. Franchising is not only about achieving financial success but also about creating a better work-life balance and flexibility, something elusive in the corporate environment.
At The Entrepreneur’s Source® (TES), we want to help more women achieve success through business ownership and are committed to being a resource for women who are looking to achieve self-sufficiency. Through franchising, women can create the flexibility and control over their schedules that they need to achieve their goals.
Take Patricia McGraw, for example. She wanted more control of her day and health, but working for someone else meant that she was confined to set hours in her corporate sales and marketing position. A friend spoke a hard truth to her one day, “You are always busy and say no every time we ask you to do something. We are going to stop asking you to do things.” It was then that Patricia realized that she needed to make a change. Her friend suggested she talk to a TES Career Ownership Coach ™ where she discovered that franchising could offer her the lifestyle she wanted.
Today Patricia herself is a Career Ownership Coach ™ helping guide others on their path towards the clarity that she now has. “I love what I do! Talking to a TES coach helped me discover a path that fit me and what I wanted out of life. Now I am living a healthier lifestyle. I have the time to cook healthy meals at home. I get to play tennis with my friends at 10 am on a weekday if I want. I have control over my life now.”
Before she reached a point of clarity in her business ownership journey, Patricia said her coach helped her explore options outside of her comfort zone. Now she helps her clients do the same thing. Patricia will tell you that many of the women she works with have a hard time seeing themselves in certain roles. “They don’t always recognize the skills they have are transferrable. With franchising, you don’t have to be an expert in that field. In fact, they often prefer that you aren’t so that they can teach you their system,” she explains.
Spending time with clients breaking down certain bias to help them explore options they might not have previously considered is part of being a coach. “I worked with one woman who was in a time of transition. She was leaving her job in IT to move cross-country to be closer to her family,” recalls Patricia. “After exploring all the different options, she ended in a paint franchise, an industry that is not traditionally female. The point of clarity came when she realized it wasn’t about the painting, she could hire someone to do that. As a business owner her time would be spent on customer service and the operations side. It built off of the skills she already had, while also expanding on her connections, her mom is a real estate agent! It was a great fit yet it was something that she probably wouldn’t have thought of had she not worked with a TES Career Ownership Coach ™.”
Like Patricia, April Saavedra-Duran also came to a point in corporate America where she didn’t want to do it anymore. As a Division Manager with a Food Service Company, she spent most of her time traveling between 22 different states. “My job was taking me away from what I was working so hard for. I made a lot of money for these companies but often felt undervalued and underappreciated. On top of that I was missing valuable time with my family.”
Adding, “Like many, I was sold “the dream”: Get the degrees, get the job, work your way up. I would spend my week on a plane, in the car or in meetings. I would have the weekend to take care of the household work that piled up during the week and then Monday would come, and we would do it all again. But I didn’t want to wait until I was 65 to start living my life!”
April was doing what she says a lot of women tend to do. “We opt for the stay in a situation that might be toxic or limiting because we are providing for the family. But what they don’t see is how staying leaves you stuck with no room to grow. In order to grow in the corporate world, I would have needed to relocate my family and that just wasn’t an option for me. That would’ve meant more sacrifices for me and my family and what were they offering me in return? The corporate world offers a false sense of security. They could have laid me off at any moment. Even if I had moved my whole family for them. The only real security is self-sufficiency.”
With the income and health insurance her job provided, her husband was able to build a business and got to a point where he was able to enjoy the benefits of being his own boss. “I would call on a Friday afternoon and ask him how his day was. He would tell me about his day golfing or how he picked the kids up from school and took them for ice cream. I finally got to a point where I said this isn’t fair. It’s my turn to finally work on my dreams!”
Becoming a Career Ownership Coach ™ turned out to provide the solution for April. “I watched my husband build his business from the ground up, so I saw how long it took him to figure out the best way to run his business and get where he is today. I didn’t want to spend that much time in my business to get the results I wanted! Being that I am a perfectionist, I knew if I done a startup business, I would have wasted so much time trying to get the plan perfect that I would never get to the stage of execution. The TES system helped me get out of just thinking about what to do and get to the actual doing.”
April will tell you that transitioning from a paycheck mindset to a business ownership mindset had some growing pains. “It took my husband a while to get on board with it. This was a big obstacle for me in the beginning. He had his own fears, and he was comfortable. I had been his safety net for years. My salary had always covered the bills,” she says, “I encourage couples to get their partner involved in the Discovery Experience early. It makes all the difference when you are both on the same page and they are learning what you are.”
Of this decision to take control of her life, April has this advice, “I encourage women to ask for what they want. Don’t believe the lie that you have to do things a certain way. I am so glad I did” she says, “I don’t have to wait until I am 65 and my kids are old to enjoy my life. I can plan my week and block out my schedule when I want. The moment I realized I had made the right choice was when I was doing my daughter’s hair for school picture day for the first time ever and she looked at me and said “I finally get to have pretty hair for picture day! I knew I made the right move. It’s not always about being there for the big moments, it’s also being there for the small moments.”
Both Patricia and April are examples of women who decided it was time to make a change and not their destinies in the hands of someone else. Franchising with TES helped them achieve both their financial and lifestyle goals in a fulfilling way. They are also examples of women helping other women learn and grow, creating positive change in the lives of their clients. They are providing a safe environment for women to explore business ownership and how it can help them achieve the flexibility, control and support needed to achieve their dreams. At The Entrepreneur’s Source®, we’re with you every step of the way.
To learn more about becoming a TES Career Ownership Coach™, click here
To learn more about how TES can help you along your career journey, click here.