Do search about those franchises before you buy.
I started out part time, when I was loosing money at my day job I had to quit and pursue this full time.
As of right now I am not running a ppc campaign and I need to hire a full time employee. I really hate truck shopping.
Good luck how ever you do it. One last thing a construction background is very helpful in this business.
I say go for it without a buy in. If you make mistakes, you pay for them not the customer.

We are starting to get a 50/50 split here franchise/no franchise...lol... I've continued to research, as well as downloaded some ebooks and talked to my wife. But I pretty much gave up on the franchise idea just BC in the beginning I had several say "no way"... Maybe a fresh start at square one is in order to figure out how this franchise thing works.

Are there any courses around mid October going on for ADC guys? Id sure hate to leave home w trapping season starting, but I'm gonna guess I'm not gonna have much time for trapping and a new biz... Then again, maybe I will...

1. Jared, for what it's worth, I would tell you it is highly preferable if you planned to start out part-time. I don't think there are many small businesses where you can plan to go full time immediately and pay the bills, unless you have a ton of capital and previous knowledge.
My wealthiest buddy started out as a concrete laborer in high school. He worked steadily for others to pay the bills, but started doing his own stuff part time. As his knowledge and reputation grew, so did his full time status and income. Twenty years later, he is a small business success.
You definitely can start small and expect to grow. It is all about being good at what you do and marketing. You have to have a good product AND people need to know about that product. Balancing commitments as you grow is no easy task for sure.
So learn as much as you can about the industry (maybe some of the big guys on here will let you intern for a couple weeks)and get a marketing strategy. Skills like making a repeater set-up on a soffit AND learning how to create a web site are both hugely important in your success or failure.
2. The leading cause of failure is expecting too much too soon (needing a successful business right now to feed a family and pay bills), not offering a quality product (being a hack), and not having all the non-trapping business skills needed for a 21st century business.
If you have some financial breathing room to start, are dedicated and passionate about learning, and figure out how to let people know you are out there without breaking the bank- you are well on your way to growth. The limits and rate of growth depend upon the size of your market, the foothold of the competition in that market, and whether you can develop trapping, repair, and business skills necessary.

Good luck. Thanks for your service.

While this may not be the main reason people fail, this certainly caught my eye with a number of people in Wisconsin. They were either disappointed in what their idea of this business was going to be or were completely turned off by it. I know of a handful of guys that just quit and went into another small business completely. Personally, I went into this business very late in life (45) and I think that's one of the reason we became successful. No misplaced expectations and no expenses that weren't necessary.

I'm going out on a limb here.........I'm consider myself selfish in certain aspects, I figure if I had 20,30, or even $50,000 I would want to invest all that money (saved or borrowed) in myself and not a franchise. Don't get me wrong I see the benefits of a franchise, but then again, when I'm working and putting forth the effort I want to be in complete control. Like I told some people before "The reason why I want to own my own business is: I want my successes or failures to be my own and nobody elses"

I'm not trying to fuel an argument of what a person should do or which is better, just throwing myself out there

Sure....but there may be more risk of complete loss. Depends on the person.

If you already have better than average people skills, business skills like accounting, and are maybe a college grad, that likes the idea of this business, but has no real animal skills, a franchise might be for you. ( I say this because even if your training is incomplete, you can usually call another franchisee for good advise.

On the other hand, if you know quite a bit about trapping, hunting, and nature, but are not very good with people, I have my doubts that a franchise will help very much. Some of us are just not real good with customers. That does not mean we can't succeed at this business. If you're good at taking care of the customer's problem, they usually don't care if your Albert Einstein or Homer Simpson.

I'm not to keen on franchises, but a franchise can give you some sort of protection if the bottom of your business falls out for whatever reason?

I would love to see some guys build a business that was worth buying someday. One fur trapper and a truck will not do..not big enough. I think business skill are more necessary than wildlife experience....you can hire trappers. Of course, a trapper can hire a business man too.

Hey guys, reading your posts here... Glad to see the thoughts and ideas... I would like to think my ppl skills are sufficient, however we all view ourselves through a narrow window of what we'd desire to be...lol...

The best thing i've done so far is start this thread... I have spent more time researching the things everyone here has directed me to, and I wouldn't have considered a lot of them...

I am currently waiting to hear back from Mark at A All Animal Control, as i want to have 100% complete info and all questions answered before deciding against it or for it... However, I see starting slow and making mistakes while still small/part time a value... If you are that small, just learning, odds are you will have little affect on the market, ppl probably wont remember a small mistake as long as you make it right with them, and last but not least, I would like my name to be on a product well done, not someone elses name that I helped...

This also scares me, I searched several franchises yesterday for reviews just to see what popped up for diff cities... I found quick that A All and Critter Control pop up frequent... However from one city to the next the Rating and Reviews are vastly different... Obviously the operators are the cause of this, but I would hate to think someone may put a search word in google, and a different cities franchise pop up and provide them with a less than adequate impression of my business just because I use there logo and name... I think if I wanted to be in a franchise, I would have went to business school and started my own...

With that said, I will let Mark discuss his view points, and maybe bc of my current position it is the better opportunity... I will continue to update everbody

And thanks to each one of you for all the help...
Jered