Multi-Unit Franchisee Magazine Issue II, 2015 | Page 83

but accomplishing this shared vision requires a partnership and both pieces of
the puzzle.”
Training and HR
The challenge to franchisors is real. Examining a sample of 38 franchise concepts,
FRANdata found that brands with a belowaverage ratio of both field support staff to
franchised units and field support staff
to franchisees tend to experience lower
continuity rates and higher business failure rates, and that brands with an aboveaverage support ratio tended to maintain
a higher continuity rate than brands with
a below-average support ratio.
Jacob Grosshandler, in a column for this

Don Davey
magazine written when he was a research
analyst at FRANdata (Q1 2014), put it
succinctly: “Every unit closure represents
a lower return on dollars allocated to development and training. In other words,
if you are not adequately supporting your
franchisees you are driving your ROI,
earnings, and cash flow lower.”
Davey cites an example of Firehouse
corporate giving franchisees not only new
products, but also the support and training
that has helped them become more successful. “A lot of fitness people love our food
but wanted something lower in calories. So
after research and testing, Firehouse came
up with a Hearty and Flavorful menu. We
were excited, but franchisees wondered
how to roll out this great idea in our restaurants,” he says. “The field team came
in, changed our menus, installed the new
menu boards, and trained crews on how
to make the menu. It was a smooth and
seamless transition, and the menu is a hit.”

Training also is near the top of Wilson’s list of needs from Two Men and a
Truck. “I am fortunate to be part of a
system that commits a lot of resources
to training, both initial and ongoing. No
matter how great the training provided,
franchisees will learn a lot from experience.
However, it’s important for us to utilize
all the resources available to us, including corporate training, peer groups, and
small-business networks,” she says.
“Standard processes communicated
at a corporate level must be tweaked to
accommodate for market variance and
personality. Finding the sweet spot in
providing training at a general level while
providing franchisees the opportunity to
interpret and implement in a unique way
can be tough,” she says. “As a new franchisee, we wear many hats and are responsible
for operations, marketing, sales, finance,
and human resources. Because we are often self-taught in many facets of the business, it’s helpful to have training itineraries
with specific departmental focus and/or
support in recruiting, hiring, and training
department teams.”
For example, Wilson says she and her
husband have marketing-type degrees, are
sharp when it comes to finance, and know
operations like the backs of their hands.
However, she says, “We are self-taught in
human resources, an area of the business
that provides significant risk, especially
as our employee base grows and federal
and state governments become more integrated. We recognize a need for someone
smarter and more knowledgeable about
HR than we are, but struggle with how to
find the right person—and, once found,
we are not equipped to train this person
since they should know more than we do.
In conceding to this fact and need, Les
and I have hired third-party consultants
to assist in identifying the specific need
type and recruitment and development
of this employee.”
Sites, processes, procedures
Corporate help in finding the best sites is
also of critical importance to franchisees,
especially in the beginning, says Smith.
“Site selection assistance is critical for
the first few stores, but now that we’re
up to dozens of stores, I like to think our
organization is as well dialed-in as the
franchisor.”
Wilson agrees that the franchisee should
know more about their market than anyone
else. “I think it’s important for a franchisee candidate to research and understand

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the market of interest. A franchisor can
help guide a candidate toward a market
that meets the requirements for franchise
development, but no one will know the
community, market personality, and demographic better than the business owner,”
she says. “Understanding the wants and
needs of a community is vital to a business
owner’s success in a franchise market.”
Another topic of ongoing interest to
franchisees is system processes and procedures. Smith believes that for every
system, it is key to have “processes and
procedures driven home in a productive
way,” he says. “The ‘secret sauce’ within
the organization is having everyone doing
everything the same way. With that being
said, another value we get from our consultants is the sharing of best practices. In
my view, there’s a big difference between
following the program and not reinventing
it, and incorporating best practices from
other franchisees and corporate divisions
having success with them.”
Wilson, who with her husband is cochairing the IFA Franchise Action Network’s Coalition to Save Small Businesses,
is especially appreciative of Two Men and
a Truck’s benchmarking tools and business
intelligence reports. “These are great.
Participating in an open system of shared
data with the ability to sort and filter content allows insight into my business, and
benchmarking the data against other franchises with similar markets, fleet size, and
revenue size helps to identify measures to
strive for and franchi