This is the #1 Key to Franchisee Success
Throughout my +30 years involved in the franchise industry, helping franchisees around the world, I’ve come to realize what is the #1 key to success for a franchisee.
Of all the things that you need to learn and do when you invest in a franchise, if you don't have this, you are going to struggle as a business owner. How can you avoid this conflict? What is the number one key?
The secret is that you care about your people and they know and feel you care for them. It might sound simple, but sadly, sometimes franchisees and business owners forget to demonstrate and communicate this.
Communicating this is crucial because even though we may do a lot of things for them every day, unless we share it and let them know why we're doing it, they won’t really know.
With this blog post, I’m inviting you to reflect on what caring for your people truly means and if you are indeed demonstrating it or not. And, of course, I’m giving you tips and information...
5 Best Practices to Reduce Turnover
Although the constant attraction of new talent helps you grow, being able to retain the people is also critical, especially with the staffing crisis our industry is facing. How can you do that? In this blog post, I’ll be sharing five strategies to reduce turnover and have a healthy organization.
People that look for a job are searching for opportunities and benefits, but in the end, they stay for the company’s culture. Taking this into consideration, these five best practices will help you transform your business culture, and therefore, have better employee retention.
1. Select the right people
This doesn’t only mean having the talent, the skills, and the experience to perform properly, but making a good fit with your company. Otherwise, you'll end up looking for people again in three months or so.
To help you discover those candidates, you have to define clearly who is your ideal employee and how does the right cultural fit look like. Based on that, as...
When to Give a Raise to Your Employees: 4 Scenarios to Consider
When it comes to managing people, why, when, and how to give raises to their employees is one of the biggest challenges that franchise or business owners face. Why? Because given at the right time and in the right way, raises can impact the company culture positively. On the other hand, not having them can affect the working environment negatively.
You must remember that there are two objectives when it comes to giving people this financial benefit. First, to give recognition for performance. Second, to provide fair and competitive pay according to the market, to be able to retain those employees.
Think about it! Upgrading a person’s salary when they outperform will get them excited and motivated to be in your organization and willing to continue giving you that extra effort when they come to work. Otherwise, even if you have a great culture and you do everything right, if you don’t offer the pay that the employees deserve, then they might end up leaving you.
The 4 Roles of the Multi-Unit Leader
Franchisees who want to grow their organization from a one-unit job into a multi-unit enterprise require the help of a district manager to accomplish the business and financial results they expect.
But this multi-unit leader often gets frustrated because there’s a lack of clarity in the industry as to what is their role. So much so, that this is the first reason why these particular leaders struggle to be successful.
Why is this? The position usually gets promoted from a single unit manager into a district manager and ends up becoming super general managers, instead of true multi-unit leaders that focus on the things that actually impact and make a difference in the organization.
To prevent this confusion, we at The American Franchise Academy have identified three specific roles that these fantastic and hardworking team members have to play.
1. The protector of their people
Protecting their staff is the first thing they have to focus their time and...
Focus on these areas to strengthen your customer experience
(Part 6 of the 2022 Multi-Unit Franchising Conference)
During the past weeks, I’ve been sharing the takeaways of what I experienced at this year's Multi-Unit Franchising Conference, an annual event dedicated to helping these business owners make their companies stronger and more profitable.
In this is part six, we’ll review John DiJulius's keynote. He is a guest experience expert and his organization focuses on helping franchisors and franchisees develop specific customer service expertise and focus.
John pointed out how in the past 15 years, the level of satisfaction the customers have had in their experience with businesses, in general, is at a 15-year low. A lot of it is being driven by staffing issues and high-cost problems. He urged business owners to act against this customer service recession by...
10 Actions to Attract, Retain and Grow Top Talent for your Organization
(Part 3 of the 2022 Multi-Unit Franchising Conference)
Within the past couple of weeks, I’ve been sharing what I experienced during the 2022 Multi-Unit Franchising Conference. This event happens every year, and it is focused on the development of multi-unit franchisees.
The session I’ll be commenting on in this blog post is Strategies Attract, Recruit, Retain and Grow Top Talent, which was a panel of four franchisees. Here are 10 actions and strategies that these business owners shared on how they are solving the big challenge of the staffing crisis that is happening in the country.
Before we review the takeaways, I have to clear out that while these franchisees are doing a lot of things to improve their staffing levels, they don't have the silver bullet that solves all of the problems.
One of them even confessed that for a long time, he has...
5 Staffing Strategies That Make a Great Impact on Your Business
(Part 3 of the District Manager Responsibilities series)
Although the district manager role is the most difficult one in the retail and franchise industry, it is also the least formally trained. Yet, training is necessary so that these leaders can develop certain skills and abilities to solve the various challenges, situations, and problems they face in their day-to-day operations.
As we have reviewed in the past weeks as part of our district managers series, this position has seven key responsibilities they need to fulfill so that they can be successful, reach their district goals, and, in turn, help your business thrive. In this blog post, we’ll dig into the third responsibility: staff.
Don’t miss the whole District Manager’s video series to learn what are the 7 core responsibilities these leaders must fulfill and how we can help them. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel to view our live sessions!
First, I have to clarify that the district...
Employee Life Cycle: 8 Phases and Tips to Manage Them
Did you know that each of your workers goes through an employee life cycle while working for your organization? Understanding what happens in every part of this process, and having systems to manage them, will make your responsibility a bit easier.
Besides, it will help you take care of our people and make sure that their experience working for you is positive. Which will translate into good employer branding and a better staff in the long run.
Make a note of the eight phases of the employee lifecycle. Analyze how well you manage them in your organization, and learn some tips to handle each stage.
- Recruit
Whether you have an online process, an in-store one or you opt for a recruiter's professional service, future employees or candidates will look at the actions and activities you do to attract them. So be sure to have consistency and develop reliable resources to help you attract new talent for your organization.
Recruiting is critical, especially if you have a growing...
5 Strategies to Develop Leaders in your Organization
Growing businesses and franchises are constantly looking for assistant managers, unit managers, and district managers who can properly oversee the organization. But sadly, not every crew member wants to become a leader. This is very frustrating for business owners, especially if employees have real potential.
Why is there this refusal to go up to the next level, even though there may be a desire for professional growth and self-improvement? And more importantly, what can you do about it to develop leaders in your organization?
In my 30+ years of experience working with a variety of big-name brands in the franchise industry, I've found five reasons employees don't want to take on leadership roles. But also, I came up with strategies you can implement to solve these struggles.
This is critical. Having the right leaders in place and developing them is a must if you want to achieve your time freedom and financial goals as a business owner.
Should You Rehire an Employee?
The staffing crisis in our industry makes it difficult for businesses to attract new talent because of the high cost of the hiring process. Is rehiring an employee a solution? What are the benefits and disadvantages of this decision?
When it comes to rehiring employees, the topic becomes very personal for me. I was an employee of an amazing company that I love, still to this day, but after nearly 20 years I decided to leave so I could grow beyond this organization. Everything that I knew about business and franchising I have learned there. But I wanted to explore other companies and expand my horizons.
When I called my boss to let him know, he reminded me that if I left, I could never go back. Believe me, it was one of the hardest decisions I made but I stood by it because I knew this was right for me.
That didn’t make me a bad employee. Nor someone that should not be rehired, especially considering that if I returned, I would have brought more value, knowledge, and...