50 plus and looking for new horizons

Looking at global statistics recently on mature age entrepreneurs I was interested to find the number of new starts being initiated by people at or approaching retirement age. In 2002, although those aged 50 plus made up 25 % of the workforce, they reportedly comprised 40% of the self-employed. It’s said that solo business formation in the future will be driven by people who take early retirement or whose jobs just disappear. Interestingly, it’s estimated two thirds of these consider franchising as one of their options.

Many people do not wish to “retire” on someone else’s say so. They have accumulated business experience and wish to continue to earn a return from it, either in their current line of work or another. Whatever their choice, it will probably involve acquiring some new skills.

Lifelong learning is becoming a necessity rather than an option. The question is how to combine old knowledge and new knowledge to maximum advantage?

When interviewing franchisees recently I was interested to hear how they combined their previous business experience with the training given by the franchisor. One franchisee for instance who had been in the banking industry used his knowledge to obtain initial funding to buy a franchise and later to expand his franchise holdings once he'd gained experience as a franchisee. Another told me how she’d worked for many years for a successful franchisee and learned every aspect of his business then when he wanted to retire she was able to buy his franchise and has since become extremely successful.

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