Navigating Growth While Nurturing Franchisees

For most franchises, being able to grow into new markets while their franchisees show continued profit are the hallmarks of success.

But rapid growth can sometimes be tricky to navigate. Growth in sales, demand and franchise owners can put a strain on that company’s infrastructure and its people. Too often, businesses don’t have a scaling process in place, and, even if they do, don’t have the expertise on staff to navigate this growth.

So, while your leadership team is working on ways to better navigate the growth the company experiences across your network, your franchise operations team needs to ensure your franchisees are on the same page.

Developing a plan that allows your franchise owners to champion your brand during the period of growth helps provides them with a sense of ownership and builds their commitment to the company.

Planning for the Future 

When a business is growing, it’s easy to believe that your success is guaranteed . After all, you’ve put in a lot of sweat equity to get to this point, so what could go wrong?

If you haven’t invested in your franchise owners, you could sabotage this growth. Business leaders are often hesitant to set aside funding or time for training for a problem they don’t yet have. However, once a growth spurt begins in earnest, it’s even more difficult to find the time to address the problems that this expansion brings about.

You can start by developing franchise owner enhancement programs as part of your on-boarding process. If you go into business knowing the value of your franchise owners and their employees, you will retain this mindset once you begin navigating the pitfalls of expansion.

Empowering Your Team 

It’s no secret to good managers that happy and confident franchisees equal a boost in franchise growth.

But, if your franchisees are not happy or they cannot make their own teams feel valued during times of stress, they could face mass resignations before reaching their franchise location potential. At least one study shows that 66% of employees would quit their position if they felt undervalued or unappreciated.

So what are some ways you can show them you value their hard work?

1. Align strategic goals with owner goals:  It is critical to align growth initiatives with the owners early in the process. Include owners or a committee in your strategic business planning process by getting their input and ideas early and often. Leverage owners and additional committees to pilot and implement the growth initiative creating owner led support, engagement and most importantly productive owner feedback loop for continual improvement. The owner’s ability to “feel” heard and have active input is essential for new grow initiatives.
2. Create a supportive environment: Provide your franchisees with a way to air their grievances and be empathetic to their concerns. Keeping open lines of communication during growth is important in helping franchise owners navigate expansion.
3. Provide guidance to help franchisees recruit and retain staff: Skill shortages affect many industries, and retention rates are low. And while the franchisor is better able to leverage things like purchasing discounts for job placement technologies and platforms, they cannot be involved in the hiring, firing, and management of employees. Because the employees at the franchise unit level are the employees of the franchise owner and not the franchisor, the franchisor can only provide partner guidance.
4. Recognize and reward efforts: Congratulate your franchise owners on their accomplishments. Sending out periodic emails to let the entire franchise family know when a franchise owner has gone above and beyond is one way to reward their efforts. You should also consider an annual conference to provide training and an awards ceremony.
5. Provide development opportunities: Whether it’s a clear path for advancement or training programs, employees say they feel valued when their company recognizes their contributions and rewards them with pay raises, promotions or training. Providing your franchisees with on-going training programs for themselves and their employees can help them weather challenges and retain their best workers.

Investing in Leadership Experts 

While most business leaders welcome expansion, the fact is that when a business starts to grow rapidly, it can become vulnerable to failure if systems aren’t in place to help it overcome stress.

One of the biggest reasons sudden success can cause a business to falter is that the ownership and critical managers lack the experience and knowledge of how to scale the process effectively.

Too often, a business doesn’t recognize they need help until it’s too late.  Or they may correctly identify the need but hire the wrong person to lead the process.

If you think back, when you first started your company, you probably wrote out a business plan, and that plan should have included “hiring the right personnel.” At the time, that meant hiring a general manager who has experience in your industry and competent office staff for support. Once you began franchising your company, you probably then hired someone with experience in franchising and recruitment to help you manage your franchise owners.

The same is true when you are on the precipice of a growth spurt. You may need to hire an experienced growth manager to help you overcome the challenges brought on by sudden growth. Growth managers can help you implement strategies to optimize the revenue funnel and execute the growth plan.

But they can also be beneficial to your individual franchise owners. A growth manager who specializes in the franchising industry can also help your individual franchisees to manage their own expansion. Providing this beneficial service to your franchise owners show them you care about their individual success as much as you care about the company as a whole.

You should also have someone you can turn to for professional advice. Whether you have a mentor, attend a business growth seminar by a reputable coaching company or hire an industry expert to help you navigate your next steps, you need a someone with experience in growth management.

Train Your Team in Tech 

Another way you can nurture your franchise owners while you’re experiencing growth is to recognize how technology can help you scale your business while taking some of the pressure off your franchisees and their staff.

Tools like a customer relationship management (CRM) system, project management software, or digital time tracking and accounting solutions are available to help you increase productivity.

They also help your corporate employees complete tasks more efficiently so they don’t feel overwhelmed, and these solutions can be pushed down to the franchisees to help them manage their businesses locally. Ideally, business management software should help franchisees and their employees manage their more redundant tasks so their energy can be used to accomplish more detailed work.

Providing your team with innovative software also shows them that you value their time and abilities. At the corporate level, technology helps your team leverage time efficiency, and, at the franchisee level, it can provide them with the tools they need to manage employees, customers and processes.

As a franchisor, your number one concern is the health of your brand. While growth is usually a good thing in business, rapid or unsustainable growth can put a strain on you, your employees and your franchise owners.

You want your team to rise to the challenge, but if you don’t nurture the people who make your franchise successful, they might not be able to meet the demands of evolving customer expectations, labor shortages and local competition.

Written by Ryan Farris.

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