Source: Wealth Creator Magazine March/April

Franchisee welfare must be your prority. If your service is good, it’s not hard to keep customers. The hard part is keeping good franchisees.

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Franchising Your Business

Source: Wealth Creator Magazine March/April

Franchising your business.

Rarely does a week go by without someone coming to me with a great idea for a franchised business. In fact, most people have very little idea of what franchising is all about, what it takes, the pluses and the minuses.

Here are some handy hints from someone who has not only launched a successful franchise, but helped hundreds of people to become franchisors.

1. It’s about people, not ideas

Rarely does a week go by without someone approaching me with a brilliant idea that will make tons of money if only I will invest/buy it from them. Usually they want me to sign a non-disclosure statement that I won’t ‘steal’ the idea and use it myself. I have to tell them that, sadly, ideas are cheap. Much rarer is the person with the drive and passion to make the business work. Not everyone is a potential franchisor.

2. Is it teachable?

One of the main things we look for in a franchise is a system that can be taught to anyone with the right attitude. It’s hard enough to find people with the integrity and self-discipline to be a franchisee. Harder still if they also have to be a qualified plumber or electrician. And, converting people from independent business owner to become successful Franchisee, is almost impossible. ‘Recruit the attitude, teach the skills’ is my philosophy.

3. Know your business

Many years go I was approached by executives of a large soft drink company about franchising their delivery system. Their drivers had none of the enterprise and initiative of our people, and they wanted to know how we recruited and kept franchisees motivated. In response I asked them, what was their personal experience of delivering soft drinks? And, they answered ‘None at all’. It was obvious that they were managers, not delivery men.

I mowed lawns for many years and made excellent money from it. As a result of this hands on experience, I can quickly see the reason when other people flounder. All of our successful franchisors are the same – they have all worked in the business. You can’t teach what you don’t know.

4. Maintain the system, but be open to change

The essence of franchising is setting up a detailed system, teaching it, and making sure people follow it. However, that’s much more difficult in the service industry than in retail, as the systems rely heavily on personal implementation – an aspect that is difficult to monitor without physically watching people. Our customer service standards rely on fee-based incentives to ensure the systems are maintained and complaints are carefully monitored.

It’s important to be open to better ways of doing things. The biggest change in my business in the past year came from studying our most successful franchisors. Those with fastest growth regularly phoned their franchisees, instead of waiting for them to call. We then changed our system to get everyone to do just that.

5. Franchisees first

This principle is the most important. As a franchisor, franchisee welfare must be your absolute priority. If your service is good, it’s not hard to find and keep customers. The hard part is finding and keeping good franchisees. It’s the subject on which I spend a large majority of my time.

We give our franchisees extraordinary rights, such as the ability to grow their businesses without limit, or even to vote out their franchisors if they’re not happy with the service. However, the key is that you, and your staff and Master Franchisees, genuinely care about your franchisees’ interests. Good franchisees aren’t stupid, and they’ll quickly work out if your real aim is to assist them to make money.

Do this, and keep a steady eye on the bottom line, and almost any franchise can succeed.

Written by:

Starting Jim’s in 1982 with a single lawnmower, Jim Penman has fostered the growth of Jim’s Group to encompass over 2,600 home and professional services franchisees worldwide, built on the philosophy of continually improving service levels.

www.jims.net