The 4 Real Paths to Replace Your Corporate Income

Most corporate escapees think they only have two options: find another job or figure out how to start a business from scratch. But there are actually four legitimate paths to replacing your corporate income — and one of them is seriously underrated.

In this solo episode, Brett breaks down all four paths and then goes deep on the one he doesn't talk about nearly enough: franchising.

If you've been thinking about leaving corporate but the blank page feels too risky, this episode is for you.

The 4 Paths:

🔹 Path 1 — Go Solo: Consulting, fractional, advisory, coaching, content. Monetize what you already know. Lowest barrier to entry, no investment required, and you can start while still in corporate. Brett's lane — and the focus of most of this podcast.

🔹 Path 2 — Start a Business: Build something from scratch. A passion, an idea, an agency. Full ownership but requires capital, time, and infrastructure. Often the natural evolution of going solo.

🔹 Path 3 — Buy a Business: Acquire an existing operation with revenue already in place. Faster path to cash flow but requires serious due diligence, capital, and comfort with complexity.

🔹 Path 4 — Buy a Franchise: Get into a proven system with a built-in playbook, training, support, and brand. A business in a box — and the focus of today's episode.

Why Franchising Makes Sense for Corporate Escapees:

Most people picture Subway or McDonald's. That's not the conversation. There are thousands of franchise concepts across senior care, home services, B2B services, fitness, wellness, and more — and many of them map directly to the skills you built in corporate.

What you're actually buying is a proven playbook: operating systems, customer acquisition, marketing support, training, and a network of franchisees who've already solved the problems you'll face.

Brett covers:

1. Why franchising is a business model, not an industry
2. The real pros: faster path to revenue, built-in support, proven model, equity building, franchisee community
3. The real cons: upfront investment, royalty fees, operating within someone else's system
4. Why your corporate skills — P&L, leadership, process thinking, client relationships — transfer directly
5. The ownership reframe: a job pays you, it doesn't build an asset
6. How platforms like Franzy and coaches like Entrepreneurial Source can help you research and find the right fit
7. Key questions to ask yourself before going down this path

Connect with Brett & The Corporate Escapee:

🌐 TheEscapeeCollective.com

If this episode opened your eyes to a path you hadn't seriously considered — share it with someone still sitting in a corporate job wondering what their options are. That's exactly who this is for.

And if you've made it this far — please subscribe. It helps more escapees find the show.

Live Life First. 🐬✌️

Welcome back to the Corporate Escapee podcast. I'm your host Brett Trainer. And today I'm going solo again. And what I want to talk today about is specific options and paths right to replace your corporate income if you do leave corporate and when corporate quits on you and longtime listeners or people that follow my content know I talk a lot about going solo right how to monetize what you've been doing in corporate for 10, 20, 30, 40 years.

and making money and helping smaller businesses, nonprofits, startups, et cetera. I still think that's the path of least friction. You can do this while you're still in corporate. And you can build a really nice business with not a lot of time. But I also understand now after being out of corporate for six years and working with hundreds, if not 1,000 different escapees at this point,

even though it's not as risky as it feels or there's not a there is a definite sense and a lack of confidence from an operating standpoint. And what I want to do today is outline four paths, the four real paths I see to replacing your corporate income, but I want to drill into one that I really don't spend a lot of time with, but maybe a really good path for folks that

just want a business in the box and that's franchising. first I want to talk about the four different mainstream paths which could give you 30 different options of how to make money but four macro paths if you will. The first one is going solo. I talked about this and I talked about this a lot. It's the consulting, the fractional you've heard of, advisory, content.

monetize what you already know. If there's a low barrier to entry, you don't have to make any investments in it other than your time. Maybe a website, maybe you start an LLC, but you don't need to do any of that to get started. It's really about having the conversations as you're solving problems. And there's a cost to solve those problems with those folks. Now the one the other side, want to say that I don't see there's a downside to it.

but it's good to good and bad, you own everything, right? You're responsible for every aspect of the business. And that may be duty, especially if you've done nothing but corporate, right? Working, owning your schedule is one thing, but then also being able to invoice and start up an LLC. And again, I think all things you can easily overcome, but some folks just want to do that. So.

Today, like I said, I'm going outline two other, three other paths, but then I want to focus in on the franchising. The second path is start a business, right? Just start something from scratch. You've got an idea. Maybe it has something to do with your experience. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe it's a passion that you have, but you want to build a real business. Maybe it's opening a restaurant. Maybe it's an agency of some sorts. It's absolutely a path. It's probably going to take some capital to get started.

you're going to have to put some infrastructure in place versus just starting to solve problems for business owners. So start a business is one at some point we'll probably bring somebody in to help talk about that. But I think honestly, if you go solo, starting the business is kind of the evolution of that, right? You can do start a business with low risk by starting a solo business.

And then as it grows, if you want to bring additional folks or expand to some other areas, like I I've had people on the podcast that started out as solo consultants, realized they didn't have certain tools that they needed and ended up starting a software company because they built what they needed. And then the software became their core business. So I think to me, starting a business is an evolution. It's going to take more time. The quicker path with a business is to buy a business.

and it is easier than ever to find and buy a business. But one of the downsides with buying that business is one you really have to be able to do the due diligence to understand what you're buying. If it's a smaller business, the files may not be as clean the financials, if they're selling it, hopefully the financials are clean, but it's a

Little bit more risk there, but then also you need capital. You're going to have to buy it. Sure. There's ways you can use SBA loans and or seller financing to help go through it, but it's a little bit more of a complicated path to get there. Absolutely a reasonable one. A lot of escapees do go down that path, but I'm talking about how do I help you get started and find that path out of corporate quickly? That one may be, I don't know for me at least it's personal would be the

the option number three. The fourth one is is to buy into a franchise. And to me, this is super interesting because it's a business in a box. And depending on the franchise or that is who is the one that are offering the franchise. Now let me get let me take a step back and kind of talk about basically what a franchise is going to give you is going to give you the operating model because they've had success, they built processes.

They have, you know, operations, like I said, the operations, they know how to attract new customers, they can teach you they're there for support from the sales and marketing perspective. So you don't have to do this alone. So but let me let me take a deep step back next, I think it's important that when you're looking at a franchise, it's more of a business model, not an industry, right? I think most of us think, or at least I did until I had Alex from

franzie on the podcast not too long ago, was thinking like the Subway McDonald's stereotype, right? That those are the only ones you have to buy five or six Subways in order to make money. But that's just not the facts, right? There's, think, thousands, according to Alex, different concepts, right? Because you're thinking about from a business model, could be insurance adjusters, insurance brokers.

to just about anything that's got a service or a business to it, they're there. And essentially what you're buying is a proven playbook, right? Especially if it's an established company with good operators, that's where they're making their money is right there. They're selling you the playbook, the systems, the training, the brand support, the network. So it essentially is a business in a box that you can start operating. So.

you know, some other areas to think about potentially that come to mind are like senior care, home services, there's B2B services, fitness, wellness, right? Just about anything there is a option for you. And again, what opened my eyes to that was when Alex was on talking about, because basically what franzy is, if you missed that episode, he's creating the Zillow for franchises. He wants to make it easy. He wants to take friction out of the process for folks like you.

and I that are potentially looking at franchises a path to take that friction out, right? And make sure that right, they will take the friction and take a lot of the risk out by basically understanding for you, right? What, what you get, what you don't get, how long has this been established, these types of things. So there's a much better way now for franchises than it used to be.

And I think from an escapee skill set, this makes sense because you may or may not have, a run a business before. Maybe you have, maybe you've done something part time, maybe you a paper out when you were a kid, but this is going to be a new concept and having somebody that's already built a lot of the processes for you and can provide, you know, support.

and insights is a big deal, right? Think about that from a P &L, the profit and loss management, team leadership process thinking, right? You may have had some of that in corporate, you may not have, but this is just an area where they will provide that support that you don't have to do this on your own. Yeah, there's a fee for it, you're gonna pay a percentage of your sales in order for that support, but it gets you out of the box a lot.

quicker. So if you think about some of the pros to starting a franchise, again, this is my opinion. Others may vary, but just again, thinking about this through the lens of an escapee, you've got right a faster path to revenue than if you're starting from your own on your own, right? Built in support, you've got the franchise or that's there to make sure that you're successful because they want to sell

more franchises. So they have some investment, they've got some skin in the game to make sure that it works. Proven model reduces reduces the risk. Does it eliminate it? Absolutely not. But it absolutely does reduce the risk. You're building equity, right? It's one of the things I learned from Alex in that conversation is sometimes when you look to sell that franchise. So if you're the owner of the franchise, it's going to actually sell higher than some small businesses because people understand

the model has been proven already, so there's more value in it. So you are building equity within that. And another piece that I'm a big fan of is you got the community aspect, right, of other franchisees who have been there probably ahead of you in this process. You can learn from them. And again, I find at least my understanding is they're super supportive, right? Because you're not competing against the other franchises. You all are.

in the same boat trying to make money using this the same business model. So you've got some built in support as you're starting this this process. Obviously, some of the cons or maybe not obviously some of the cons are right, there's an upfront investment required, you're going to have to pay for it. You are operating within someone else's system, right? So you can't just start doing everything you want on your own, you do need to follow the operating model. I think that's something to think about, right? Because if you

want to work for yourself 100 % right and don't want to answer to anybody, then this may not be the right path for you. But like I said, if you're looking to operate a business that's got some guardrails already set up for you, have already got some processes, could be an interesting could be interesting path, right? The other another con is you get royalty fees. This is where you pay most of the time. It's I don't know, maybe 6 % is is what I recall.

seeing again for that's for marketing support and other support. The quality of the franchise or various right I think that's one of the things Franzi is doing and by the way I'm not a partner with Franzi but if they're listening I'd love to to chat with you since I talked about you guys all the time so but I begin that's where something like Franzi is going to do the research at least at a high level but it's important for you also to talk to other franchise or franchisees.

to see what the franchise order is selling is actually what they're seeing. And it still requires real work. This isn't passive income, but any of the four paths I gave you still requires work. And what I've seen from escapees is you guys are still willing to work. That's not the issue. You just want to do it on your own terms and control your own destiny. Like I said, I think this is a path that allows you to do that. So.

So if you think about it from the of the ownership aspect of it, right? A job pays you and you don't build any equity, right? There's no, there's no pensions any longer. So whatever you're putting into your corporate job, you're not getting anything out. When you get laid off or let go, that's it, right? Maybe you got some stock options, they'll let vest or then you can roll over your 401k, but you don't own anything in that business. Franchise does give you ownership.

right? And it does reward you for putting in the effort if you put in the minimum effort required, that's what you're going to get out. But if you really work hard and want to own this thing, right, you own that future of that business. And as I talked about before, there is equity in there, right? And we think about, you know, corporate right now is your one customer, you're maxed out with with what you're doing. But this one, you can actually grow the business. And like I said, you own the equity in it. So

So I think the first one, obviously, and I talk all the time is educate yourself, knowledge is power in this thing. If it's interesting, you go check out the entrepreneurial source, right? I talked to them early on about franchise and they have free coaching, right? They'll help you think through, right? What makes sense for you after corporate franzie. I've talked about a number of times in this podcast, go look at their research, sign up for their meeting. If it's something you think is of interest to you.

I think some of the key questions you just need to ask yourself, right? Because I go back to solo as, you know, fractional or consulting, right? There is no investment that you have to make. You also have to think about how active you want to be in a business, right? Most of these, you know, some of these franchises will sell it as semi absentee, meaning you don't have to be in there running all the time, you have a manager, you can get it to come in and run the business.

Is that something that's of interest to you or do you want to do this something that you're going to go in and do every day right day in the day out and I think also you need to think through industries and more importantly, what are the interests that that that you want to stay focused on right because again, I think the transition out of corporate makes sense monetizing what you already know I'm guessing if you've been in a job for 20 years you like that path

you kind of like what you're doing, you just may not like doing it for the so I think it's important to especially if you're making an investment into franchise, make sure this is something you want to do for probably a minimum of five years, but maybe 10 years, 15 years. And you can also look at this potentially depending on again, how active you have to be in the business as you know, one, excuse me, one aspect of your portfolio, just one of the ways that you can make money. So

Anyway, this has been top of mind for me for a couple of weeks as I kind of gap, right? I should be educating more folks or escapees that this is a realistic pathway coming out of it. And it makes sense, right? They excited to go back to the guardrails and it puts around. It teaches you how to operate a business when you have no operations experience.

Again, I'll also reiterate the fact is, if you had a successful corporate career, you really do have all the tools that you need to run a solo business. And you are smart enough to absolutely do this. This is just, hey, if you're looking for a bit of a shortcut, and you don't want to have to develop everything yourself, I would take it I would take a look at these things. So anyway, thank you for listening. Again, this was called a power episode.

But I do think, you know, as I catch more and more folks thinking about corporate or exiting corporate, especially if you've been laid off, throw this into your research. Again, I'll tell you knowledge is power, but there's definitely a pathway out of there. So I appreciate everybody listening. And if you've made it this far, please do subscribe to the podcast. The old methodologies in the podcast world, and it's fortunately still work. They,

reward for subscriptions, right? So subscribe to the podcast you get, you get new episodes downloaded for you, but I get the benefit of anything. Anyway, if you're still in corporate, like I say on Tik Tok, good luck. Thank you for listening and we'll catch you on the next episode.