Business Opportunities

What does the term business opportunity mean to you? For many, it feeds the dream that can lead to a more fulfilling life. I confess to checking out the business opportunity listings in the newspaper classifieds from time to time. These listings have always provided me with an amusing diversion. If you have ever thought about starting your own little empire, checking into the business opportunity listings might not be a complete waste of time ...

Browsing through the business opportunity advertisements is a flight of fancy. I imagine what it would be like to run each of those businesses for myself. The newspaper listings used to be full of business opportunities like candy vending machine routes and envelope stuffing empires. Quite honestly, I never could see myself involved with either of those schemes.

These days, I browse the business opportunities online. It often starts by googling a term. Once I find something of interest, I might go deeper into the subject by checking into the franchise listings at Entrepreneur Magazine or through other resources.

For a short time, I was intrigued with the idea of running a Maui Wowie frozen tropical drink franchise at the local minor league baseball park. I started to do the research one winter, thinking that it might be fun to hang out in an aloha shirt, sipping (and selling) expensive frozen delights, while watching the game each night.

As it happened, I didn't follow up ... allowing the business opportunity to melt. When the season started that year, I discovered that someone else had picked up on that dream. The ballpark sported a brand new frozen concoction cart and it wasn't mine.

The opportunities that aren't easily found tend to be the most interesting. I could never see myself involved in a cleaning franchise (of which there are many), for example. But it's the cost, not the type of business, that can provide the largest roadblocks. The financial commitment and start-up costs provide a substantial hurdle with many franchise opportunities.

Truth be told, the initial financial outlay popped the bubble of my Maui Wowie dream.

The first time I heard the Clash belt out the line "career opportunities, the ones that never knock," the words hit home. While I've had some cool gigs over the years, the times in which I was happy working for the man were few and far between.

Through it all, I've been much happier working for myself. That's why I keep looking over those listings, in the hope that the perfect business opportunity will present itself ...