My mother, who said she wanted to start a business, has almost decided to invest in a곱창 restaurant.

Here are some of the opinions I've shared with my mother in response to her questions.

• The owner must be able to handle all aspects of their work.
• As the owner, you can't run away, so you need to focus on strengthening your minimum capabilities as a representative.
• Don't think of the worries and negative opinions from those around you as meaning you should give up.
• Rather, use them as an opportunity to assess your current position as a prospective entrepreneur.
• If you find that you are lacking in a particular area, find someone who has already faced this challenge and learn from them.

There's one message I've always wanted to convey to my mother.

The mindset of an owner who has to face the uncertainty of everyday life alone.

Once you understand this, you can directly see the scope of possibilities and limitations. That way, you can look at how far you can go more realistically.

Once you start, you'll have no choice but to confirm every moment that your soul is connected to the store you stand in, and you'll be subordinate to that place until it disappears. So, before the store operation, where the daily schedule is fixed, I wanted her to create opportunities for herself to grow.

That's why she recently said that she's been answering 'no' to questions from franchise company people asking if she has any children who might be interested in joining.

Here are some of the moments that I've recently confirmed through conversations with my mother that prospective entrepreneurs should carefully consider and put into practice.

A. She said she met the owner of a 70-store franchise brand and his father.

Of course, this meeting was to confirm the location my mother had looked at, look around the surrounding commercial districts, and discuss the suitability of the franchise business. From my mother's perspective, it was the most important meeting to confirm the total initial cost. However, from my perspective, these two people are difficult to meet casually in the food industry, regardless of whether they are going to proceed with the contract.

The father, who started in a small store within Incheon's market, has been running and growing his곱창 restaurant for 40 years. Times have changed, and there are differences in the location of the store and the owner's personal luck, but there's definitely a lot to learn from someone who has grown their store to this level. Additionally, the owner of this brand, who has successfully led the franchising business and met countless prospective entrepreneurs, watching their failures, survival, and successes, is someone who can share a lot about the company's system operations.

Of course, both of them, like my mother, are highly likely to be there just to check the immediate contract status. However, meeting and talking to these two people still remains an opportunity for my mother to learn, regardless of the main topic of conversation.

In this regard, I quickly summarized and shared these three questions with my mother.

• Is there an opportunity to share the cost of interior design?
  (Currently, this is the key issue that needs to be decided and the key issue that determines the contract status. Checking the possibility of a proposal from my mother's perspective.)
• Can you tell me the methods for survival for the first month and three months after opening on a weekly basis?
  (Know-how for online and offline promotions. Most of the franchise company representatives my mother met emphasized the importance of survival for the first three months.)
• Based on your experience running a store in Incheon for 40 years, what aspects, other than 'taste', were crucial for survival?
  (Know-how for branding as a personal store. The daily routine most business owners face is a sense of uncertainty even though they are diligently carrying out their assigned tasks. The opportunity to hear from someone who has overcome this and has experience is valuable.)

The answers to these questions, even if you don't start with this particular brand, contain information that can be helpful for building survival conditions and competitiveness as a personal store, as well as for approaching customer management and promotion toward corporatization. Therefore, even if it's a meeting focused on the immediate contract status, you can choose to prepare appropriate questions in advance to actively obtain the information you need.

B. She was worried about the franchise company's final offer to reduce the initial interior design cost by 65 million won.

My mother said she received an answer from the franchise company during the meeting that they would reduce some of the initial interior design cost. My mother was considering accepting the contract because at least some of the cost was reduced. I shared my thoughts with her about the basic attitude toward 'negotiation'.

Imagine a situation where the company proposes a 5% increase in salary for a salary negotiation. Even if you confirm later that the company will ultimately offer a 10% increase after the company starts operating, you need to recognize that this negotiation was being discussed from a biased standard if it is similar to or less than the average salary in the industry.

In other words, if the initial startup cost is more burdensome than expected, you need to confirm that the interior design cost that the required franchise company is talking about is an implicit requirement for them to align with the services they provide internally, i.e., the franchise company's sales criteria. Even if you have sufficient investment funds, you shouldn't just accept it. You should definitely point out that it's an implicit or unilateral requirement and consider whether it's worth it in the long run.

C. She requested a meeting with the owner who sold the store twice in a row at a high premium.

My mother, who was worried about the higher-than-expected initial startup cost, found a rather interesting success story in her conversation with competitors. She heard that an owner who started with this brand had successfully sold their store for several times the premium after just two years, and that the owner then successfully sold their store twice more at a higher premium under the same brand before leaving.

If this story is true, my mother can see a path toward achieving a vision of becoming an entrepreneur, shifting from her previous goal of worrying about survival or high sales in a single store operation.

I recommended that my mother check with the franchise representative to see if she could get the owner's number. My mother immediately called the number, and the owner expressed empathy for the situation but said he was busy and would call back later.

In this regard, I shared the following about the basic approach to making appointments with someone you want to meet.

• Ask for their opinion by specifying the day and time of the appointment.
• When proposing a meeting to someone busy or to someone who you think won't be helpful, make the meeting proposal in such a way that a Yes or No answer is sufficient.
• Prepare specific and good questions.
• Try to go to a place and time that is convenient for the other person.

Even if you organize and propose a meeting this way, there are many reasons why you could be rejected. Moreover, even if you respond to this request and the meeting takes place, whether or not they provide advice that is likely to be concrete depends on the attitude and questions of the requester.

Also, if the other person is preparing for a new store after successfully selling their previous store, I explained to her that it's better to meet at that location. This is because the best result my mother could get from this meeting is not simply the opinion of that successful person. It is the realization that I can also grow my store and grow like this person that is the greatest achievement. This vision of continued growth is the asset of a prospective entrepreneur that my mother can acquire today.

In fact, the points I have summarized are things that are too obvious for those working in a company. However, I have confirmed that my mother has been paying more attention than I expected to the thoughts I shared with her from time to time, so I decided to summarize these points in case they might be helpful to those who are facing similar challenges.

In fact, the thoughts I'm sharing are just one of many opinions from my mother's perspective. However, my mother organizes the opinions she's told and then immediately puts them into practice and verifies them directly. I'm proud of my mother and I'm grateful for her. I just hope that she continues to create a process that she can understand today and tomorrow, just as she has been doing. At least to me, our mother is truly amazing.