The key to franchise company growth is happy, profitable franchisees – and the key to happy, profitable franchisees is effective support for your owners. When your franchisees are properly supported, they become happier, more engaged, more profitable, and create increased royalties and improved validation for your franchise development. By Angela Coté
The key to franchise company growth is happy, profitable franchisees – and the key to happy, profitable franchisees is effective support for your owners.
When your franchisees are properly supported, they become happier, more engaged, more profitable, and create increased royalties and improved validation for your franchise development. It’s a win, win, win!
Franchisee support is divided into two categories: proactive and operational. Creating an effective franchisee support framework includes having both methods in place.
Let’s start with operational support – the support that helps your franchisees operate the day-to-day of their business. It is sometimes called reactive support because it focuses on solving problems as they arise.
Examples of operational support
- Initial Training
- Hotline/Help Desk
- Operations Manual
- Resource Library
Operational is the most traditional franchisee support and is often the first kind of support put in place because it’s essential to ensure your franchisees can operate their business well.
As a franchise grows, operational support is still valuable, but there’s a bigger need to proactively support your franchisees and get ahead of problems before they happen.
Proactive support isn’t focused on the day-to-day operations of the business, instead, it focuses on strategic planning, skill development, goal setting, creating KPIs and making franchisees better business owners.
Examples of proactive support
- Strategic Growth Coaching
- Marketing Planning
- Business Skills Training
- Development Opportunities such as workshops
When you coach your franchisees to become better business owners, and how to deal with problems before they arise, your system has higher-performing franchisees that will create more overall system success.
Looking for ways to implement or improve proactive franchisee support in your system? Start by assessing your franchisee support (both operational and proactive) and notice areas for improvement.
If you’re just starting to implement proactive support, begin by looking at who is the right person to coach your franchisees (outsourced or insourced) and creating coaching buy-in with your franchisees.
If you have field coaches in place, start by looking at how you’re assessing their effectiveness and what kind of professional development could be provided for improved results.
Angela Coté
Angela Coté is the CEO of Angela Coté (AC) Inc. and has been in the franchise industry for 25-plus years as a franchisor, franchisee and adviser. AC Inc. helps franchisors scale strategically and support franchisees for success through community roundtables, 1:1 advising and field coach training.