Going into business for yourself offers a particular challenge: How do you convince customers that your stuff is the stuff they want?

With a WSI franchise, you don’t have to do so, because we have done that part for you.

Now, we’re not claiming you’ll never have to find a new client of your own on the strength of your own work. Lead generation is a tricky thing, and sometimes it will require a fresh approach all your own to get those new clients or re-tap those older ones with new incentives. However, brand recognition and trust is a strong factor in bringing in new clients, and a WSI franchise offers you the brand recognition combined with the independence to do things your own way.

WSI has taken a great many steps to build up a strong customer satisfaction base, and these are people who are familiar with our brand. This creates an inherent market for each of our franchises, a group of people who already know the online solutions that WSI delivers. So a big part of your lead generation is already done — you simply have to make your franchise and its services available to the clients. This familiarity with our service means they know exactly what they’ll be getting, and it allows them to put their trust in your operations.

WSI franchises offer businesspeople both support and independence in equal measure. Many of us can imagine a time when we had a really outstanding idea. We had a project in mind, a plan to implement it and the desire to go for it. But, alas, ideas take time and money, and in a traditional employment arrangement, the company tends to want to play things safe, leaving the ideas of many excellent people on the draft board rather than the project table.

With a WSI franchise, you can be more flexible about how you approach revenue growth.

Every owner’s style is different. Sure, we have a tried and true formula that we have tested against the market, but each franchisee can implement it in different ways with his or her own personal touch. Some owners are idea people who want to grow their revenue by trying out new things. Others are people workers who excel at assembling a good, small team of talented individuals.

A franchise offers a lot of leverage to handle things your way, allowing you to focus more on revenue growth and increasing your profitability than on poorly-worded requirements from upper management.

Further, a franchise offers you a lot of support in achieving your ideas and goals. We have a good idea of what the market wants and needs, and what approaches work best for our customer base. So if you have a good idea, and share it with home office, we can give you guidance for how to implement that idea, and how to get the most out of making it work.

A popular phrase in the franchising world is “being in business for yourself, but not by yourself.”

With a WSI franchise, this is most certainly the case. Profits and profitability are a big concern in the business world, and a franchise offers you a sure, steady path to both if you’re willing to work as part of a team and are ready to take on the expert-level training we provide.

For example, consider that a major difficulty in starting a small business is starting a small business. Supplies, contacts, advertising, establishing name recognition — there are thousands of little things to do, and having to do it all from scratch is not something that every aspiring businessperson is prepared for. For example, consider business licenses. Many cities have their own unique licensing requirements for people opening their businesses; do you know how to look that kind of information up?

One of the greatest advantages of a WSI franchise is that it lets you work using the lifestyle you want.

The success of your franchise is entirely yours to determine, based on your approach and actions. We provide you the tools, training and operating procedures for how to work with your clients, but the rest of the picture is your own to settle.

For example, one of the benefits of being self-employed is getting to set your hours in accordance with the needs of your schedule. You get to choose the times you operate, select your days off and days on, and in general set up your schedule according to your tastes. If you’re a hard-gunning worker who likes nothing more than staying on the job, there’s a schedule for you. If you prefer to work a few hours every day, there’s a schedule for you. And if you prefer to work a few very intense days of the week and then have a nice long weekend to spend with your family, there’s a schedule for you as well.

People looking to make the switch from traditional employment to self-employment – including those looking to start a WSI franchise – have a valid concern when they ask “Is this for real?“

There are shady operators out there, fly-by-night outfits that promise the moon and leave you holding a handful of sand when the time comes to try to cash your hard-earned profits. Fortunately, WSI Internet Franchise is a company that has been around for a while, and is absolutely not anything like those scofflaws.

WSI has been in operation since the mid 1990s, selling website services and online marketing consultations. WSI is a legitimate, successful business model that has a lot to offer thanks to our unique approach.

Digital marketing is a rapidly growing field — in fact, analysts predict it will grow by at least one billion dollars in the next two years. Whatever one might say about the economy as a whole, the digital marketing field has room for new players.

A WSI franchise represents much more than just another job — it represents a totally new set of options you’ll have once you get started. In a traditional employment arrangement, you’d be surprised at just how many of your options are dictated by your employer.

When you’re working for someone else, they dictate:

Your vacation time…Sick days…Bereavement or maternity leave…And, of course, how much money you make!

Sure, there’s flexibility built into any traditional employment system, but the fact is that they have an extensive amount of control over how you live your life. It doesn’t have to be that way, and with a WSI franchise, you’ll not only have more control over when and where you can do these things, but you’ll also have the money to make the most of your new options.

So, we’ve mentioned a few times that the average franchise posts a return to profitability after the initial investment within one to three years. But what exactly does that mean to you? Sure, it means that’s the point where you’ve made back your initial investment and can start saving or investing money again.

But what exactly does it mean compared to a more traditional job?

Let’s start with a fairly common area of measurement: retail service…

…It can take a year of working as a cashier to be promoted to specialist or low-level management positions.

…It can take as much as five years to be promoted to higher management positions.

…There is no guarantee of being promoted, even if you work hard.

…Your hours, even after several years of work, are dictated entirely by the needs of management.

When discussing a WSI franchise, one of the first things people tend to be concerned about is the return on investment, or ROI. After all, we’re in business to make money. Providing excellent customer service and being a digital marketing pro is a great deal of fun, but it’s also nice to be able to pay the utility bills at the end of the month.

That said, the monetary concerns aren’t the only way to measure ROI, and the absolute value of the money isn’t the only question to consider, either.

First, you have to consider the rate of return.

A franchise is a considerable investment of initial money, and no matter how much it pays out in the long run, that’s not going to help if it doesn’t pay the money out quickly enough to meet your expenses and standard of living. If your rate of return isn’t quite what you need, it is time to consult with your mentor and with our guidance programs to try to change your strategy.

Part of owning a WSI franchise is that you get to design your own perk structure!

Normally, the perks of a job are dictated by human resources, finances and the needs of the company. When you own your own business, you have power and are in complete control of this situation. Thus, your perks are determined by your needs and your understanding of reality, rather than what some administrator feels is best for you. For example…

Vacation Time — Maybe two weeks every year isn’t cutting it for you. Maybe you don’t want to take a whole two weeks just because some bureaucrat insists on it, and you’d prefer a few small weekend excursions spread throughout the year. Alternatively, maybe you just want a nice month off around Christmas time, or to enjoy the waves in the Bahamas during the summer. If you have the finances and the freedom to do it, it’s yours to do.

I’d like a job where I call the shots for a change.

With a WSI franchise, that’s exactly what you get. Once you’re trained in our core approach and become a Certified Digital Marketing Consultant, your franchise is just that — yours. You make the money, you get to decide what to do with it. You’ll set your own hours, make your own decisions about staff, and in general it’ll be your baby.

I don’t want to deal with inventory.

Done deal. The WSI approach to franchising is just what you’re looking for. WSI franchisees provide their clients with expert online marketing and branding consultation services. This approach doesn’t require any kind of supply or physical products, just innovation and dedication.

WSI franchise owners value their independence and direct control over their own business.

At WSI, we recognize that people have their own ideas about things — what a novel concept, right? Some of those ideas tend to involve ways to increase revenues, as is the case with all small business owners, because a profitable business is one that is going to stay around.

The thing is, not every business allows you that kind of freedom. We’re willing to bet that a lot of good ideas for bringing in new revenue got crushed at your prior jobs. These ideas get put down for a lot of reasons — office politics, personality clashes, the management not quite getting the idea or sometimes even because it doesn’t work out due to reasons that the employee knows nothing about. Even when good ideas do get used, the credit doesn’t always go to the one who came up with it so much as their managers.

Digital marketing with a WSI franchise is a proven path to an exciting and satisfying career.

Consider it: The division of labor makes modern society possible. We’d never have all the wonderful diversity of options available to us if we all had to focus on, say, subsistence farming. When one group of people can specialize in one thing, other groups can specialize in others and the choices for everyone begin to multiply.

One maddening aspect of traditional business that we hear about from our non-franchise friends involves things their company does that make no sense at all.

Department shake-ups that come randomly, management saying the client asked for x number of changes that have nothing whatsoever to do with the original product, bonuses being cut for some reason and so on. Honestly, the number of things that seem to happen to people for no adequately explained reason is enough to make our heads spin, and we don’t even work for them. It’s not just that the changes happen — the fact that there isn’t any sense of connection to why they’re happening has to be disheartening.

This is another reason why franchising is such a wonderful job — you don’t have to put up with that kind of thing with a WSI franchise. You’re in direct contact with your clients, so you can talk to them about what they want and why they want it, getting the big picture instead of piecemeal little alterations. You have control of the finances, so there are no surprises at the end of the year. You can make plans for your money in the long term without worrying that betting on your bonus might not pay off.

Owning a WSI franchise is about more than just doing business — it’s about lead generation, knowing how to increase revenues and organizing your life so that you can handle the very real task of doing everything for yourself.

One of the advantages of traditional employment that self-employment tends to lack is division of labor. In a traditional setup, you have marketers, developers, analysts, investors, financing and other departments that break up the task and allow people to get more done overall. If you’re considering going into business for yourself, it’s important that you understand this option is not necessarily going to be available to you. Sometimes several people buy into a franchise together, but by and large the individual operator is the unit of ownership.

When presented with the options a WSI franchise offers, many people are initially skeptical, especially given the times we live in.

“In an economy like this, why would anyone take a risk and try to own their own business?” they ask.

Well, it turns out that there are a lot of reasons why someone might want to take on a WSI franchise, even in days like this.

One of the most important is that a WSI franchise does not prohibit you from taking on other work. Are you an aspiring writer looking for more time in your day to pursue your passion, but not ready to take the plunge into living on your writing fees alone? A WSI franchise allows you to control your schedule so that you can balance work and your passion on your terms, not someone else’s.

As we’ve discussed before, lead generation is an important element of operating a WSI franchise.

You need to keep people interested, and while most business for franchisees comes from repeat customers, you’re always going to need to bring new and interested parties into your sphere of expertise.

Owning your own business – rather than working for someone else – means you can perform lead-generating efforts based on realistic information you have, rather than some abstract numbers that corporate insists you meet.

A WSI franchise is owned and operated by a digital marketing expert. So what is it about digital marketing that makes it such an attractive tool?

One of the most overlooked areas is the interactive nature of the experience. Look at some of the most successful marketing trends of recent years — alternate reality games (ARG), flashmobs, viral video and so on. The common element of these is the interactivity they offer.

Many people can play in an ARG, and just as many show up to numerous flashmob events. Even viral video has the participatory angle of each viewer of the video sending it onward to others for their own enjoyment and consumption.

More than anything, a WSI franchise offers its owner a degree of flexibility that isn’t available to most people.

Most businesses exist in fixed models that can’t really be customized in any meaningful way. Not so with the WSI franchise, where you can set up the lifestyle you want in relatively short order.

Are you the kind of person who enjoys working several jobs? A WSI Internet franchise can be tailored so that you don’t have to invest all of your time in it at once, allowing you to pursue other hobbies and employment alongside your franchise and marketing work.

One of the upsides to a WSI franchise is having a complete picture of what’s happening with your business.

This is an innate advantage that small businesses have over larger ones — the “big picture” can be examined by one person and understood clearly. Not so with particularly large businesses.

How often have we seen this trope? Someone is content in their job, going along doing their thing, when suddenly without warning they’re fired because the business is in a crunch, or something goes wrong that no one knew was coming or could prepare for because someone higher up covered up things? We’ve seen it with Worldcom, Enron and other businesses, so this is clearly not just disaster mongering.

Obviously, when someone buys a WSI franchise, he or she wants to make money.

Profitability is the bottom-line factor of anyone’s consideration of starting a small- or medium-sized business; how much money are they going to bring home, and how often?

So it’s crucial that a person understands how to define profitability.

The first way is to consider the return on investment (ROI). Investing $10,000 and getting back $75,000 is a very clear gain. Though again, one must make sure to consider the rate of return with the ROI. Getting that $75,000 over 75 years might not seem as desirable or profitable as getting it over 3 years.

WSI franchise owners know that one of the best arguments in favor of the franchising model is the excellent return on investment it offers.

After all, many franchises reach profitability within one to three years. But sometimes a bit more detail is needed to clarify just what the return on investment for a franchise looks like.

We’ve discussed the comparison between franchise self-employment and working for a traditional company. A good way to look at the breakdown is the wage by hour comparison. How much were you making per hour at your previous job, and how much per hour now?

The reason that this is an effective way is that an hour of work is an understandable, easily-grasped measurement. You know how much you could type, data enter, manufacture, bake or sell in an hour of effort, and you know how to break down hours on the job versus pay in a period to figure out hours. It makes the concept simple to relate to.

Many WSI franchise owners focus on how to increase revenue.

That most certainly is an important aspect of any business — the more money coming in, the better. However, there is also value to learning how to make the most of the revenue you already have, so that every dollar coming in is being used to its best effect.

An effective way to do this is to do an analysis of the time you spend on certain projects, and what those projects bring in compared to what expenses you have to lay out for them.

We talk about WSI Franchises as being part of the “digital revolution,” but just what does that term even mean?

There are a lot of buzzwords that get thrown around; isn’t this just one more that doesn’t really mean anything? Well, if you know anything about the WSI Internet Franchise by now, you’ll know that that’s definitely not the case.

Going from a traditional job to owning a WSI franchise needn’t be an overnight jump. Many people choose to make a transition from employment to self-employment.

One of the best ways to prepare for the transition is to do a lot of research. There is a lot of material out there, both WSI-specific and about franchises in general, that can really give you a good sense of what to expect.

For example, one could research the rate of return on investment of most franchises. It’s one thing to understand that a franchise is typically profitable within the first one to three years. However, knowing the typical curve from month-to-month can help you paint a more specific picture of what sort of money you can expect to have and when.

When we talk about owning your own WSI franchise., we often mention the security of owning your own business.

There’s a lot to be said for it, including the financial security, the emotional security and many other elements of the idea. However, one of the most important is the security that comes from being able to give a quick response to unexpected changes.

Large businesses end up being very bureaucratic. This is a necessary process, because large businesses have a vast amount of information to handle — financial, personnel, public relations — it all adds up. Thus, large businesses build up a layer of red tape to control and organize the collection of all this information and all decisions that come with operating a business. The problem is, anyone who’s dealt with red tape understands that it leaves very little discretion to any one member of the organization. Procedure must be followed, even if it’s clear that the solution lies slightly outside the manual. This is why when you call technical support places, you always hear, “Have tried turning it off, then on again?”

Even though we all dream of being our own boss one day, it has to be said that the idea can be a little daunting. What if we make mistakes? There’s less of a support structure to help you out if you fumble an important job in your own business, after all. That’s why a WSI franchise is a good choice for your transition from employed to self-employed – we make sure the process is easy to understand and readily accessible.

Training

We provide each WSI franchise owner with the training they need, just like they would receive in a traditional employment situation. Our 90 day quick start course is easy to understand, can be taken either on its own or on the side during a regular job as you prepare to make the switch. Either way, you learn the skills you need to run your franchise, with nothing hidden.

A Proven Approach

The WSI method has worked for hundreds of WSI franchisees since we entered the digital marketing game in 1995. We consistently update the specifics, but our core approach remains the same and provides a strong foundation for you to set out and bring in the revenue you expect out of a personal business.

Mentoring

Some training inevitably has to take place on the job, of course. Even with the quick start program and the proven method we provide, some situations will come up that surprise anyone. That’s why we have our mentoring program, so experienced franchisees can share their insights and ideas with new entrepreneurs eager to do things right.