As an entrepreneur, the vast benefits of franchising your business are well known and undoubtedly influenced your decision to pivot to such a business model. So, you've franchised your business, and you have some franchisees on board. What is your next step?
Over the past 50 years, franchising in Australia has experienced exponential growth, becoming one of the most significant economic sectors. Maybe it’s time to learn some lessons from some success stories.
Driving your brand recognition
The first and most fundamental aspect of a franchise is brand recognition. The brand is the face seen by the customer. It should inspire confidence, comfort and trust.
Every touchpoint in your organisation is a potential for elevation – or denigration - of your brand.
Look at your Google reviews, your social media posts and the customer engagement at the front line with your operators. These sources of truth are like roadmaps – they point to actions you must take to improve your brand equity.
Even though your brand may be symbolized by a logo, it is ultimately intangible and is imbued by the consumer with values such as consistency, quality or familiarity. Working on the gaps – from the customer’s perspective – will lift the trust factors for your brand.
The importance of an evolving business model
Your franchisees receive the benefit of buying into a tried and tested business model with dedicated owners at the helm.
The only constant, as they say, is however, change.
And embracing change is the key to survival.
Your franchisees are one of the greatest sources of both innovation and truth. Absorbing what is useful and defining what is beneficial for the growth of the network is the trick, while it may be hard sometimes to take the brutal critique on the chin!
As a leader one of your roles is to listen and learn. And as a franchisor, you know that a profitable business model creates confidence among all franchisees and a sense of collaboration and team spirit. A good partnership entails balancing out each other's shortcomings and advancing the network cooperatively.
Look to the operational experience of your franchisees to help identify profitable and new innovations.
Barry Money
Barry Money is the Group CEO of DC Strategy. He is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a C-Suite professional, with a MBA in entrepreneurship. For the first ten years of Barry’s career, he consulted in Toyota’s franchise standards to the global Toyota network, including leading innovation and transformation projects. Barry has senior corporate executive experience across multiple disciplines including sales, marketing, export, customer service, engineering, systems development and supply chain with full accountability for P&L. Originally, Barry trained as a linguist and interpreter. After many years living and working all around the world, he is fluent in Japanese, French, German and conversant with several other languages.