Franchisor Responsibilities
What are these franchisor responsibilities you should keep in mind?
Group marketing is a critically important in any franchise.
I think the franchisor should either retain people who have marketing expertise or learn it themselves because it’s an important area where the franchisor should keep the initiative to make sure the brand’s integrity is retained and to make sure there is consistency in marketing.
In most franchises, you want each franchisee out there earning money, doing the job, not spending his time doing marketing and advertising and knocking on doors.
Research and development is essential as you do have to look at the future because business does change, particularly with technology coming along and changing the whole face of many things.
Training is important, don’t just provide quick training program for a couple of days or a week then stop. Training is an ongoing thing and you need to take the initiative, not leave your franchisees to put their hand up or wait until you see them getting into trouble. Ongoing training will pay dividends for you if you invest in it because that saves the issues from popping up.
Then we come to support. This is the ongoing side of a franchisor’s responsibilities. It involves maintaining contact and communication. Just talking to people, just having a coffee occasionally. John O’Brian, as you can see, I duly respect John, he shakes the hand of everybody in his organisation at least once a year. Imagine the value in that, its enormous. They all know John and that creates a family. What I love about John’s model is he now calls his franchisees, franchise partners, and that term says a lot. It’s not us and them, it’s we and that’s just so critical as you get your team coming together.
Looking after franchisee well-being is so important. For example, when the gas depo in Melbourne, Victoria blew up about 10 or 12 years ago, there was no gas for quite some time. Eagleboys organised gas cylinders to be trucked down from New South Wales with all the appropriate adapters so each Victorian outlet could continue to cook Pizzas.That is great.