Franchise District Manager: An Honest Look

What does a successful Franchise District Manager look like? What makes them great supervisors? Curtis Moore, award-winning National Trainer with more than 45 years of experience, and expert instructor from our LEAD & MANAGE Programs, considers that great District Managers have these tangible things in common:

• They are methodical.
• They're people-oriented.
• They inspire their people.
• They have great dedication and commitment.
• They follow specific routines and touch the bases they intended to.
• When they do something, it’s because they’ve planned for it.
• While they do take care of emergencies, by and large, they don't do random.

Getting to this level of effectiveness is not easy. I would say that being a District Manager is the most difficult job in the franchise industry due to its complexity, which can leave these multi-unit leaders feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and burned out. 

We are on a mission to change that! In this blog post, I will share how we do it, why we do it, and how LEAD, our Multi-Unit Leadership Certification for District Managers, helps these leaders reach their professional and personal goals while also improving the financial results of the overall franchise business.

FYI: The summer enrollment for this program is currently open! We start classes on June 24, so if you want to join, enroll today!

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The District Manager Reality

Multi-Unit Leader, District Manager, Area Coach, Area Supervisor… there are many titles given to those men and women who oversee multiple units in a Multi-Unit Franchise Organization.

Most of them were “super GMs”, a term we use to describe those glorified general managers or unit managers who excelled at their jobs, produced good results, and took care of business. So much so that they eventually get promoted to develop and oversee not one, but multiple units at a time.

Transitioning from this leadership position to the other can be pretty challenging for many reasons. To begin with, when they were a super GM, they could do everything because their area of action and influence was delimited by the four walls of their unit. 

• However, no matter how good they are, District Managers can't do everything in 10 stores located in 10 different places (or the number of stores they are given to supervise).

The True Franchise District Manager Responsibilities

I must also explain that the unit manager's daily job is to execute the brand and business systems along with their team, whether it's a restaurant, a spa, a school, a car wash, or a gym. However, the District Manager’s role is to grow and protect the people, grow and project the business, and grow and protect the brand.

To fulfill that role, the District Manager's responsibilities and the activities they have to accomplish every day to be successful are:

1. Lead and inspire the unit manager and their team to execute business and brand systems effectively. Also, apply situational leadership to coach, guide, and motivate them the right way.
2. Plan, since 100% of what they do is dictated by themselves. They determine where to go, what to do there, how and when to do it, and the outcomes they expect.
3. Staffing, not in terms of hiring, but in understanding the staffing levels and needs in all of their units at all times. They must also do ongoing bench planning to develop future leaders within the organization.
4. Execute, but not on the front line. This refers to ensuring that the units execute the business and brand systems with a high level of excellence every single day. This will happen through an effective unit visit and follow-up.
5. Maintenance management and having a preventive plan, a redundancy plan, and a contingency plan to ensure the continuity of the operations and avoid the loss of sales.
6. Market the units through marketing plans, co-created along with each unit manager.
7. Produce results. This involves creating a culture of metrics and having a complete financial understanding of the franchise business to identify opportunities.

While there are several responsibilities that no longer fall under their role, this does not mean that from time to time, District Managers won't be running shifts, especially in case of an emergency. However, even then, their role is to take the necessary actions to prevent such situations from occurring. 

Go deeper into the District Manager's responsibilities with these videos

Multi-Unit Franchise Challenges

As you can see, the role, responsibilities, and routines of a District Manager are radically different from those of a general manager. However, most of these leaders are unclear about their role, how to perform it correctly, what actions they are supposed to take, or where to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to succeed.

Not only that. The Franchise District Managers have very little support and training for their multi-unit leadership. This occurs for two reasons: the franchisor's limited time and resources, and joint employee liability.

Without any materials, job aids, formal training, or someone to help them navigate the multi-unit franchise challenges, they tend to default to a position where they feel comfortable, which is being a general manager, and end up doing a different job than they are supposed to.

When they realize they are not meeting their goals as planned, they often start feeling that their careers are derailed and work extra hours to compensate for their performance, which negatively impacts their work-life balance. 

Unable to fulfill the role’s expectations, they also get demoralized, unmotivated, stressed, and eventually fall into burnout. This situation can also lead them to resign, resulting in a very high turnover rate for the District Manager position. 

In addition to all of this, today's District Manager career faces challenges like never before, such as:

• Staffing issues.
• Lack of a bench.
• Focusing on urgent instead of important things, and not knowing how to distinguish one from the other. 
• Many activities, but few results.

All that unnecessary struggle is due to a lack of training!

From Firefighter to Franchise Strategist

At the American Franchise Academy, we are on a mission to change all of that! We believe that if they knew what to do and how to do it, the District Managers would significantly improve their lives and work. And their professional and business results would also improve.

We've been promoting this change in the industry since 2021 through our LEAD Program, a multi-unit leadership certification for District Managers.

This is an elite training recommended for new or current District Managers who want to create systems and processes to be more effective and accomplish more with less effort. The program can also help Multi-Unit Franchisees who oversee multiple units themselves.

We have successfully trained over 250 District Managers from various industries and brands, focusing on providing them with the management and leadership skills these individuals need to succeed. 

We don't go into the brand systems that outline how to produce the product or the service, or execute the image, because the franchise brand is the expert in that. Also, the franchisor does provide franchisees and team members with this information and resources.

What we deliver is knowledge, skills, tools, and support to expand their knowledge, improve their performance, and positively impact the franchise DM life. We teach them the routines and actions they must execute every day, week, month, and every quarter, to achieve success and get consistent results.

If you are interested in learning more about this program, watch our past information session or explore our LEAD Program website.

Enrollment for our summer cohort is currently open! We offer this program only four times a year, and we are currently accepting registrations for the summer class, which begins on June 24.

If you're ready to enroll, do so now before the class fills up!