Being a multi-brand business owner takes a lot of work. Metro Detroit-based Arab American entrepreneur Nora Farhat franchises with finesse.

Farhat started her career working at an automotive supplies company while earning her bachelor’s degree in technical and professional communications from the University of Michigan. She has since accumulated multiple franchises, created personal brands and started her own podcast. 

“I had a lot of success in my corporate career, but I think I always knew that I had a hustle and a desire to want to do more,” Farhat said. 

Farhat, a mother of three, opened her first franchise — British Swim School — in 2015 after seeing a need in the community looking for quality swim lessons in Detroit.

“My kids needed swim lessons, and I looked around in our community and I didn’t see any really good, strong programs,” she said. 

She said she loves franchising because it allows her to use her organizational strengths and work ethic to bring services to the community through already successful models.

“I love the idea of taking a model or a concept that’s already proven successful and being able to execute it in a way that makes sense,” Farhat said. “I’m an operator. That is what I do. So for me, it (becoming a business owner) was really about finding a brand or a company that I already loved or I thought that there was a need for it in a community, and being able to expand from it.” 

Farhat started her second franchise in 2019 to cut down her and her children’s drive to the closest Mathnasium in Birmingham.

“I just thought, ‘What a phenomenal program.’ My kids had really excelled in it,” she said. “Then I thought, ‘that’s missing in my community.’ It (entrepreneurship) is that idea of being able to bring something to the community that really adds value and that we really believe in. Knowing that Mathnasium was a strong program and that it wasn’t available is what allowed us to open a Mathnasium in Dearborn.”

As Farhat’s swim school expanded, she noticed a lack of pool maintenance companies in the area. In 2022, she opened a Pool Scouts franchise to fill that need.

Farhat had a busy 2022, as she filled another service gap by opening a Wonderly Lights franchise.

“I really wanted to decorate my house for Christmas with lights, and my husband wouldn’t do it,” she said. “I thought, ‘there must be a company that does this.’ Then we became that company… We pride ourselves on being our own customers and only providing services that we ourselves would use.” 

“I thought, ‘there must be a company that does this.’ Then we became that company.” —Nora Farhat.

Through time and investments, Farhat achieved her latest franchise, Real Property Management Synergy. She also does business consulting through her company, Emaar Group.

“Every story, every business has its own journey,” she said. “But they all came down to the same thing: there was a need. We saw a shortage of it in the market, and we really believe in a high level of quality and premium services and were able to expand based on that. I love business. I love the entrepreneurship world. I love the hustle of it all.”

Most of Farhat’s businesses are based in Metro Detroit. She said working close to home makes her businesses better and that she is able to cater to different needs in different locations, such as female-only British Swim School classes in the Dearborn location.

“There is real power in understanding communities that you come from and operate in,” she said. “It’s always easier to run a business when you’re closer to home, and there are places that we are able to check in on and are able to support better. We’re able to be around and I think it also comes with a real clear understanding.”

Outside of maintaining multiple businesses, Farhat hosts her podcast that turns misconceptions of entrepreneurship upside down. 

“When I went into business, I had the same expectations that I think everybody else has: I get to work for myself, I get to be my own boss, it’s about flexibility, making money,” she said. “All those things were on the forefront, but then you actually get into entrepreneurship. You’re like, whoa I’m working 100 hours (a week.) I used to have a job that had 40 hours… There’s such a misconception of what it actually takes to become successful in business, and the hustle, the grind, the grit that it actually takes.”

She said she started her  Upside Down Entrepreneurship podcast to share her experience and what she wished she knew when she started.

“There’s so much of the experience that people don’t talk about,” she said. “The more we learn, understand and know, we also have the responsibility to help pull people up.”

Her biggest advice for people is to take the next step even when the full staircase isn’t visible.

“There have been a lot of times in my business ownership and expansion where I couldn’t have told you that we were going to grow to so many locations or have so many vans on the road,” she said. “But I knew what my next step was, and every step took me to that bigger vision.”

Farhat advised people to stick with it, as entrepreneurship requires a lot of time and effort before it pays off.

“It (business ownership) is similar to hitting the gym,” she said. “You don’t see it (gains) right away, but if you’re consistent, you will see it down the line. The hustle and grind that it actually takes versus your perception of what it will take are not the same… it’s not just setting a goal, it’s also ‘[what] does it take for me to actually get there?’ It’s working really hard, but not seeing any results. It’s being able to be consistent, but not being able to quickly turn the monetary side of it. People say, ‘I go into business for myself for flexibility and time’, but that doesn’t come for years later.”

Farhat encouraged fellow Arab Americans to open their own businesses. She said franchising is a great way to get started.

“I think that Arab Americans naturally are driven to be business owners,” she said. “I don’t know what it is, but there’s always a natural desire or hustle already existing in the community, and I think that’s a very strong strength. But (to have success,) desire isn’t enough. It has to come with desire and hard work… You have to go out of your comfort zone. You have to be willing to work a little bit harder than somebody else and be able to hustle and grind while not seeing results right away. It is such a difficult thing, but that’s the difference.

She also said there’s no such thing as having too much information when it comes to running a business and recommended people start their entrepreneurship journeys by learning more about business, whether it be by watching YouTube videos, studying it in college, working at businesses they are interested in or listening to podcasts like hers.

Farhat said working for hours on end and maintaining a family isn’t a balancing act, but a juggling one.

“I don’t believe in balance,” she said. “My personal life and work life interlock. I work from home, and I bring my kids to work. I never see myself as having to go to work or not being able to pick up my kids from an activity as negative; I see it as I am showing my kids what hard work looks like and that at times some sacrifices come with that. I want my kids to be strong, independent, confident adults, and part of that journey is to show them what that looks like. I think it’s important to represent what we want to see represented. Being a business owner allows me to do this.”

Farhat pointed out that business comes with a lot of struggle, hard work and big decisions.

“But consistency, repetition and being able to show up every day and work through those things is so rewarding,” she said. “I feel like really good business ownership is almost like a social responsibility of bringing something at a high quality with great value. I think that’s important for us to do, so it gives me a lot of personal fulfillment.”

For more information on Farhat, how to support her businesses and what it takes to start a business, visit her website www.upsidedownentrepreneurship.com.