Franchise Article

Of all the words that a person could use to describe university, "easy" is typically not one of them. Seemingly endless hours of class followed by lengthy hours of study, broken up by the occasional social interaction and infrequently sprinkled bits of sleep: that is an adequate description of university life, and it is clearly anything but easy.

Sadly, for many students, it's made even harder by the need to work, because unlike the folks in the corporate world, students pay money to work late in to the night on a paper instead of earning money at a job. So in order to afford important things like food, they have to look elsewhere to earn a paycheck. If you are a university student, that's most likely the reason you're reading this article. Just for you, here's a quick list of potential franchises that could be just what you're looking for to help make ends meet without costing you precious hours reserved for sleep and study. We'll break them up into two different categories.

'Get Me Out of This Room!'

For the student who, aside from being overworked and unpaid, is on the verge of having a stir-crazy mental breakdown, here are a few good business opportunities that will make money and get you out of the dorm.

First, take a look at Cardgroup Greetings, one of the up-and-coming champs in the greeting card industry. Sporting professional-grade cards with a hand-crafted look and feel, the business is already proving successful in a number of nations, giving the big dogs a run a for their money. What a Cardgroup Greetings franchisee is responsible for is building a client base of retailers who will sell your product, and maintaining stock at those locations as sales necessitate. Whatever doesn't sell isn't paid for and can quickly and easily be sent back to the distributor, which makes life for both franchisee and retailer much simpler. The biggest beauty of this operation is that you don't actually sell the cards, which means that while you sleep'if you sleep'the product is still selling itself.

Similar to Cardgroup, two other low-startup businesses are great alternatives to losing your marbles in the dorms: Yellowtom and The Snippet'if the odd names don't intrigue you, the business models certainly will. Based around a location-specific website and a local four-page newsletter, respectively, these two organizations are built entirely on advertising; franchisees spend all their working time walking around town and making friends with local shop-owners with the intent of selling ad space in the two media outlets. Snippet franchise owners are then also responsible for finding local outlets for the distribution of the newsletter, but since the product is free for the taking, it's not a hard sell. Along with providing franchisees with an income, these work from home businesses also provide local stores and restaurants with much needed advertising to boost their incomes and advance the local economy as well. Best of all, franchisees determine how much and how often they want to work.

'Don't Make me Leave This Room!'

Not all students want to get out into the world just to make a buck. In fact, some are so busy with their studies that being more than five feet from a computer is a mammoth problem. What they need is a way to make money in those spare minutes between researching taxonomy, reading Crime and Punishment, and writing political science theses. If that's you, here are a few ways you could accomplish that.

Two great home based business options for starters are Busby Web Solutions and Activ Web Design. The concepts to these two franchise businesses are pretty straightforward and fairly similar. The problem that most companies are having in our increasingly web-based world is that they just haven't caught up with the increasing pace of technology and, for that reason, are not experiencing the success that they could be. This is where Busby and Activ come into the picture. As a franchisee with either of these companies, your task'amidst all the busyness of your class-work'is to connect businesses in need of website services, designs, and solutions with the people who can provide those services, designs, and solutions: namely, your franchisor. These, again, are great for students because they can fit into any schedule since everything is home/internet-based.

If providing web solutions doesn't quite sound exciting enough for you, but you can't spare the time to leave your flat, consider another alternative: Xfactor Online Dating. From the comfort of his own home, a franchisee with this company runs a website dedicated to helping lonely singles meet. Every student gets lonely now and then and with an Xfactor franchise you can help your fellow students find true love while simultaneously paying off your student loans.

Though university life really isn't as easy as the movies want us to believe, it doesn't have to be impossible, and students don't have to starve to get through. It's just a matter of finding work that will provide enough money without stealing necessary time from studying. And though that also can be difficult, with a good franchise with variable hours, low overhead, and turn-key operations, it's far from hopeless. With any one of these franchises, there is always the opportunity for exponential growth during holidays and after graduation. While most of your classmates are frantically scrounging for work, the university-age franchisee is already in business to start making money. It's really a good deal.