Hiring temporary foreign workers: What you need to know
There are three ways in which Canadian franchises can...
For most people, becoming a franchisee means that they only earn when their business is successful. For some, this feels very risky, especially at the moment with inflation and cost of living increases, so many people are considering franchising as a side hustle.
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What is a side hustle?
A side hustle is a job that delivers a secondary source of income. This means that individuals get their guaranteed weekly or monthly salary from their "day job" and run a self-employed business alongside their job, on evenings or weekends, in order to generate additional income.
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What are the downsides?
Juggling a full-time job and a side business can be taxing and family life can be impacted, especially in the early days while getting the side business set up and established. Additionally, you will need to invest your own money into establishing the side business, with no guarantees of success.
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What are the benefits?
The benefits can be enormous. There are many franchises that are ideal to exploit as side hustles, such as cleaning, bookkeeping and pet care, which can easily fit in around your existing career, family and lifestyle, and most of these have very low buy-in costs. This means that your initial outlay can be controlled and anticipated.
Selecting a franchise as your side hustle also means that you get access to the training and marketing materials associated with running a recognized brand instead of having to start from scratch in getting your business known within your local community.
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What you need to know
When you first take on a side hustle, you are likely to be working more hours and have less disposable income than you did just working on an employed basis. In order to clear a profit, you will need to dedicate this initial time and financial investment into your side hustle to generate customers, orders and attention. You must also ensure that you deliver outstanding customer service to make sure that your customers become repeat customers.
You are likely to see a return quicker with a service-based business than you will selling goods because businesses that sell a product require a greater capital investment in stock, storage and distribution.
You should not underestimate the power of social media to let people know that you exist and what you can do for them. The sooner you begin generating income, the sooner you will see a return on your investment.
Don't forget that once you start earning money from your side hustle, you will need to pay taxes on it. You should allocate 30% of your additional income to taxes. One way to get the most out of this money is to put it into a high-interest savings account for maximum growth before making your annual tax payout.
