Just because you’ve spent money to buy a franchise doesn’t mean it will be a guaranteed success. You still need to work hard at making sure that you’re building the perfect franchise.
By Craig Falck for Africa Report
Photograph: © Sam74100 | Dreamstime.com
Your money’s been invested in a franchise and a lot of the hard work has been taken care of for you. You don’t need to worry about designing a store, you don’t need to worry about designing your uniforms, you don’t need to worry about training your staff, and you definitely don’t need to worry about developing your products and services… you’ve bought all of those.
What you do need to worry about is becoming the best franchise branch that you can. You can make sure that you’re on the right road to this by making sure that you’re still in control of what goes on in your franchise. Even if you’re not the manager, you need to be at the branch at all times to make sure that your employees are conducting themselves in line with the franchise’s values and mission statement. If you see anything that you don’t like or that deviates from the franchise’s core beliefs, you need to step in immediately and explain what is wrong, why it is wrong and provide a solution. And the earlier, the better – you don’t want head office hearing that your franchise isn’t living up to their expectations.
Another way of building the perfect franchise is to make sure that your staff know their roles, the company’s philosophies and are properly trained. While you aren’t expected to train your staff, you are expected to know that they are properly trained and can deal with any problem that may arise during a business transaction. The easiest way to do this is to watch them, work with them, and speak to them… find out if there’s anything they don’t understand or if they need more training. Rather have staff that have too much training than not enough.
Good franchisees must be able to adapt to changing circumstances and be able to find a solution to problems. If a piece of equipment breaks down, immediately phone the franchisor and find out if a replacement can be sent out as quickly as possible or if you can call a repairman. What you don’t want, and what is happening increasingly the days, is to have to say “sorry, but our machine is broken” to customers. They will quickly go to another branch and become loyal customers to them.
Buying a franchise is easy; building it into the perfect franchise is difficult. As long as you live your brand and know how to protect it, you will be well on your way to perfection.
