Being able to develop a leadership bench of your future leaders is a critical skill for your business, especially if you are a multi-unit franchisee or an independent business owner with multiple locations. 

Otherwise, your growth, development, and success hit a brick wall since you’ll have no managers to oversee your operations. Not only that. If no one helps you, you won’t have the true time and financial freedom, which is the ultimate goal of having a multi-unit business. 

Luckily, following the next steps, you’ll be able to create that process within your organization. Take notes (and actions) to start building the future of your enterprise!

Step 1: Own the responsibility to develop that bench

Many franchisees and business owners complain that when they have an opening of a new store, they struggle to find a shift lead, an assistant or general manager, or even a district manager. They take time interviewing prospects to hire the best candidate, with...

This month we celebrate out 5-year anniversary!!!  We couldn’t be happier and more excited for where we are and the future that we have laid out for the academy!   

For the last five years, the American Franchise Academy has worked to help our clients create the future of their dreams. We do that by providing the knowledge, tools, resources, and support that they need to be successful.

Here are the stories of five of our amazing clients that trusted us as their ally to design their future. 

1. Phillip

He was our first client and he planted the seed that made me venture into the creation of this academy and the writing of my first book, The Franchise Fix. He decided to invest in a franchise after a successful career in insurance even though he didn't have much business management experience and non in food service.

He reached out to me for coaching because he wanted to take control of his business, make the right decisions, and get what he was lacking to be...

As a business owner, you get access to a lot of information and reports, and it can be difficult to understand how the numbers work and which data is really useful and which you should discriminate.

To achieve the financial and growth goals, you have to focus on what I call “The Business Trinity”, which refers to the three most important numbers in your business. You must monitor them every day to make sure your business is going in the right direction, and correct the path if it is not.

How to determine your Business Trinity

These three numbers are going to differ depending on your industry and your business model. They are not magic numbers that apply to everyone, because not all franchises are created as equal. It’s not the same to be in the personal care industry, in the car wash industry, or the food service industry. 

To determine the three numbers for your business, you need to take these three steps:

1. Within your business reporting, look for the...

Should you multi-unit and multi-brand your business? There are clear advantages to choosing this multi-unit path: when you operate multiple locations, you become the owner of an enterprise that grows, you can delegate operations and generate enough money for you to find your financial and time freedom.

On the other hand, if you operate a single unit, the franchise becomes more like a job, because you have to open and close your business and also manage it since you don’t have enough cash flow to hire a district manager and delegate the operations.

But to obtain the desired outcome in the multi-brand model you need to have the right systems, the right knowledge, the right tools and processes to manage your business. But first things first. Let’s review what are the pros and cons of this franchise modality.

Pros of a multi-brand franchises

• You will have diversification

Having a multi-brand franchise will diversify your investment and your risk in case one of the brands...

Going multi-unit is the fastest way to obtain financial and time freedom, and have a sustainable business. If you choose this path, eventually you won’t be able to do everything on your own and you’ll need to delegate tasks. That’s when a district manager can help you.

Taking this step won’t be easy: you’ll go from running your operations directly to giving someone else the responsibility of your overall business. So, you have to be certain of when it is the right time to bring this professional to your company to help you scale your operations. 

Before hiring a district manager, consider these 5 factors

To help you with the transition, here are five considerations you need to analyze:

1.  The size of your business

How many units should you have to hire a district manager? There’s no right answer for this question because it depends on how many units you have now, how much you’ll want to grow, and your cash flow.

If your goal is to...

Franchising is a great way to achieve financial freedom and independence. Using this business model, many people across the world have been able to open their own business and see the dream of business ownership become a reality.

 Within the US franchise sector, which is composed of over 4,000 brands and over 775,000 business units, the vast majority of franchisees are single-unit operators. 

 Operating one unit is good way to enter the entrepreneur world, but if the goal of the investor is to have true financial and time freedom, this path is the slowest. And there’s a catch because the business may become, basically, another job. Think about it: the franchisee is in charge of managing operations, and opening and closing the business every day, tasks that are a manager’s responsibilities.

This is why so many franchisees and independent business owners explore the multi-unit model. If you are considering making this switch, continue reading to...

I remember back in 2004, I had 63 restaurants in three states, and seven district managers under my responsibility as a Corporate Operations Director for an S&P 500 global franchise organization. The region was underperforming, so we took over and implemented systems and processes to improve and elevate the area.

When the first vacancy in the district manager position opened, we had difficulties finding the right person because this is the most challenging job in our industry. Why? Having this job takes a lot, both physically and emotionally. Think about it! On one hand, the position implies the management of multiple units, which is no walk in the park.

It’s not the same to manage and supervise one unit and work with only your team every day, with a clear schedule, clocking in and clocking out, than to oversee multiple units. Many the times, these locations are far away from each other, and each store has specific needs and challenges, as well as diverse groups of people...

Having one of your people shot in an in-store robbery gone terribly wrong is not something you ever expect. But it happened to me!

It was my second week of training as the new Director of Operations of a very well-known QSR brand, and, like all new external hire leaders, I was going through the traditional brand operations orientation at a training store.

When I started that day, I had no idea that I was going to wind up outside the hospital’s intensive care unit waiting to hear how my manager was doing – a manager I had not met and whose name I heard that day for the first time. I hadn’t even “officially” taken over the region but there I was, standing outside the hospital emergency room hoping that this manager was going to make it and thinking about what I needed to do to make sure that this never happened again. Not on my watch!

Many things went wrong that day. There was a breach of safety, a bad guy decided to do the wrong thing and...

I think that millennials are perfect for our industry.  I know that many people may think that I am crazy or that maybe I don’t know enough millennials to understand how terrible it is.  I have heard so many complaints about them that I do understand your pain.  I have to say that I also know millennials very well.  Not only have I worked with them, my franchisee clients have lots of them and I even have three of them at home.  One of them is 22 and I have 17 year-old twins.  All three of them are part of the American workforce and two of them in the food industry.  Not only do I love spending time with them but their friends think that I am “cool”.  A couple of days ago my 22 year old daughter asked me to go to go to lunch with one of the friends that she is considering being roomates with.  Yesterday my 17 year old son asked if I would play a board game with him and his two buddies and my daughter likes to bring her...

If you look around, there are a lot of “HIRING NOW” signs in just about every restaurant and food franchise.  It is a contradiction to the reported levels of unemployment in the country.  So, why is it that if there is so much unemployment we are consistently so short-staffed?

There are 2 problems:

1. Business leaders do not address the job of recruiting, interviewing, hiring and on-boarding their team in the same consistent, methodical and committed way in which they execute the operations of their business.  As a matter of fact, the important job of “finding the right people” is all too often delegated to people that don’t have the training, tools or experience in doing it right, and they just hire the first body that comes through the door to fill-up an application and then proceed to throw them in the fire (put them to work) as quickly as possible with very little training or guidance.
2. Once those poor people are in the organization...