First blog for 2018…
A section in my second book (which I hope to publish during 2018) deals with how to shape a high-performing franchise operation when a portion of the franchisee population simply doesn’t want to practice the behaviours that you (as the senior manager/ franchisor/ directors) are trying to introduce – to no avail.
The inspiration for this section of work comes from having managed a national (N.Z.) franchise operation; where around only 1/3 of the franchisee population demonstrated a high level of commitment towards picking-up and running with new initiatives/ practices/ tools that I was designing/ adapting and implementing across all franchisees.
The balance of franchisees did not show such a level of support/ commitment, and consequently the commercial effect of introducing the given new initiative/ tool/ practice was significantly diluted in the public arena. If you want to evolve a brand and build market share then you need as close to 100 % of stakeholders onside supporting the well-validated/ justified new initiatives/ innovations that you bring into play.
The strength/ prominence of a brand in the market relies heavily on each stakeholder who operates under the given brand to play their part in behaving in accordance with those practices that are determined to be “best practice” by the senior manager/ franchisor/ directors of the given franchise operation. You cannot wait for the “straggling horses” to catch-up to the front of the field on the “commercial race track”.
At some point – for the sake of retaining and building brand awareness and retaining/ growing market share – you need to cut your losses and focus available energy/ capacity/ resources on building the capability of exhaustively those franchisees who show their commitment to supporting brand development initiatives.
What does this mean in practice ? It means “drawing a line in the sand” to identify the “go-getters” (i.e. those who are committed to ongoing improvement and adopting new initiatives/ opportunities) versus the “we’re happy as we are” (i.e. those who are generally not self-driven nor have a desire to pursue continuous improvement). Having done so, hold a meeting to announce the defining differences in respect how the two franchisee populations will be supported/ managed by the franchise and confirm the assignment of franchisees to the two different franchise categories.
In short, the “go-getters” should receive most of the available support/ management expertise and attention (time/ energy) of the available resource base; with the “we’re happy as we are” franchisees receiving significantly less support. After all, it is the “go-getters” who will ensure the survival of the company and brand at the end of the day…they deserve to receive the “lion’s share” of available expertise/ resources/ management capacity.
Sound tough ? If a franchise operation that experiences a dichotomy of franchisee commitment/ support as per what is outlined above, the worse consequence would be that the “we’re happy as we are” franchisees ultimately cause the demise of the franchise altogether through their complacency and resistance to change. A company must allocate its resources to achieve maximum positive effect in the market (i.e. maximum market share and ROI possible); and if that means concentrating on building the commercial capability of the “tall poppies” then this is what should be done.
I have seen a soccer (football) club ignore the needs of the more “switched-on” parents and their child soccer players, thinking that all kids simply wanted to have a bit of fun kicking the ball around on a Saturday. As a coach of one such team, and having seen the obvious divide that was happening among 9 year old players on the field (i.e. between the “recreationalists” versus the “competitive players”) I prepared a well-rationalised proposal for the club directors to consider.
This proposal called for a different coaching delivery to be given to the “recreationalists” versus that given to the “competitive players”, so that the needs of each player mindset could be better met. Result ? The club in question ignored my insights and did nothing to address this issue, and consequently as the new season approached approximately 20 x families withdrew their kids from that club and transferred them to an alternative club. A situation which could have easily been avoided.
Moral of the story ? Make sure that your service/ management/ support delivery to internal stakeholders appropriately addresses the needs of these stakeholders; and if it doesn’t then re-structure the operation so that it does.