Growing a franchise is no small task (actually, it’s a pretty darn large task), and having the right franchise growth systems in place can make or break in terms of seeing results and enjoying the journey.
I know the above sentence resonates with emerging franchisors, but even as a more established franchisor with a rapidly growing brand, it can be tricky to establish the right systems as you scale to keep you accountable and keep your franchisees profitable and engaged.
Because – as I say all the time – the key to a successful franchise is happy, profitable, engaged franchisees. After all, they’re the ones who will be ambassadors for your concept and grow the business.
Here at AC Inc, we help franchisors scale strategically and support their owners for success. One of the main ways we accomplish this? Well, we make sure you have specific franchise growth systems in place!
We ensure you have vision planning, proactive franchisee coaching, personality assessment tools, and executive coaching for your leadership team.
I’ll walk you through each of these systems, why they matter, and how they impact your franchise growth.
Vision Planning and Goal Setting
First things first (especially when it comes to franchise growth systems) we need to ensure there are proper vision planning and goal-setting systems in place.
Do you have a vision for what your brand will accomplish? Is this vision implemented into 10-year, 3-year, 1-year, and 90-day goals? Do you know the metrics you need to track to accomplish your vision?
Even more than the above, do your franchisees understand vision planning and goal setting for THEIR business? Do they know their WHY and the action steps that will help them achieve their goals?
At AC Inc, we use an adapted version of the VTO model from the book Traction by Gino Wickman as the vision planning and goal-setting system.
There are obviously other methods you can use as well but either way, it’s important to have a system in place that helps you map out the big picture and break it down into actionable steps.
Proactive Franchisee Coaching
Your job as a franchisor is to support your franchisees for success, and often we see franchise systems with what we call “reactive” support. This usually looks like hotline support and the mindset of “We’ll fix the problems when they come up”.
A much better franchise growth system to have in place is “proactive” support. Proactive support for franchisees is usually called franchisee coaching. The mindset of coaching franchisees is that you are going to get ahead of any challenges that may arise.
You can tell which one we prefer *wink, wink* and one of our biggest services is helping franchisors put franchisee coaching in place!
On a more emerging level, this may look like having the franchisor do the coaching, and as the system grows it will look like hiring and training the right franchisee coaches for your brand.
Personality Assessment Tools
Assessing personality types and work styles have grown in popularity in the past years and it’s a valuable tool for hiring team members that are a great fit for your company culture.
For franchising, having assessment tools like Zorakle Profiles (this is the one we frequently recommend!) has an added use: You can assess your franchisee prospects to see if they are a good fit for your brand.
Finding the right franchisees is a big part of successfully scaling a franchise concept and a great way to optimize your recruitment process is to add a personality assessment.
With franchise-focused tools like Zorakle Profiles, you can even customize your assessment to know quickly whether your prospective franchisee has similar results to your most successful franchisees.
*Interested in trying Zorakle? Reach out and we can give you an intro!
Executive Coaching for Leadership
The last franchise growth system we’ll highlight today is having executive coaching in place for your leadership team (yes, including you!)
Taking leadership seriously is a common theme in franchises that grow quickly and successfully. We as leaders don’t always have all the answers, and getting an outside perspective on challenges and decisions that come up is key for success.
Executive coaching could look like attending the AC Roundtables (more details below) or hiring an AC Growth Advisor for executive coaching for a more customized approach to your business and systems.
When leadership takes coaching and improvement seriously it models awesome behavior for your team, franchisees, and leads.
Have more questions about franchise growth systems? We discuss this and more in our free virtual AC Roundtables where franchisors gather on zoom to collaborate and problem-solve together.
The AC Roundtables are a free resource we offer franchisors who are seeking collaboration and peer-to-peer learning. We’ve been running these virtual roundtables since 2020 and we always love to have new franchisors join us!