Following instructions doesn’t come easily to everyone. Perhaps that’s the fault of those cavalrymen in The Light Brigade whose blind faith in obeying instructions resulted in their annihilation by the cannon to the left of them and the cannon to the right of them.

If it hadn’t been for the military drumming it into them that it was “theirs not to reason why”, those poor cavalrymen might still be alive today - albeit with an average age of 187.

And nobody got very far by following Michelangelo’s reputed guide to doing sculpture: “Start with a block of marble and chip off the bits you don’t need.”

But a willingness to follow a plan is vitally important in the world of business today - the biggest problem being that most businesses don’t come with an instruction book.

It’s a minefield out there, and your commercial rivals, acutely aware that you’re after a piece of the pie they wanted all to themselves, will be more than happy to watch you pick your way through the danger-zone to see how you get on. 

Every misstep you take will gladden their hearts, and you could find yourself out of business and seriously out of pocket before you can say “schadenfreude”.

Setting up a business can be a nightmare, with a learning curve so steep it would scare the pants off the bravest rollercoaster rider at Alton Towers.

You’ll have to devote a chunk of your life and a wodge of your cash to sorting premises, hardware and software, regulatory compliance, learning skills, keeping accounts, sourcing your products or delivering your service, securing investment, building your brand and website, recruiting staff, and creating your marketing materials.

And you could open your doors only to discover that no-one’s heard of your business, so they’ll avoid putting any work your way until you’ve become established.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Buying a franchise instead means having access to a reedy made business-in-a-box - a proven formula that demonstrably works, a bandwagon you’ll be positively welcome to jump aboard.

Instead of spending months making rookie mistakes and going down expensive blind alleys, you can stand instead on giant’s shoulders and benefit immediately from all the experience the franchisor has gained over many years of building the business and refining its processes - nine years in our case at EweMove. 

Everything you need to know and do has been thought of already, and all you need - apart from a strong work ethic - is to follow the plan.

Mind you, there will always be those who take a pick-and-mix approach to their franchise, following the parts of the plan they like and ignoring those they don’t, and they’re the ones who won’t make a success of it.

As a friend finally confided after much wheedling from me, there’s an acronym they use in IT when the person sitting there fails to operate their laptop properly, despite being given clear instructions. 

It’s “PICNIC”, and it stands for “Problem In Chair, Not In Computer.”  

Yes, it was me in the “chair” on that occasion, but it’s a great reminder to us all to use the skills of those around us to shortcut our route to success.

That’s what our franchisees do when consulting with our network of more than 170 franchised businesses, all of whom follow the same plan.