2022 Disruptions in the Franchise Industry: Where Should Leaders Put Their Sights On?
(Part 7 of the 2022 Multi-Unit Franchising Conference)
What is the state of the franchise industry nowadays and what should franchise owners and franchisees be preparing for? During his lecture at the Multi-Unit Franchising Conference, which happened earlier this year, Darrell Johnson, CEO of Frandata, shared his thoughts and deep analysis on this matter.
Frandata is the premier source of market intelligence data in the franchise world, across 230 industries and over 4,000 brands. In this blog post, I’ll be sharing the takeaways of this session, which was, as you can imagine, very informative and eye-opening. These are the things that franchise leaders need to be aware of and understand so that they can make better decisions in their present and future businesses.
These are the things that franchise leaders need to...
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...
How to Build Your Infrastructure for Growth
(Part 4 of the 2022 Multi-Unit Franchising Conference)
The Multi-Unit Franchising Conference is an event dedicated to multi-unit franchises, their development, and growth. Once again, The American Franchise Academy was present there to bring you strategies to succeed with your multi-unit franchise.
2022 program included a session on how to prepare our organizations for growth, by building proper infrastructure for it. Not in terms of the leadership team or the store structure, but from the operations and financial points of view.
This topic was approached by four panelists, who highlighted the things that leaders need to implement to succeed and scale their organizations. Here are their tips to build your infrastructure for growth.
Make a serious due diligence
Fred Burgess, a MUMBO ...
The Secret to Becoming a Successful Multi-Unit Franchisee
Many people believe that when you invest in a franchise, you're going to get everything you need to be successful. As mentioned by my friend Brent Veach, a multi-unit franchisee who owns 55 Del Taco stores, nothing could be further from the truth.
Don’t miss my YouTube interview with him here!
Franchisees need systems, which means that they require a set of processes, that also have a series of procedures within, and once these are all implemented the right way, together they produce a consistent result day in and day out.
Think of systems like a car. When you turn the car on, a lot of processes and procedures have to happen simultaneously to make the car run and take you from point A to point B.
It’s the same when it comes to a business: you have to have those systems, processes, and procedures so your team is able to execute, day in and day out. When this happens, the business will produce a consistent result.
When you invest in a franchisee, you do get...
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...
I attended the 2022 Multi-Unit Franchising Conference. This is what I learned
(Part 1 of the 2022 Multi-Unit Franchising Conference)
Either if you are new to our blog, or a current reader, you must know that as the founder of The American Franchise Academy it is my mission to share knowledge, tips, best practices, and information to help you be successful in your business. With this in mind, in this blog post and within the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing some insights from the 2022 Multi-Unit Franchising Conference, which happened from March 29 to April 1st.
I did this last year and we got great feedback from our followers and clients, so I’m repeating the formula once again because this year's conference was amazing. It was full of great best practices, knowledge, information, and inspiration from highly successful multi-unit franchisees.
The best part: even if you didn’t attend (which I strongly recommend you do in...
4 Qualities You Need to Become a Top-Performing Franchisee
Every franchise brand has a list of its top-performing franchisees. Sadly, this elite group represents only 1% of their total units. That means that 99% of the franchisees don’t know how to make the best out of their franchises so that they too can be so successful that they even win awards and recognition at their brand’s annual conference.
What do those top-performing franchisees have in common? What are the mysterious things they do to be so successful? Throughout my +30 years of experience in the franchise sector, working with global SMB 500 brands, master franchisees around the world, and collaborating directly with CEOs, I have identified that this 1% of franchisees have four things in common. But don’t worry, you also can work on these qualities to become part of this group.
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Be a multi-unit franchisee
The majority of the top-performing franchisees are multi-unit and they do the enterprise management the right way. Why is that? Because when you...
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...
4 Planning Abilities To be Able to do More in Less Time
(Part 2 of the District Manager Responsibilities series)
Most district managers were unit managers before scaling in the organization. That means that they used to have total control of what happened within their stores and their job was dictated by the day to the needs of the operations.
But once they become district managers, they realize why this is the most difficult position in the retail industry. What’s even more challenging: their previous role as a unit manager does not necessarily prepare them to be a multi-unit leader.
In a past blog post, we reviewed some of the challenges that district managers face when it comes to leading the team. As part of the district manager’s series, we’ll learn about the second core responsibility they must master: planning.
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...
5 Leadership Skills District Managers Must Have
(Part 1 of the District Manager Responsibilities series)
District managers are one of the most critical positions for growing franchises, but there’s a huge vacancy for this position. Why? As I explained in a previous blog post, the District Manager job is the most difficult one in the retail industry.
Just to mention a few of the challenges this position face, there is the traveling distance between the units they have to oversee, the complexity of the business is multiplied, the great number of people they have to manage, and dealing with each unit's particular situation to produce the best results.
Another thing that adds pressure to the role is that when the person takes on this job, they acquire completely different responsibilities that the person didn’t have in their prior position because it’s not the same thing to be a unit manager as being the leader of multiple locations.
The first critical responsibility of a district manager is to lead the...
