I lost count of how many times I heard some version of the same sentence at the Franchise and Small Business Expo in Auckland last month: "I've thought about this for years, but I'm not sure I'm a business person." Teachers said it. People who'd run their own households and committees for years said it. People who'd managed teams inside someone else's business for a decade said it, and still didn't think it counted.
Here's what I think every time I hear that sentence: it's usually the first sign someone is exactly the right person. The ones who worry about whether they're "a business person" are almost always the ones who'll take the job seriously once they're in it. The ones who never ask the question are the ones I'd worry about.
So let's deal with the real question properly. Not "am I a business person," but why not you?
There's no single mould for this
I run a franchise network with three Hub owners, and not one of them arrived with the same background. Narelle spent three years on the ground in Te Awamutu as an administrator, a junior assessor and a tutor before she bought the Hub from me outright. Anna has a PhD in Mathematics and over twenty years as a researcher and educator before she opened our Far North Hub. Jo spent eighteen years as a classroom teacher and Head of English before she opened Hawke's Bay, our first Hub in the central North Island.
A researcher, a teacher, and someone who worked her way up from the floor. None of them had run a business before Impact. All three are now running Hubs that genuinely work, because the thing that actually matters isn't a business degree. It's caring enough about the outcome to learn the parts you don't know yet, and having the discipline to show up for it on the days it's hard.
If you're sitting there wondering whether you have "the business gene," I'd ask a different question instead: have you ever committed to something hard, finished it, and been glad you did? That's the actual qualification. The bookkeeping, the marketing, the systems: we teach you those.
You don't need to bet the house to find out
Here's where I get opinionated, because this is the part I think a lot of franchising gets wrong. What stops good people from backing themselves usually isn't a lack of belief. It's the size of the bet. If owning a business means signing a lease, fitting out a room and buying a bank of computers before a single student has walked through the door, of course the fear feels enormous. You're not just betting on yourself. You're betting the rent.
An Impact Tutoring Hub doesn't ask that of you. You can start in a hired hall, a church room or a community centre, and move to leased premises later, once your student numbers actually justify it. Entry is $29,000 plus GST, covering training, our systems and our IP (the assessment tools, the teaching resources, the brand families already trust), with a 5% royalty paid quarterly after that, and flexible payment options if you need to hold your territory while you get ready. That's not a small risk made smaller. It's a different kind of risk entirely: one where you can find out whether you're capable of this before you've bet everything on finding out.
Courage isn't the absence of fear. It's doing the thing anyway, in a way that's survivable if your first year is harder than you hoped. We built the model so the courage required is the kind most people can actually afford.
I backed myself before anyone could prove I was right
Twelve years ago I didn't have a franchise plan, a business degree or a single employee. I had one idea: that kids shouldn't feel like their maths grade was a verdict on who they were. I started as one tutor in Te Awamutu, and I backed that idea long before I had any evidence it would turn into a network.
I call our franchise owners torchbearers, and I mean it in both directions. They carry the "because you count" belief into their own towns, and every one of them had to decide, at some point, that the fire was worth carrying before anyone handed them proof it would work. That's what leadership actually looks like at the start. Not certainty. A decision to go first.
If this is sitting with you
If any part of this is landing the way it landed with the people I kept meeting at the Expo, don't talk yourself out of it before you've looked properly. Have a look at our franchise page to see how the Hub model actually works, request the information pack for the real detail on costs and territories, or take two minutes on the readiness quiz if you just want an honest read on whether this fits you.
Why not you? I'm yet to meet a good reason.
Jean McKenzie
Founder / Franchisor, Impact Tutoring