This best practice focus on the need to continually think about and plan the optimal use of franchisees time within the business. Franchisee owner involvement is an important success-factor for most franchise companies, due to their investment and incentives provided by their business ownership. Furthermore, the franchisee themselves will often have been recruited to match an ideal profile for the franchise, with that profile including background skills, experience, characteristics and other factors considered important for operating the business. It follows that it is important to think about optimising the role of the franchisee within their business operations.
There are many dimensions to what this role should consider. One such important aspect is the hours that the franchisee dedicates to the specific unit. Are the franchisees required to work full-time in what should be a full-time business, or are they able to go fishing two days a week?
Another important dimension relates to the nature of the franchisee role within the business, including the specific functions and attendant tasks that the franchisee personally completes rather than delegating.
In our experience being specific about the roles and restrictions for franchisee involvement is an important success factor for market penetration and therefore both franchisee and franchise or performance.
None of the above is to suggest a franchisee always has to be full-time at the front-end prospecting and serving customers. Indeed, this simply isn’t possible in large franchises (requiring multiple workers) or in multi-unit operations where the franchisee needs to transition (including delegating) to more of a directorship role. But it does suggest the value for the franchisor taking a planned approach to the franchisee role to ensure there is an optimal prescribed format, the right skills for the right roles, and the application of incentives provided by franchise ownership are optimally harnessed within the business.
Overtime we often see a fresh look needed to the franchisee owners role as franchisors gain experience in seeing some of the nuances of what franchisees do and don’t do what they can and can’t do. These insights, in turn, need to be harnessed in planning an optimal view and system including clear guidelines and standards for how the franchisee owner should be framed and harnessed within the unit.
Relevant question:
What issues have you observed regarding franchisee involvement within your franchise system, and how could or does this impact franchisee and therefore franchisor returns?
What changes could you make to franchisee owner involvement specification within your franchise system?
About the Franchising Best Practice 500 Series
This is part of a series of franchising best practices. Franchize Consultants is sharing and publishing these best practices weekly for the betterment of franchising. We know that better knowledge and execution of franchising best practices leads to bigger and more valuable franchisor and franchisee businesses.
We have assembled the first 40 best practices into The Best Practice Handbook, which is available for purchase.
