Franchisors are you getting it right UK
Ask any franchisor how well they’re doing and they will always give a positive response, followed by a caveat; “well, some of our franchisees could do better though.” What many franchisors forget is that their business is (usually) totally dependent upon the success of their franchisees, and if the franchisees aren’t doing too well, then neither is the franchisor. Most businesses will have some form of internal review process, be it board meetings, financial audits or just a quick lunch with the bank manager, but the problem is that they are self-administered, and they usually focus on what is happening that they already know about. How do they deal with the things that they don’t know about? As Donald Rumsfeld so wisely said in his Nato address in Brussels “There are things we don't know we don't know”. At Howarth Franchising we are often called in to “Healthcheck” a franchised business, or in simpler terms – to discover the “unknown unknowns”. Sometimes this is initiated as a PR exercise to gather feedback from the franchisees which if nothing else gives them the feeling that somebody cares. In practice this serves the dual purpose of finding out what they really think about the support, whilst alerting the franchisor to potential threats and issues which may be lurking just over the horizon. However once the process begins we often find that there is much more uncovered than anyone bargained for. A full review of the systems and processes; the internal communications; the operating manuals; franchise agreements; marketing materials and recruitment process is usually enough to discover a host of inconsistencies which at best could lead to franchisees becoming disgruntled and losing impetus, but at worst could land the franchisor in court. Most franchisors agree that the franchisees don’t do things they way they should, but is the franchisor doing what he said he’d do? What was communicated to the franchisees at the outset, and has the support developed in line with their needs and expectations as their businesses grow? If a franchisee really is underperforming, what is actually being done about it? The bad news is, the longer you leave it, the worse the problems will become. The good news however is, the issues we discover are nearly always quick and cheap to fix – you just need to know about them before you can fix them! Steve Felmingham Howarth Franchising

For further information on this subject, you can contact Steve Felmingham using the contact form below.

Franchisors Are you getting it right - Franchise Resources - UK