Grow Market Lead
Challenge
the pros
“How does eliminating the ‘silos’
of separate departments help
integrate a brand’s recruitment,
development, sales, and marketing
cultures and tasks?”
Jamie Davis
Executive Director of Business
Development & PizzAmbassador
Donatos Pizza
Silos are good for one
thing, and one thing
only: holding stuff back.
I grew up in the
Midwest, so silos were
a familiar site to me as a
child. These huge concrete structures held enormous quantities
of grain to be shipped off to other parts
of the country, and they never moved.
Ever. Of course, the silos were doing exactly what they were supposed to: hold
stuff back and not move.
In the dynamic world of franchising,
silos have no place. By its nature franchising is fragmented and disconnected,
which is why it is so important to tear
down all of the silos.
Without those giant, immovable objects in the way, you can achieve three
important keys to success for franchisee
and franchisor alike: clear communication,
level expectations, and focused execution.
Clear communication. If you can
create a dialogue and have tough conversations, both internally and with your
franchisees, you’ll be surprised where it
will take you. We’ve done it at Donatos. We involve all the key stakeholders in the recruiting process because
we understand the impact this can have
on successfully educating our franchise
partner candidates.
Level expectations. Unless everyone
in the organization understands what you
are trying to accomplish, no one can truly
understand what is expected of them and,
more important, why it’s expected. Since
our business development team knows
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exactly what our operations and marketing professionals expect of our franchise
partners, we begin educating them early
in the process about the most important
aspects of the business. It makes all the
difference in the onboarding process
after the sale.
Focused execution. This is where
the money is made. With clear communication and level expectations, franchisees can execute the franchisor’s proven
system and everyone can be happy and
successful. Without clear communication and level expectations, the whole
system falls apart. It might not happen
right away, but it will happen.
We call our franchisees “franchise
partners” for a reason. There aren’t any
barriers to communication, expectations,
or execution between us. Break down the
silos in your organization, and you can
drive results on both sides of the table.
Do that, and there’s no holding you back.
Brett Larrabee
Director of Franchise Sales and
Development
Famous Dave’s of America
How many franchisors
are led by a singular,
passionate founder who
brought a great idea to
market? If you answer
“a lot,” that would be
an understatement! Of
course there is nothing wrong with a
“founder run” business if in fact they
know how to share decision-making,
authority, communication, and trust with
others.
Of course one way of sustaining singular authority is to allow silos to grow
and exist between departments. This is
effective for the singular leader because
that person becomes the o