“ WHAT ARE THE KEYS TO BUILDING , TRAINING , AND RETAINING A GREAT SALES AND DEVELOPMENT TEAM AT YOUR BRAND ?”
GROWING YOUR SYSTEM Challenge thepros
“ WHAT ARE THE KEYS TO BUILDING , TRAINING , AND RETAINING A GREAT SALES AND DEVELOPMENT TEAM AT YOUR BRAND ?”
Rashid Khan Vice President of Franchise Development Kids ‘ R ’ Kids Learning Academies For more than 30 years , Kids ‘ R ’ Kids Learning Academies has been committed to providing world-class education to children 6 weeks to 12 years old . Aside from its proven business model , the company ’ s success has been driven by an ongoing passion for cultivating strong franchisorfranchisee relationships built on trust and communication . Since joining Kids ‘ R ’ Kids 18 years ago , I ’ ve learned that a franchise is only as good as its franchisees , and this
couldn ’ t be more true in today ’ s landscape . It all begins with having a strong development team in place .
For one thing , hiring the right talent is one of the greatest challenges of a business operation . This makes it all the more important for managers to not only identify strong candidates , but also to gauge whether they will fit the corporate culture . In addition to the company ’ s vision and overall annual goals , prospective team members need to have a clear understanding of what success looks like to the organization in order to be effective team members .
Once the right talent is in place , leaders need to ensure a strong onboarding experience and set realistic performance expectations to measure results and hold team members accountable . In addition , a winning sales team should be knowledgeable in all aspects of the business to become confident and productive in their roles . This will also give employees a better understanding of what type of franchise prospect will be successful in their respective systems . Furthermore , management should provide their teams with opportunities for ongoing training , which is crucial not only for the overall growth of the franchise , but also for employee development and retention .
Given the growing number of franchise concepts , it has never been more important to have an effective franchise sales team to drive development . Ultimately , if both management and team members genuinely care about the success of the franchisees , only greatness can be achieved .
Renuka Salinger Vice President of Development Camp Bow Wow At Camp Bow Wow , we strive to hire and retain top talent regardless of what department they are in . Our goal is to provide the very best customer service to our franchise owners and franchise candidates , and every department plays a role in this . Our motto is servant leadership , and this comes from the top down .
In my experience , the key to building , training , and retaining a great sales team ( or any team ) is support and accountability as a manager and team member . On my team , we all have different roles , responsibilities , and personalities . People and teams have varying work styles and needs , so as a manager you must be able to adjust your style if needed to produce the best results . I take a holistic approach . If you don ’ t take care of your team you may still produce results , but you may not have high engagement and employee satisfaction .
Additionally , high-performance sales teams are very knowledgeable about what they are selling , company goals and policies , and their candidate ’ s needs and goals .
Our franchise development team spends a lot of time cross-training and collaborating with every team in the company to make sure we are always up to date on everything related to our brand . We also spend significant time researching , learning , and executing best practices in the sales process , sales psychology , and current franchise law and trends . This intellectual acuity sets us apart from other sales teams I have encountered .
We are a relatively high investment franchise and our candidates are sophisticated , high net worth individuals . Our candidates expect a high level of knowledge and customer service throughout the sales exploration process . We actually do not call ourselves a sales team , we are a recruiting team and our role is opportunity manager . We also are brand ambassadors with a mission to recruit the right franchise candidates for our system . The ultimate goal in awarding franchises is to open them and have happy , successful franchise owners , not just sell them .
I believe that to succeed in sales you must work together as a team and break the individual performer mentality that is prevalent in sales . Competition is healthy and you will have overachievers and underachievers at times , but if you cannot work as a team toward group goals you will not reach your full potential . n
50 Franchiseupdate ISSUE I , 2017