How to Fix your Franchise in 4 Steps
Jul 20, 2022
Many franchisees struggle to achieve the goals they expected when they bought their franchise because success in this industry requires more than just hard work, time, dedication, and commitment.
Sure, some investors eventually are able to grow into a successful multi-unit organization and become top-performing franchisees. Still, most franchise owners don’t achieve this level of success. They continue to struggle daily, trying to compensate for the things they don't know or don't have with more work, longer hours, and using the franchise as their job.
Why does this happen? Because even though they know something is broken, they don't know precisely what it is or how to fix it. That’s where the challenge comes with most franchisees.
The good news is that there’s a solution. We at The American Franchise Academy came up with four steps that will help you determine what's missing within your business and what you can do to fix your franchise so you can achieve your business and financial goals and accomplish the desired success.
1. Understand what you purchased
First, you need to comprehend that when you buy a franchise, what you purchased is the right to recreate a brand. That includes the product, the service, the image, and the national and regional marketing. What you didn’t acquire is a business management degree to help you properly manage the company.
However, you need both parts to be a successful business owner. You need to have a brand that allows you to attract customers who will pay for a product or service and the management skills to get profitability out of the revenue coming into your business.
2. Learn what you know you are missing and what you don’t know that is
If you know you have a problem but don't know exactly what is causing it or how to fix it, then you need to acquire new knowledge to figure it out. But you must acknowledge not only what are the things that are missing in your franchise business but also what you don't know is missing.
How can you discover this? By reaching out to external resources outside your work and your business circle to get an objective view of your company. For example, you can reach out to family or friends who own successful businesses to find out how they run their operations and what they do to make a profit.
You can also approach a coach or a mentor in your community to ask for their help. Or even go to the top-performing franchisees in the franchise network of your brand to copy their best practices and detect what’s missing so that you can be successful. It would also be smart to reach out to other brand franchisees since they too can give you valuable business model knowledge.
Another way you can find out what you're missing is by joining a program like the one we have here at The American Franchise Academy.
3. Create policies, processes, or procedures for every business activity
The third step is to create policies, processes, and procedures for each business system and activity that will help you make a profit.
Just as your franchisor designed all the processes, procedures, and policies you need to execute the brand with excellence, you have to do the same with all your management systems.
And you have to document this information and share it with your team members so that they can properly follow what you have established.
4. Train everyone in everything
Once you have defined and documented your policies, processes, and procedures, you need to train your people on every one of them so that they can execute them consistently.
In the same way the franchisor gave you and your team the tools to replicate the product, service, and image, you must mimic this with your management systems. Think about it! If you can consistently execute the brand and the business systems, with a high level of excellence, you’ll be able to achieve your business and financial goals.
I want you to look at franchises like a set of brand systems that will bring revenue. A brand is a promise of consistency, something that people will recognize when you open a franchise, and if it's a brand that people already know, you will automatically create revenue.
Now, revenue does not mean you're going to have profits because you need to have the right management systems and train your people on them so that you can produce a profit out of the brand you invested in. That is the secret!
If you do that really well in one unit, you can duplicate the formula in a second, a third, and a fourth unit without woking more hours. That’s how franchisees become multi-unit top franchisees because they have the brand systems and the business systems executed with a high level of excellence day in and day out, which brings them to profit so that they can continue to grow and delegate operations.
I hope this information opened up a thought on what you may be missing if you have been struggling as a franchisee. If you want to learn more, join us in our free masterclass, where we cover all the management systems that a successful multi-unit franchisee must have to grow and achieve their goals.
Go to Multi-unit Franchisee Masterclass.com and register for our upcoming session.
And don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and give us a thumbs up on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to get more resources and knowledge that will help you in your everyday business.
Reflections:
- What needs to be fixed within your franchise for you to be able to make a profit?
- Can you think of any mentor, coach, family member, or friend that can help you thrive in your business?
- How developed are your business policies, processes, and procedures?
- Are your team members properly trained, or do you need to reinforce the training?
WATCH THIS VBLOG on YouTube HERE.
