Recruiting your Ideal Franchisee

As a franchisor, you’ve seen in your own vision, drive for success and in your company owned operations that success is possible simply by doing the right things in the right order and at the right time, in other words by following the “system” that has enabled you to create the success you have achieved thus far, there should be no reason why others cannot achieve the same level of success or more. After all that’s the reason why you franchised your business in the first place, so others could enjoy in your success.

If you can do it, then why do some franchisees fall short from time to time and some more often than not?  It’s rare for a franchisor to be completely satisfied with the performance of most franchisees. Too often, franchisees implement only portions of the franchisors system, take significantly longer to develop and grow their business and consistently fall short when it comes to financial expectations.

In extreme cases, under-performing franchisees are catalysts to dissatisfaction among other franchisees, which ultimately can undermine efforts to attract new franchisees into the system. It goes without saying under performing franchisees can become a significant problem.

This article presents a brief insight and introduction to some ways you can optimise Franchisee Performance.

Your Franchise Recruitment Process

We all know the importance of franchisee selection. Select a bad apple and you will pay the price for a long time, select a good one and your life becomes slightly easier. So why do we see franchisors still falling short in this area?

Having a solid recruitment process in place is generally a good place to start. Knowing who your ideal franchisee is, what they look like, what their character traits are, what their goals are for the future and how they have operated in the past in their career and or another business is a crucial element. By developing a solid 7-10 step recruitment process, recruitment process becomes a reliable system that will enhance the foundations right from the start. It will help you attract your ideal candidates, allow you to take them through the selection process and lead them into moving forward and you making a decision to grant a franchise to the ones who are a match to your defined selection criteria. Your aim is to get the candidates jumping out of the process and walking away so you are left with the good apples, the ones who see your system as a match for them and the ones who you see are a match for you.

Take some time over the next week to review your current recruitment process. Where are the Gaps? Where could you improve and what could be removed altogether as it just isn’t supporting you. Oh and if you don’t have a solid well defined and documented recruitment process, then take some time to develop one.

The Franchise System

Does Your System Need an Update?

The core of any franchisor‐franchisee relationship is the franchisors system for developing and operating a franchise. Effective franchisors have a consistent, repeatable system for operating a franchise. It is designed to produce franchisee success even if the franchisee knows little about running a business in general or that type of business in particular. This system usually consists of a comprehensive set of specific guidelines for everything operating the business effectively. Your system should comprehensively cover all key areas of the business including but not limited to Administration, Key Operations, Sales and Marketing, HR, IT etc. Don’t forget to look at Support and Training.

The system allows the franchisor to grow by both attracting new franchisees and by enabling each new franchisee to be consistently successful. Thus, the system is the essential foundation of the franchisor‐franchisee relationship.

Franchisee success, is dependent on the quality of the franchisors system, among other things, so it is critical that the franchisor system is complete, easily understood and effective. While all franchisors have a system, as discussed above, its sophistication and comprehensiveness often lags at least a little behind their growth and, in some cases, may be substantially out‐of‐date. Anything less than a comprehensive, realistic and effective system undermines the value of both the training and the system’s discipline.

The best way to develop a great, widely accepted system is to combine the broad knowledge of the franchisor and the top franchisor team members with the knowledge and expertise of the high performing franchisees. Generally the high performing franchisees know how to make the system work. By combining the best of both the franchisor and franchisee perspectives the system will encompass the ‘real’ story of what it takes to develop and manage a successful franchise.

To a new franchisee coming into the “franchise network” or an under performing franchisee, the “system” is a vital element in their success. Any gaps in the system will result in the franchisee instantly blaming the franchisors system for their lack of results.

I see this time and time again and yes although all franchisees should be 100% responsible for their success, what can you do to enhance the “system” that enables them to create a certain level of success?

Training & Support

Providing initial training to new franchisees should be just the beginning of the ongoing training and development you provide your franchisees throughout the term of their franchise agreement.  Training and Ongoing Development and support should be a significant element in your franchise system. There are modern day ways to deliver ongoing training and support so be creative and think outside the square so that your delivery methods allow your franchisees to learn in an environment that supports them and their overall effectiveness, and the delivery methods support you also as a franchisor. Ongoing training and support can include both offline and online programs and delivery methods.

Perhaps now’s the time to review your “system” and see if there are any ways you could make improvements that could optimize your franchisees performance.  Have a look at where your franchisees are possibly falling short, what are their challenges, and how can you support them.

Consider a system enhancement, perhaps the creation of more online training videos or the development of an online group coaching & support program showing how to run the business consistently and more effectively may be beneficial to your franchisees. Whatever it may be it’s always a great idea to carry out a system review every 12 months to ensure your franchisees have every opportunity to maximize their potential. If you need some great tips on how to spruce up your franchise system talk to us today, we’d be happy to help.

Increasing Effectiveness

As human beings not one is the same as the other. Franchisors can often times fall into the trap of expecting every franchisee will run the business as efficiently and as effectively as you would.  Unfortunately it’s far from reality so the best thing you can do as a franchisor is to support your franchisees in becoming more efficient and effective in what they do.  We all know many franchisees are wasting time by focusing on the wrong activities.

To increase overall effectiveness, it’s important for your franchisees to know and understand how to accurately identify where they spend their time. Once they know where their time is being spent it’s easier to identify what areas and activities they can focus on and what areas and activities that really should be delegated to staff.

How To Get Started

1. Do a Brain Dump. Simply write down all tasks, business and personal activities that are done during working hours. This can be done manually or using online software such as Time Doctor or Yast.

2. Separate the tasks under headings daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly.

3. Circle the tsks that are repetitive, tasks that you don’t love or enjoy or is not worth your hourly rate.

4. The items that are circled should be the activities that can now be delegated to staff members.

5. If the process or procedure to carry out the task is not documented then create a system for this so team members can complete the tasks / activities efficiently.

6. Consistent Daily Action is the key to success.

Mindset is Key

Mindset can either make or break your franchisees. It has been proven that a mindset shift will pave the way for more consistent results. Based on this understanding, if we want franchisees to produce better results, we have to go to the foundations and make a change within the mindset of each and every one of our franchisees. We have to change what they are thinking. This will then influence a change in their root beliefs, which will bring about a new sense of confidence and clarity and ultimately better results. Now I know what you are thinking, “I can’t possibly help every franchisee change their mindset.” That’s almost impossible. Here’s a mindset shift right now. Everything is possible if you put your mind to it. Using some simple belief altering techniques, you have the opportunity to help shift your franchisees mindsets quite quickly and effectively. Of course, they are responsible for their success, so ultimately it’s up to them

Have your franchisees define what success means to them.

  1. Encourage your franchisees to set goals regularly. Be sure they are written down and, more importantly, be sure there is an action plan in place so that they can take the necessary actions to achieve these goals. Ninety day cycle action plans are best for building momentum fast
  2. Have your franchisees commit to their success. Most people think they are committed and then contradict themselves by not being willing to do what it takes to reach their goals.
  3. Hold them accountable to being 100 per cent responsible for their success. Put a plan in place for this to ensure it’s achieved.
  4. Encourage them to say positive affirmations on a daily basis such as, “I am a confident and successful business person,” or “Each day in every way I am better and better,” or “Increasing my business comes easily to me,” or “I live each day with passion and purpose.”
  5. Empower your franchisees to adopt an attitude for gratitude. You simply cannot get more of what you want, until you are grateful for what you have.

Growing and Developing your Franchise

Growing a business can be challenging at times and also extremely rewarding, but what can you do as a business owner to help create momentum week by week, month by month and build the business of your dreams?

Whether you are just starting out or you have been going at it for a while, my intent for our time together in this post is to share with you some simple business growth tips that when implemented into your business will help you start to produce some solid results.

Grab a tea or coffee, a notepad and pen and read on. It’s no use reading this article and not doing anything about it, so as you read through the points outlined, I encourage you to think about how it relates to your business and what you can do to get going, moving and taking action so that you can in fact grow and develop your franchise into a top  performing business.

Success starts with planting the Seed and doing the right things in the right order

I would like to share a little story with you. Imagine your business as a freshly planted seed of a tomato plant. You have taken care to plant this seed in fresh, nutrient dense soil, in a place where it gets the right amount of sun and shade.

You’ve got down on your hands and knees and with your finger have poked a hole in the fresh soil where you gently placed the seed. You then covered the seed with more fresh soil and gave it the right amount of water to allow it to grow.

Why did you plant the Seed?

This is the same for your business. Why did you get into your business in the first place? What’s your ultimate vision?

Without knowing your why, it’s almost impossible to produce the consistent and long term results you first set out to achieve. It will also make it near impossible to stay inspired and motivated day in and day out if you don’t know what you are doing and why you are doing it.

Let’s continue with the story….

As you get up from planting the seed you vividly imagine all the delicious tasting tomatoes this plant is going to produce for you and your family as it grows over the following months.  As each day follows you check on your seed to see if it has peeked out of the ground. You can barely contain your excitement because you know how gratifying it will be to successfully grow something of your own.

You check the soil to see if it’s moist enough, you give it water when it gets too dry. A week goes by and still nothing peeks out of the ground.  You ask yourself, “Did I give it too much water? Did I give it enough? Did I plant it in the right place? Maybe it’s just the weather?” You go into the house and look on the internet to see how long it takes for a tomato seed to sprout once it’s planted. You find that it takes about two to three weeks for a leaf to show. You now feel a sense of relief knowing that you are probably on track.

You continue reading and you discover that the average plant will not produce fruit for about two full months. You remember reading about this earlier and now you are very content to have fruit in two months.

You can almost taste and feel exactly what it’s going to be like biting into that perfectly ripened tomato and then you read one last fact that no one ever told you before. The tomato expert writes,

“Some plants won’t produce fruit the very first year depending on the seed. Sometimes you have to care for the seed until it grows then wait till the plant germinates and drops another seed in the ground that will grow the following year.”  You stop and think, “I wish I knew this before I started this whole thing”. You make a mental note to plan better next time before embarking on a farming adventure. As you absorb this information, you feel less excited than you did just one week ago. You hope that all your work will produce fruit this year.

As another week goes by you check on your seed only to find that it’s not a seed anymore, it’s now a tiny little plant with one leaf peeking out of the soil. You feel your excitement return because even if this plant does not produce fruit this year at least you have the satisfaction of knowing you made something real.

You planted a seed and it’s now growing every day.

With your new found excitement that comes from noticing your successes, you begin to ask yourself, “Is there anything that I can do to make this tomato plant grow faster?” Is there anything you can do that will tilt the scale in your favour that would get you fruit this year?

So, you make a wise decision and decide to seek advice from an expert. After a short consultation from the best tomato grower in the business, someone who knows how to get these tomato plants to grow and produce more fruit, you go back home to your tomato plant and follow the instructions to the letter. You tirelessly do everything that’s required and your plant now grows and grows and grows. Two more weeks pass and you are getting so close to when most tomato plants will produce fruit. Will your plant produce fruit this year? You can barely wait, you feel confident because you have done everything right.

The next morning you wake up and to your surprise you notice several tiny tomatoes on your plant. You feel great; you feel immense satisfaction that you will get ripe fruit this season and your efforts will be rewarded.

It’s time to celebrate and like any good tomato grower you also know it’s now time to make even better decisions regarding your plant. Feeling confident and ready you now take all the appropriate action to ensure that you will be biting into a perfectly ripe and fresh tomato in just a few more weeks.

Building and growing your business is just like growing the tomato plant.

It’s important to do the right things in the right order to build higher levels of success. The expert in the story is, in fact, your franchisor and possibly even a business growth consultant like myself.

Support, knowledge and expertise are available to you so ensure you tap into that regularly.

If you just so happen to have a franchisor who isn’t as accessible as you had hoped, then find the support elsewhere. There are so many resources out there to help you grow your business.

It’s up to you to go and make it happen.

The seed has been planted.  How will you nurture and care for it to ensure you produce fruit year in and year out?

Setting goals. creating a new blueprint for Success

As part of a franchise group, you should have a blueprint or plan for business growth to follow, but it shouldn’t stop there. What can you do to take ownership and work that plan? The sentence should now read.  It’s a new year so it’s time to review your goals and plans as you progress forward in your business. Perhaps you are not as close to where you wanted to be, or perhaps you have reached the next stage of success.

Whatever your position is right at this moment, NOW is the time to REVIEW

YOUR PLAN and DESIRED OUTCOMES for the year.

Here’s a quick review of how to successfully set and achieve your goals.

Set goals the Smart way and take consistent action to achieve them

I am sure you have heard this before either from a past article, from my newsletters or even another resource. Your goals should be SMARTA goals. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time Bound or Time Framed and Action.

Here’s the flaw in this.

It’s no use setting goals if you are not going to take the action on a daily basis that will move you closer to achieving them.

How many times have you set a goal only to review them in six or 12 months time and have become overwhelmed or disappointed at how many you just didn’t achieve?  It happens often for many business owners and here’s the reason why:

You have to take the necessary action to achieve your goals. Setting them just isn’t going to do it for you.

With this in mind, start to review your current plan, think about what you want to achieve this year and put a plan of action in place to ensure every day is moving you closer to achieving your desired outcomes and not further away.

You Must Be Committed To Your Success

Make a total commitment to your success.

Once you have made the decision to be in business, be in that business. Get into it with both feet and don’t let anything hold you back. I have found there are two types of people: those who are interested in success and those who are committed.

Those who are simply interested, do what is convenient to them. Those who are truly committed will do whatever it takes to achieve their desired outcomes and the next level of success.  What are you doing every day to ensure the best outcomes for you, your customer, the franchisor, and the franchise network?  Make a commitment right now to start doing whatever it takes to make your business a success.

Start with writing a list of all the things you could do better in your business, or what you could do to go a little bit further for your customer, your staff, with your suppliers, and in other areas of your business. It only takes one or two things that could make a massive difference to your bottom line.

Communication Is The Key To Building A Successful Franchise

Now, of course communication is not the only key to success.  There are many other areas that are equally important but, here’s the thing:  if you cannot communicate effectively with your staff, your franchisor, or with your customers – you will have to work 10 times harder to make things happen.

In a franchise it is vital you maintain communications with your franchisor.

Keeping the communication lines open has major benefits. You also have to know how to communicate and when to initiate communication. As the franchise network grows your franchisor may not be as accessible as they used to be. It is important though to chat to them about it and find out what other methods of communication and support are available. Don’t wait until your business is almost nonexistent and blame the franchisor for not being there.

You as the franchisee should be 100 per cent responsible for your success.

Effective communication can be the difference between someone achieving average revenues and someone doubling and tripling revenues every year. With this in mind it is vital you also communicate effectively with:

  •      your    prospects
  •      your    clients/customers

Without prospects there are no customers. Without customers there is no business

Before your communication begins, you’ve got to know who you will be communicating to and what you will communicate. In other words, what’s your message?  What and how will you say it?

These fundamental elements should be part of your sales and business growth process, a process that every successful business relies so heavily on. As part of your sales process you should put together an ideal client profile and review it regularly to ensure you are maximizing your potential, year in, year out.

Take time now to consider who your ideal client is. Your ideal client profile should include elements such as:

  • how    they     think
  • why    they     buy  (wants versus needs)
  • what   they     want   – ‘hot    buttons’ (remember:  people don’t   buy      what    they need, they buy what they want)
  • who    to         target  –  (decision makers and influencers)

Once you know who your ideal client is and why they buy your type of products and/or services you have to find a way to effectively communicate your message, focusing on the benefits of your product or service and matching the reasons why they buy.

Taking a close look at your ideal client’s decision-making process reveals who you REALLY need to be communicating your message to.

Communication is more important than ever and not just in your initial lead generation or once you have secured a customer. With only four per cent of leads ready to buy right now and therefore 96 per cent not ready, if you don’t have a process in place to nurture your leads you could be wasting your time and your money in your upfront marketing efforts.

Every time you communicate to your prospect it’s vital you stand out of the crowd, grab their attention, create a strong interest and desire for your product and service and, of course, lead them over the finish line. With this in mind, all of your marketing/ communication efforts must follow a strict formula.

You must grab the prospect’s attention, build a strong interest and desire in what you are offering, including the benefits, all which must then be supported with a strong call to action.

Gone are the days where it’s enough to say “we are the best and this is why…..”

It’s all about the prospect now. It has to be about the benefits you will provide to them and what value you will add to them. They are tuning into “What’s in it for me?” and unless you can match your solutions, services and products to what your prospects want, you will have a very hard time growing the business of your dreams.

Maximising your potential in business is not that hard. It just requires commitment, clear communication, daily action and doing the right things in the right order.

Your Beliefs & Thoughts Affect The Results in Your Business and Life

Your Beliefs & Thoughts Affect The Results in Your Business and Life.

They say if you believe you can, you can, and if you believe you can’t then you’re probably also right.

I am sure most of you have heard this before. However, what are you doing to improve and change your beliefs and thoughts in order to bring about different results in your business and your life?

Everything you do in life will create a result. Even if you do nothing you will still get a result. Our beliefs which have been formed over short and long periods of time determine the actions we are taking in our business on a daily basis. These actions be that positive or negative is what is ultimately determining the results we have in our business today.

How happy are you with the results your business is currently producing?

Most of us associate positive thinking and changing daily habits with our personal life and forget to transfer those positive habits, thoughts and daily actions into our business. For some it just seems too hard. These are all excuses. If this sounds like you (someone making a lot of excuses) it’s these excuses that have produced the results that are your current reality.  It’s vital you don’t let your past results dictate your current thoughts though. If you do, your results will repeat themselves.

If you are not currently happy with the results you are getting in your business then perhaps it’s time to consider bringing about change to your daily thoughts, feelings and actions. You are going to have to change the thoughts first in order to change your results. You will be amazed at the difference just this change can bring to your business and your life and you will wonder why you didn’t focus on it sooner.

We have become such busy beings in such a busy society that we tend to be just doing and talking about what we don’t want rather than focusing on what we do want. It takes a lot of discipline to focus purely on what you do want, however I can guarantee you once you do just that you will be happy with the results you start to see.

The average person has 25,000 thoughts every day. Unfortunately they are the same thoughts day after day after day. Have you ever had a day off and found yourself automatically driving to work? It happens and all to often I must say. This is because most of us live a habitual life and you don’t have to put much thought into a habit. So make a commitment to changing your habits. Drive a different way to work. Change some ways you do things at work, and start being aware of your thoughts and feelings. By changing consistently your results will also change.

So here’s my first tip for you in creating better results in your business and also your life.

Focus on what you want, rather than on what you don’t want.

Slow and steady will win the race, so go easy on yourself in the first few weeks or even months, if you find yourself falling back into some old habits. Acknowledge them and move forward, is the best way to deal with them. They say Rome wasn’t built in a day so I encourage you to set yourself daily targets for improvement. These could be on a personal level and also in some areas of your business. No matter what area they are in, it’s the Daily Consistent Improvement that will make a difference to your long term success.  1% improvement every day will produce a 365% improvement over the course of one year. The challenge so many of us face is we do nothing at all and wonder why we are in the same position we were in a year before.

With all this said you have to be willing to change and willing to learn new habits along the way.

I have this quote by Albert Einstein” on the wall in my office as a constant reminder that if I want something to change in my business I must change my level of thinking first.

“All conditions and all circumstances in our lives are a result of a certain level of thinking.

When you want to change the conditions and the circumstances, we have to change the level of thinking that is responsible for it. 

Here’s some ways you can start making a change in your business and life.

The 7 Steps To Achieving What You Want

  1. Change Your Thoughts First In Order To Change Your Results
  1. Know What You Want!   Confucius says, “ man who aims at nothing is sure to hit it!” be sure you know what you wanting to achieve in your life and in your business.  Make sure you write down your goals.
  1. Know Why You Want It.  If the why is strong enough the how will fall into place.
  1. Create A Plan Of Action
  2. It’s important to chart your course of action. By creating a plan of action you will go in the direction of your goals a lot faster.  Make sure you have a time frame for what you want. This will ensure the actions you are taking every day are in fact taking you closer to your goal and not further away from it.
  1. Take Action  You will be surprised at how many people create action plans for their goals and then fail to take the necessary action required to see it come to reality in their life. Take Action, you will be amazed at how much you will achieve.
  1. Monitor and Measure By monitoring where you are at with the attainment of your course you will be able to adjust your course of action where necessary. By not knowing where you are going it’s very difficult to make a change if and when it’s needed.

A friend of mine says: “Sleeping is for dreaming , being awake is for living your dreams”

I encourage you to start focusing on changing your thoughts, taking the necessary action and living your dreams today!