Everybody who starts a business is in it for the money, James said. But if they find a franchise that fits them, they probably will make more — and be happier.

Which is not to say that buying a franchise automatically means a business owner will be successful. After helping 15 or 20 people buy franchises during three years with FranNet, James said it is clear that not everyone was meant to run a business.

"A franchise is a halfway house between being an employee and being a full-fledged pioneer entrepreneur," he said.

"It also falls halfway in the continuum, in terms of the personality that it fits, between the rogue entrepreneur who will take no rules from anybody . . . and the employee mentality of wanting total safety and a week-by-week paycheck."

Escaping corporations

Rick Huggins of Orem started a FiltaFry franchise about four months ago. A college graduate with an MBA, Huggins said he worked for about 20 years in the corporate world.

"I have a pretty broad corporate background, but over time, I made the decision that being in the corporate world really wasn't for me, even though I made great money," Huggins said. " I felt like I wasn't spending enough time with my family and wasn't getting the level of satisfaction I wanted from my work."

With the support of his wife, who has increased her hours working as a nurse, Huggins purchased a franchise of FiltaFry, which provides mobile, on-site maintenance of deep fryers in restaurants and commercial kitchens.

But it wasn't the allure of deep fryers that convinced him to buy the franchise. Huggins said he was impressed by its relatively low up-front costs and the fact that he could work from home.

"The business is kind of self-contained in a van, so I drive my equipment from restaurant to restaurant, and I just have an office in my house," he said, adding that he has about 15 clients and is adding a couple per week.

"I've grown up in the corporate world, and I've had a lot of support around me," Huggins said. "I've been able to rely on (human resources) people and trainers to be able to off-load some of the things I would have had to do on my own. What I liked about the idea of a franchise was they had a system already in place that I could run with, and . . . there's a support system there."

Finding success

That support system also was attractive to Richard Perreault, who owns the Metal Supermarkets franchise in Salt Lake City.