You and the Franchisor will meet to discuss the situation. Your
Franchisor will either take a disciplinary approach (“Toe the line,
brother, or you are out of here”) or a conciliatory approach (“What’s
going on? How can we make it better together?”)
From here, your relationship will either deteriorate so as to become
unworkable, or you and the Franchisor come to agreement, and better
understand each other’s point of view. You (perhaps unwillingly)
agree that your relationship with your Franchisor is actually important
to your success. This is the beginning of your interdependent stage.
You continue with an interdependent relationship, understanding that
working together creates more success than working against each other
ever could.
Don’t think it stops there! The cycle is likely to continue as decisions
are made for the franchise that you might not agree with, as other
opportunities arise, and as other things happen in both yours and your
franchisor’s lives.
You see, people will always be people. You have a business
relationship with your franchisor, however they are still people. As
you are. And while people can be friendly, generous, inspiring and
open-hearted, people can also be brash, self-centred, pigheaded, just
plain rude and sometimes, even horrible to each other.
How quickly you work through the different stages of that relationship
depends on the openness of communication between you and your
Franchisor. This is not just up to ‘them’. You need to be prepared to
speak with them about matters that bother you, before they become
enormous big problems that are insurmountable.
You need to keep the lines of communication open, even if your
Franchisor doesn’t seem to. Stay in contact with your Franchisor. A
regular phone call is all it takes, to say “Hello” and to give a quick
rundown on how things are going.
Don’t allow your relationship to get to the point where mediation or
litigation are the only options. That helps no-one. If you are having
trouble, ask yourself if and where you can make concessions, and hold