34: How to Plan for Success and Failure in Your Business with Willis Park Corporation’s Aaron Gillaspie

<p>In episode 34 of #FranchiseSecrets Erik Van Horn welcomes Aaron Gillaspie to the show. Erik and Aaron met at a discovery day for a brand Erik was a part of but ended up talking about salon suites. The two have stayed in touch over the years and even become competitors at times.  </p> <p> </p> <p>Aaron shares how his father and grandfather influenced his entrepreneurial path through their own business ventures. Aaron opened his first business in college and discovered his skill and love of being a visionary and founder of new ideas and systems. Aaron walks us through his unlikely start in education and how creating new curriculums and studying best practices in education was a perfect training ground to become successful in business and franchising.  </p> <p> </p> <p>In this episode, Erik and Aaron cover a lot of ground including: </p> <p> </p> <p>✔ The importance of having a plan </p> <p>✔ Knowing enough to answer questions, but being ok with not knowing everything </p> <p>✔ Making tough decisions </p> <p>✔ How to know when it is time to give up on an idea and minimize your losses  </p> <p>✔ Keys to determining which franchising consultants you can trust </p> <p>✔ How to look beyond the FDD to make the best decision for your market </p> <p>✔ Removing emotion from business decisions</p> <p> </p> <p>And much more!</p> <p> </p> <h2>The importance of having a plan</h2> <p>Study the environment and know it.  You got to be on the same page somewhere.  At least know where to start. The key is make sure you have something to plan.</p> <p>Before I ever bought into our first franchise, I'd read over 50 FDDs.  I'd been to over 15 discovery days. I went to knowing I wasn't even going to invest in their companies because I wanted to gain as much information in my arsenal about things that I could, to know as much as I can and talk to as many people, because this is your livelihood. This is something you're signing up for. You want to have every training you can, but the opposite is sooner or later you got to pull the trigg