Building your network: insights for effective franchisee engagement

The level of personal engagement and commitment of franchisees to your banner has an immediate effect on customer experience, as well as on the individual performance of your franchisees and on the overall performance of your network. While engagement is not something you can force upon anyone, here are several tips to help you inspire your franchisees.

 

“If it’s to be, it’s up to me.”

Dr. Robert Schuller, motivational speaker

 

ARE YOUR FRANCHISEES HAPPY?

According to a study by the Franchise Relationships Institute, 49% of franchisees say that their business drains them emotionally, and 43% do not have a balanced life. The impact of such dissatisfaction has a devastating effect on the wellbeing of their network. They are likely to be pessimistic, focus on issues rather than solutions, and have a negative effect on customers and other franchisees. In addition, they will be unreceptive to new ideas, do little to develop their own business or the network, and so on. In short, they would negatively impact everyone. Psychology studies identify three key components of employee satisfaction and happiness: 1) feeling competent, 2) feeling accomplished, and 3) having satisfying human relationships.

 

Also, the latest research in Neuroleadership, a fascinating branch of neuroscience, shows that, depending on whether the reality is consistent with our needs, our brain reacts in one of the two ways when exposed to situations or stimuli: engaging or disengaging. A disengaged franchisee feels anxiety, is on defensive, lacks constructive attitude, has low energy and little interest in his business, tends to doubt his franchisor, and is less likely to take risks. On the other hand, by meeting the needs of your franchisees, you boost their emotional and cognitive capacity. Just imagine the effects on your network!

 

5 Primary Needs According to Neuroleadership:

 

Status or relative importance to others

Certainty or security to be able to predict the future, to adapt

Autonomy to control your environment and to have choices

Relatedness to a group, the sense of safety with others

Fairness and justice or a perception of fair exchanges between people

 

TIPS AND INSIGHTS TO SATISFY THE 5 PRIMARY NEEDS

• Make sure your own needs are met, otherwise you will be toxic to your network.
• Choose the right franchisees for your network. Their skills, values and aspirations must be consistent with your vision. Favor quality over quantity, leverage the good ones by helping them grow and become multi-unit franchisees.
• Implement communication strategies that are in line with the network DNA, promote and celebrate success, formulate what is of value for the network and put your message across, but without infringing on their need for autonomy.
• Make sure that the training you offer is consistent with the actual needs of the franchisees and makes them more effective and autonomous in the management of their business.
• Draw a motivational map of your network to understand what drives your franchisees in order to match rewards with their expectations rather than with your idea of what is good for them or your own preferences.
• Map out franchisee experience across your network, similar to customer experience, and improve on it. Boosting franchisee experience (internal branding) will motivate their employees to work harder and increase their loyalty to the company, which in its turn will improve customer experience.
• Define your role as a franchisor and make sure you excel in what adds the most value to your network. Delegate or eliminate the rest! Do the same for your franchisees.
• Develop your confidence-inspiring leadership skills. Focus on what you can do for the network, not the other way around.
• Be forward-thinking. A stagnating network does not stimulate its franchisees, instead they become idle.
• Take the financial success of your franchisees close to heart, not just your own success.
• Document your franchise “formula”. The clearer it is, the easier it will be for your franchisees to focus on value-added tasks, which will translate in better performance and a higher level of satisfaction.
• Provide your franchisees with the necessary tools and training so that they could in turn engage their employees. Your network will be even stronger.

 

By applying these tips, you will improve your network’s engagement and commitment to your banner, but also you will create true brand ambassadors. Using an analysis tool, we can help you identify improvement priorities to boost your network engagement and loyalty level based on your particular business context and challenges.

 

Sylvie Grégoire, MBA, CRHA

President, Totem Performance organisationnelle

In Part 1, we discussed the main differences between advising and coaching in a franchise network. We also introduced the GROW model, a simple structure for coaching sessions, but warned against taking transitioning to coaching lightly. Becoming a coach involves many challenges that, once identified, make any franchise relationship more efficient. Here are some pitfalls and traps you might come across along your coach training path.

 

Coach Training Challenges

• Moving to the next step of the GROW model without properly completing the current steps. Advisors who learn coaching tend to fall back into their solution-driven habits.
• Asking yes/no questions that do not encourage constructive thinking.
• Asking leading questions. Example: Have you considered giving training to your employees to develop their customer communication skills? The key purpose of coaching is to help franchisees find answers, not to suggest answers to them.
• Rushing to suggest answers or asking other questions when a certain question leaves trainees baffled. It is their “issue awareness moment”, a realization that requires additional thinking. This extended silence is a positive sign, it means you touched upon a fundamental issue.

 

The Very Nature of a Franchise Network Is a Challenge for Coaching

Although we believe that support staff should become better at coaching, we also realize that it is not easy to implement this new philosophy in a franchise network. The solution lies in aligning these changes with specific strategies in order to generate interest among advisors to grow professionally, to develop their skills and to help franchisees recognize the advantages of the coaching method. Here are some key challenges:

• Any change is difficult to implement in a network of independent entrepreneurs. Franchisees are mostly interested to get answers when they call their area manager.
• Franchisees who have been in the network for several years were often selected based on their personality that made them easier to regulate. This personality type also often needs more guidance. Transition to coaching may throw them off balance. It calls for designing individual approaches based on personality types.
• Area managers often have strong personalities, putting their opinions and expertise upfront. Coaching however requires humility and reserve, which might go against their nature.
• Coaching is somewhat more time-consuming than simply providing solutions and answers. However, with the implementation of the coaching approach, we observe a significant shift in the nature of issues that are brought to the attention of the support staff. Franchisees learn to be more self-reliant and autonomous in solving simple concerns, thus freeing up advisors to tackle bigger issues.

 

Despite all the challenges, this change helps to create a stronger commitment to the banner in addition to improving franchisee performance. It transforms the role of area managers; their involvement becomes more strategic and oriented towards coaching.[1] It should be noted that in our opinion making coaching the only support approach does not fit the franchise network context. However, when used strategically, it can make a real difference in your network and, in the medium to long term, free up management resources to focus on fundamental strategic issues. As they perfect their coaching skills, area managers will be able to support franchisees in their efforts to become great coaches.

 

Learn the Subtleties of Coaching

There are several methods and strategies to hone the four steps of the GROW model, but first and foremost, to give your advisors the skills to convince your franchisees of the benefits of the coaching approach. An area manager must have effective coaching skills and must be able to judge when to act as a coach and when to be an advisor. Learning to apply the tools is only part of your success. These skills take practice. Lots and lots of practice.

 

Contact Totem Performance organisationnelle to learn more about our solutions to train your coaches and to optimize the effectiveness of your coaching efforts.

 

Sylvie Grégoire, MBA, CRHA

President, Totem Performance organisationnelle

 

© Totem 2016, All rights reserved

[1] GERSON, Keith, Training Your Trainers: Coach Your Support Staff for Improved Franchisee Performance