Over time the franchisor will build a “watertight contract” and expect the franchisee to know a lot of things about business and how to get results, but if the result in the business for the franchisee is less than spectacular, where is the “Duty Of Care” by the franchisor in all of this. It’s far too easy for them to throw their hands in the air and say things like “You knew what you were getting into” or “You had the disclosure documents…” “You had the info” and a whole list of other statements/excuses.

When a franchisee is experiencing challenges (not enough customers, not enough turnover, not enough full stop!) then the franchisor says “Well ask us for help” So some do, they drop their pride and call for help. Often the answers given relate to “Put more into your local area marketing” Hello! if I am down the “tubes” and have less cash, how can I put in to make things “better”.

I figure the franchisor should establish a “Duty Of Care” policy and or procedure for the good of the franchise, and the good of the franchise industry. In fact the duty of care policy should state. (For example) That a franchisee must keep a reserve float of emergency cash (in a bank account) that ensures they are able to pull out some extra to make things go “voom”, and over time add to that so it grows to cope with inflation etc.

I also figure they should be held accountable for the marketing… If they put an advert in a publication, was it designed by a marketing expert or the copy room at the local paper…? Then making sure the results are clearly and effectively measured so you can know how well the marketing $$ are spent and you are definitely getting a respectable return on the investment.

If the franchisor is working at building a robust organisation that can provide an effective system for the franchisee, then they need to make sure the people investing in the business are developing their business and financial accumen as well. Okay some have an annual conference, the people go and have a great time, but how many put the information into action? Is their “area supervisor” following up on that? Are their business plans reflecting that development? In many cases no.

Watch out for more “Duty of Care” observations, as they arise and franchisees become savvy to the idea and franchisors get caught out.

So far it’s a one way street with the contracts, but a savvy organisation will ensure they provide avenues to ensure a franchisees ongoing success and what a selling point that will be.

Training to win/win
You and your staff should be trained to make the whole show win, then the customers can win too. A great position to get to and stay in.  For some the idea of training staff means showing them the bare basics of their job, but go a bit deeper and encourage thinking around the idea of Win/Win, when they get the idea the concept will probably become infectious.

• Find out more about win/win and how you might create some examples you can discuss with your team.
• Look for examples of win/win already at play in your business.
• Use the concept to develop a team get together every so often to ask about and pass on ideas in business development.

Getting all this together is a great way to cause the team to work effectively together and can build the business to a strong position where people feel valued. This will then pass on to the customers and cause them to feel valued as well, in the end that’s what we all want.

Upholding great values
People love it when you are on a positive footing and in the values area it’s a great place to start (integrity – honesty, truthfulness etc.).

Start the business with a strong stance on the rights and wrongs, if you get caught by a staff member or a customer ripping people off, word will spread fast, not a good thing to have happen. Make your act squeaky clean and others will follow.

Make a list of the sorts of values you want the business to uphold, google them on your computer and find out more about what other businesses have as values, then find ways to integrate them into what you do, yes even if you have a one person business.

You may find you already have these values, they are automatic and things that inherently are of interest to you. But there may be areas you want to tweak so you can be better at those ones as well.

Over time the staff and customers will be certain to know your business has high integrity, honesty etc.. In a highly competitive market place these things can set you apart.

Covering overheads easily…
Overheads are often the thing that break the camels back, so make it easy for the camel and take the pressure off, in this case keeping the turnover and cash flow up so the overheads are not a challenge EVER! (I know, easier said than done…)

• Sell things that are wanted by your target ‘ideal customers’ this will mean you have things moving in and out again fairly quickly, and that’s good for business.
• Set your pricing right, sure beat your competition if you want but make enough to make a profit too, then you are sure the overheads are covered.
• Know what your industry average is for turnover and profits, this way you can measure (benchmark) against the industry average and see how you fit in the scheme of things.
• Ask your customers what they want more of, it might be as simple as “better service” then you will know “It’s not the products or after sales service it’s the SERVICE!”
• Know exactly how much your overheads are and how many things need to be sold per day to cover them, then anything over that amount puts you ahead.
• Know what is selling and what’s not, aim to make every square inch of your sales area sell well, (even if it’s an online page!) simply by providing more of what your customers want. perhaps just moving something to another spot in your ‘store’ will make a difference.

Getting an objective view of your business is vital to figuring out which areas to focus on to improve cash flow and keep your overheads under control, so ask lots of questions, observe thoroughly what’s going on.

Now put these things into action and watch the results alter in a positive direction.

Enjoyable to run
Who wants a business, which is a hassle to run? Who wants to work in a tough field? No one… Make it a joy to be part of for you and staff and the low hassle enjoyable nature of the business will probably rub off onto the customers over time.

• Make the systems simple effective and clearly understood, no one wants to run a system they have little idea of why it is being done, especially in larger organisations.
• Ask the staff for suggestions on ways to make the work more enjoyable, perhaps multi tasking could be a useful starting point.
• Figure out the culture or if it’s a new business create a suitable culture one that is inclusive, cooperative and has fun some times, this way you will be encouraging the best from everyone involved.
• Make a Profit! This is an obvious point but without it the stress you suffer might soon spill over into the business. Take it easy that bad stress can wipe you out! So make sure you “juggle” things properly to ensure you have a profit and not just cover the overheads and wages.
• Smile, show you love it, show you love being there, show you love the staff, (yes love them!) let the positivity rub off.
• Ask lots of questions from all angles, the customer, the staff member, the senior staff and you… if there are common areas to be tackled then focus on those first.

If your business is enjoyable to run now, what would it be like if you went through and made it MORE enjoyable to run!

Creating easily saleable products and services
You want people to buy, not to um and err then walk away, so it should be easy for them to select what they want and then make the purchase with great peace of mind. Especially people in your ideal target market.

It may be one thing to provide a prestige product and another thing to have enough people in the right target market to meet the needs you have. Again it might be a case of having some prestige products and more of another not so prestige product.

When it comes to business you should be making sure that customer satisfaction is a number one concern, and a big part of that is the service and support your business provides. Make it EASY for people to get things serviced, not a hassle. Make it easy for people to select the right product, Make it easy for them to find a sales person, the list goes on.

So take a customers viewpoint and walk in and out of your store as if you were them, how quickly are you attended to? how gracious was the enquiry “How are you today sir…” How easy was it to get your bearings on where things are (online or in a physical sales environment…) Now ask yourself what can be done to make changes so the people walking in and out are really satisfied.

Also look at the things you may want to add to your range… How easy are they to market? And will people readily make enquiries that could lead to sales… These are all aspects of easily saleable products and services.
Taking all these things into account you should be able to”pull apart” the customer experience to know what’s working and what you can do about it.

Does your business fill a need and or want?
Hopefully it does both. If there is no need for what you have there will be no sales, therefore no business. This is a vital prerequisite for any business . Consider this, if you are selling diving gear in the middle of a desert you would not sell much, however a cold drinks stand would be a more obvious choice.

If you are just starting out in business do a lot of research to make sure what you have will fit, the local people, the culture, the psyche of the whole area, again if you are selling art in a working class area the amount you might sell may just be way less than a city where the arts might be more solidly valued.

Consider if are you providing for a want or a need, e.g. if you sell food, there is a need for that, if you sell dolls it’s more of a want, not a need. Ideally I guess the best scenario might be to have a needs based business that also sells some “wants” as well.

Watch out for things changing, cassette tapes were once the only portable music device, then came the CD… selling cassettes today would be a waste of time. So move with the changes so you don’t get left behind. What might start out as a solidly moving product range can become dead in the water fairly quickly.

Creating a business that people love!
Customers and staff a like love the business and what it does, heck why have a business that people despise? Go for love, it’s much better. But that’s easy to say… what can you do to make people love it?

• Find ways to engage the customers. – Consider a database and keep in contact – Create special deals they can’t get anywhere else (think packages) and the list goes on, get creative and explore.
• Engage the staff. Right from the start, cause the staff to ‘buy in’ to the philosophy, ethics, and other values and beliefs the business has, make it strong, make it real and make it matter, make it so the idea of turning up to work is a vital thrill in their day.
• How about you? Do you love the business? Why shouldn’t you aim to create an entity that really rocks, so you want to be there in such a way that it causes everyone else to believe in what you have created and it builds from there.

Now you have some starting points, what will you do to go the next step? research, evaluate, plan, budget, implement? Whatever order you put them in, make it work for you.

Creating a strong brand
You want your customers and prospects to recognise your business easily and remember it. This is where a strong brand comes in. Just as having a clear sense of what you do is important, then so is the brand for recognition.

A designer should be briefed that this is an important aspect of the logo and other design work you have done (especially at start up and as the business progresses). Otherwise thy will probably create something that might look nice to them, and they then sell it to you as a concept.

In the start up phase when you were researching your business, what sort of branding did your competition have? And the leaders in your field, who are they and what have they done? You should be aiming to be equal to that image or better (preferably better!) Even if they are a multinational company with 100’s of employees.

The brand and the resultant image it projects can be vital to ensuring you have a stable platform to launch the business from, and it also builds pride in knowing you have a rock solid image to project.

Growth ability
Starting out in business is one thing, growing the business to be more than it currently is another… And for many business people the idea of growing the business seems strange, they have a fear of change it seems, and don’t want to go any further, unless pushed.

The problem is multi fold but lets take a basic view, the business operates and costs go up for supplies, the rent goes up on the lease… but without a growth strategy they are stuck paying more with the same amount in their pocket… when they do put the prices up they are apologetic about it to customers, and start to sound more like victims than business people.

Therefore the business needs to be the type that can be grown readily so that these (and other growth related challenges) can be handled easily.

To grow your business make room in your business plan for it, flag it for discussion with your business coach, accountant and partners. Explore your target market and look for ways to expand on what you have to offer.

Growing your business does not automatically mean you have to take on more staff, you may be able to find ways to delegate some tasks to sub contractors outside your business, like bookkeeping, virtual admin services and so on.

Profitable
At the end of the day it’s what’s left in the kitty that counts. With no profit you’re a charity or a hobby, which do you want?

Lets say that you want to be more than a hobby (that’s what business is about I guess…) so you should be able to know readily and easily if you are in profit, by how much and what to do with it.

Your bookkeeper or accounting software should be able to tell you where you are at, if you have put in all of the $$ spent and $$ earned, so that’s easy, but the other sides, what to do with it and how to make it is another.

Firstly lets imagine that you have paid yourself out of the $$ in so you are covered, and all the expenses are covered, you now have a surplus to work with… nice eh! Some people just spend it, some pour it back into the business, some do a mix of both. My thought is to create what I call a debt reserve fund or business wealth fund. This is simply a bank account where you put the $$ in and don’t spend it, you let it grow.

This is a different way of looking at what to do with profit but it sure feels good to see a bank account growing… the security it offers is fantastic and the fact you don’t touch it is even better, it compounds.

As for making a profit… lets see if you have paid everything and have a surplus, then you have a profit, so the aim is to ensure with your pricing you have left a margin to cover the profit, and in some industries the profit can be 500% in others 15%… in your research for your business you should be able to find out the average % of profit and work out some of your projected cashflow from that.

Whatever you do with your profit aim to make it work for the business, as often people simply take out of the business without a thought to it’s growth, growth potential and future.

Is it readily understood?
If your business produces widgets for the trucking industry it’s important for the target market (trucking companies in this case), to readily understand what it is you are providing. If you are in the start up phase your brand may not mean anything until the prospect sees it a few times (probably 6+ times!) so you have to make sure that it is presented in such a way that they know who you are, what’s on offer and how it’s done (online, retail, wholesale etc.)

There are many companies that put a logo on their vehicle, drive around and no body has a clue what they do or if they are of value to them (i.e. target market). It can be ok if the target market is a niche In this case a trucking supply Co, but if even your target market does not know then you have a challenge on your hands.

Consider working closely with your designer or PR people to make sure the people that should know clearly do know, otherwise your marketing $$ can be wasted.

Structural integrity
The systems and procedures for your business are vital to ensuring a solid foundation and the supporting structures up from there are suitable. The aim with developing structural integrity is to ensure that “when the wind blows” the house stays in tact, or when it rains and a tornado comes through after it that you have the ability to get the business back on track quickly.

Depending on the business will depend on how you plan to develop the structures to keep things in place. If it’s a retail store you might keep some stock off site, the same with databases and records in the event of sabotage (yes staff can do it to you if they are displeased…) or a natural disaster, you have a back up.

You can extend the idea right through the business to leadership, HR policies and so on, so that the organisations backbone is supported by healthy muscles, all finely worked and tuned to provide the right amount of support.

To begin working with ideas on structural integrity you would probably start with looking at the values and beliefs the business has and how the ‘culture’ supports that and vice versa, then you can identify strengths and weaknesses and start to see the spots to tackle.

Sustainable and Robust
When you start up in business you probably do so wanting it to last, so you can get more than just the $$ it cost you to get started. So you need to think about what will make the business sustainable and strong so it can last. Ideally you will want to set up a profitable passive income device so that you can reap the rewards of being in business without having to be there.

Sustainable will probably mean your industry niche is one that means people will be require what you have for a long time to come, it may be a flexible area so that you can go with the flow and include new innovations with ease.

A robust business could be seen as one that has good investments in place that create passive income returns JUST for the business, so that it can be supported by its own wealth. This can be done by putting away a percentage of profits, so that in the event of a disaster happening you can weather the storm. (You still need insurance though!)

These are just some of the ways to create a strong business and over time I suggest you add these points to discussions you have on business planning, this way you can really know that they are being considered and acted on for the future.

Print it, use it, tick things off as you do them, make notes, add to the list, include some of these points in your staff training and see what happens.

Thanks Jerry lets see what happens now…

Bust your ass…

• Work hard, work smart, if it’s not fun, do something else.
• Following your passion, you will then want to do the work, in fact the work will be so enjoyable it won’t seem like work, you will be early and rarely late….
• On something that will make a difference for more people than just you, you win they win.
• On being exceptional, who wants to be mediocre? Ok so lots of people do, but why do you have to be…
• Getting the next goal, and then the next, the journey of a thousand miles begins with that first step. The sense of achievement is a powerful drug.
• Providing what the market place wants, you will soon be happy with the sales, they will be happy you provided what they want and those that work with you will be happy you thought of it.
• Getting people to know about your business in the start up phase and then to come back for more of what you have, often.
• To influence others in your circle of influence to be exceptional at all they do.
• To surround yourself with great people who want to pass on great information you can all utilise.
• Living life to the full, when the show is over it’s over folks…

Pay attention…

• To the details so that you can understand the bigger picture from within. No point in having a business that no one knows what’s going on, especially you…
• To planning. No plan no house, it should be the same in business.
• To how you present what you have to the market place… Get great at marketing and sales, then do it with the rest of your team.
• To the way you learn, then you will be able to pay attention more effectively.
• To how others liearn, your role as a business leaer means you will probably do a fair bit of instructing on how things are done, so teach others in ways they prefer to be taught.
• To the way you communicate, so get very specific about what you communicate.
• To the way you listen… Be an attentive listener, that’s why you have two ears and one mouth.

Fall in love

• With what you do, how you do it how your team does it…
• With causing others to fall in love… with the job, the business, the customers, the service the products, their life, their significant others.
• With life. Life is what we do day to day so we should get great at loving it.
• With how others see the world. This level of fascination is from the old American Indian idea of “walking in another mans moccasins” it hlps to give us perspective.
• With the people you surround yourself with. Are they all lovable? Are they all worth fighting for?
• With the glory and beauty of nature. If the view is lousy, I wonder what you are looking at?