Franchisors, Cars and Football Stars
Dan Archer - Franchise Development Director, X-Press Legal Services - Director, BFA
We are now 2 weeks into the new premiership season and if the pundits are to be believed we have already seen contenders for the goal of the season, watched the game of the season and the Premier League is the best league in the world. Whilst the use of clichés by football pundits is probably nothing more than an indication that although talented with a ball at their feet many of them spent little time with a book in their hands, there is a darker trend to all this hyperbolic nonsense.
If Jamie Redknapp genuinely believed that watching Arsenal vs Liverpool (which was barely an average game of football) warranted the use of the phrase “that’s what makes the Premier League the best in the world” then I pity him because he is as deluded as a pundit as he was ill-advised to take the Thomas Cook advert gig.
You see we have not yet seen the goal of the season, nor the game of the season and if the Premier League is superior in any way at all in comparison to other national leagues it is in the amount of hype with which it is festooned. Fostering the myth that it is otherwise may help Sky Sports to sell subscriptions and enable Premier League clubs to justify horrendous entry prices but it also creates a very real problem.
The promise of the hyperboly is not delivered by the national team in World and European tournaments. The supposed superiority of our league sides has also not led to dominance on the European club stage which is anything more than our fair share. The expectation though has been raised to a point where some fans genuinely believe that we are the best in the world. The problem then comes when we do not triumph and we all experience that sickening, gut wrenching, heart-stopping disappointment of an early exit at the hands of technically better players.
In the motor industry too this gap between the expectation built by a brand and the experience delivered by that brand is something that you ignore at your peril. Many thousands of words across dozens of dissertations must have been written about Skoda’s death and subsequent rebirth. I would prefer to focus on the less told story of the negative impact of the early iterations of the second generation Mercedes C Class.
It could be argued that the average Skoda purchaser didn’t have huge expectations from the brand, even before Jasper Carrot set about destroying them. Mercedes buyers however, are always brand loyal and come to the party with an expectation of true excellence that only comes from years of positive brand reinforcement. Imagine if you can then the brand disappointment which those loyal followers faced then when they first met the W203 model in the year 2000. Build quality questions, wallowing suspension and rattling dashboards are not what Mercedes buyers expected and as a result they were disappointed. Mercedes of course stopped the rot and the brand started much higher so the damage was not fatal, there are some however who would still argue that it is not what it was.
In franchising the dangers of over promising and under delivering are not just ones of brand disappointment, they are an area where the franchisor that over promises can find themselves in court at the hands of a misrepresentation case. Franchisors should be passionate about their business and should address a prospective franchisee’s caution in entering self employment by encouraging enthusiasm in the prospect. If however they go too far and gild the lily, overstating franchisee performance, promising support which is never delivered they risk a disappointed franchisee with a real grounds for claiming that this was not the car or Premier League match that they were sold.
Beyond actual misrepresentation the franchise industry has also been infected by the demon hyperbole. I have never really understood the desire of some franchisors to declare themselves the fastest growing franchisor or state proudly that they have added 50 new franchisees this year. If I was considering organisations such as this I would want to know whether it was sustainable and if they have grown so quickly how they plan to support all of those new franchisees.
I have always preferred to err on the side of caution and paint the darkest picture possible for a prospective franchisee. I believe that if they are still interested after I have placed these hurdles in their way, they may go some way towards having the right stuff.
So where does that leave us, well Monday the 23rd August saw the much promoted launch of Sky Sports News HD which we are told, was just what we were waiting for and which, we are led to believe will revolutionise the provision of completely unnecessary sports related trivia and conjecture. I don’t think the football world will change anytime soon and could suggest for devilment that HD actually stands for Hyped to Death but franchisors should take note and temper their enthusiasm if they want to avoid being sick as a parrot in the game of two halves that is the franchise industry.
Tags: dan archer, franchise, franchisee recruitment, franchising
