Franchise Update Magazine Issue II, 2014 | Page 24

Grow Market Lead

The focused
ceo
BY KEITH GERSON

Training Your Trainers

I

Coach your support staff for improved
franchisee performance

n one of our most recent franchise
surveys, 62 percent of CEOs and
operations VPs and directors responded that they do not have a
formal training program for their operations consultants and field staff. For
those who do, 83 percent indicated that
their training lasts from only hours to
two training days at most. Not much
of an investment given what’s at stake.
The support staff has the responsibility to: 1) drive franchisee performance;
2) drive franchisee satisfaction; 3) ensure
franchisee compliance; and 4) create
engagement and alignment.
What follows are some general
thoughts on how to increase and improve franchisee performance through
improved coaching and development of
your support staff.
• Coach the coaches. Most of us
would agree that franchisees do not
intentionally or knowingly engage in
self-destructive behaviors (despite appearances to the contrary). More likely,
they often lack the ability, knowledge of
what to do, how to do it, or the capital.
In my experience, it is the rare franchisee who is simply “unwilling.” Having
well-trained support managers with effective coaching skills will turn around
all but a handful of the most headstrong.
Through proper training, an operations
consultant can readily learn to identify
what is influencing a franchisee’s unsatisfactory performance and effect sustainable behavioral change.
A good point of beginning is to read
and implement the practical training
wisdom found in one of the best books
I’ve encountered on the subject: Coaching for Improved Work Performance by
Ferdinand F. Fournies. He provides a
brilliantly simple and executable pro-

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cess, complete with checklists for understanding what is affecting substandard
performance and how to conduct the
coaching discussion.
• A tiered support system. More
and more, we are seeing the trend toward the creation of specialized support
roles to manage franchisees based on
their status, tenure, and performance
levels. Organizations such as BrightStar have made significant investments
in franchisee support, as shared at this
year’s IFA Conference by BrightStar
founder and CEO Shelly Sun. BrightStar has three specialized roles: 1) new
franchise onboarding (BrightStart); 2)
improving performers who are running
behind system average; and 3) helping
franchisees who have purchased existing
locations through a transfer. HouseMaster has created a tiered support system
with specialists who are assigned based
on their expertise at each phase of franchisee growth, culminating in special
training and support for their highestvolume performers.
• Prioritize your training calendar. If you agree that focusing your
franchisees on the importance of customer creation and retention is one of
the most important factors in success,
wouldn’t it stand to reason that more
time should be devoted to this in your
initial and ongoing training? Yet it’s a
fact that most franchiso