Open the floodgates!
Who is blaming whom? In the failed business stakes there are those with the crushed ego from the fall who want to blame anyone but themselves. They will claim the system failed them, customers failed them, area supervisors and suppliers failed them… then of course the franchisor failed them!
In all the blame game generally gets people nowhere and often it happens too late.
No one wants a business to fail, so what happens? really it’s a simple cycle, born out of the old adage resistance, resentment and retaliation… lets take a stab at a possible scenario.
A franchisee gets started and is niggled they can get a support person to call them back from the main Co. (its been a busy time for the Co recruiting and starting a bunch of new franchisees). the franchisee gets miffed and start to build a sense of resistance, and becomes standoffish despite the supervisor apologising profusely.
In some people this resistance clears up and in others it festers in the background.
If this and other things continue the franchisee starts to resent the situation and the hollow they now find themselves in… (Often though these things start from a small issue though.) The retaliation when things have multiplied out of control becomes a range of finger pointing and blame and before long a hostile situation looms and any issue seems to push things further into a downward spiral. The flood gates have opened and Voom the rush of water knocks over everything in its path.
Seriously it does not take much to see this happen, in a franchise, personally run business or in general life!
Here’s the aim for the franchisor, stop it happening before it multiplies.
Herea re some simple points to make things happen more effectively…
- Open the Company communication floodgates - Make the franchisee see that everything is being done to assist them, pester your team to find out who they contacted in the past few weeks, and if they haven’t why not.
- Open the family communication floodgates - successful businesses have family support, its important that you know if a franchisee has this support if not find ways to boost it and get the family interested, supportive and involved.
- Make it a great start up - Before the business gets started make sure the franchisee has the right mindset and attitude to run the business and is willing to learn ways to build their skills in all areas.
- Train them and train your people, to be exceptional communicators - To do this, find ways to get them together to really get to know each other (and don’t wait for the next conference to make this happen.) for people to REALLY communicate effectively they might need to work more like a family.
- Make BIG! promises - And KEEP them. If you say you will jump, make sure you tell them how high it will be. Hollow promises cause a lot of problems. To make sure they happen set up simple and effective systems so your team can ensure they are done.
If you make these a major priority for your franchise business you will form a positive foundation to really set up a caring company that shows it is interested whole heartedly in its members. That’s my view on ways to make the 3 R’s that can damage any relationship (in this case business relationships) and make it less of an issue. Hopefully this is enough to calm the madding crowds!
Stumble it!
