If you have a business degree under your belt, and you feel you’ve learned all you’ll ever need, I have some bad news for you: there’s always more to learn.
I’ve been there, got the expensive piece of paper, and left with only half of what I needed to know in order to build a successful, franchised business. Since navigating that journey, from owning an independent restaurant, becoming a home care franchisee, and then finally founding Walfinch, I can confidently say there is a lot the degree didn’t cover.
Sorry, Professor.
The unit-level economics, in practice
I’m not saying my economics degree didn’t teach me economics. For example, we definitely covered how much cashflow matters. But what didn’t make it into the curriculum was how it feels to sit in front of a spreadsheet at 11pm, trying to work out whether you can make payroll. That feeling changes your relationship with numbers permanently.
As a home care franchisee, I became obsessed with understanding what a healthy unit actually looked like in practice. The business couldn’t function without it. And if the business couldn’t function, then I would be actively failing my care clients – which I refused to do.
This obsession came from the anxiety of not actually knowing, followed by the relief of finally understanding.
Understanding people
I used to think being good with people meant being good in a networking conversation. Truth is, I’ve always felt confident shaking hands, therefore thought: “This will be a walk in the park.”
But running a home care franchise revealed what having ‘people skills’ actually meant: sitting with someone on a difficult day and helping them fix it.
To be a good manager, I needed to be able to connect with my team. Once that communication piece started to fall into place, I could do everything within my power to help them to thrive.
Because without your team, the car is rolling without an engine. Once I understood that, I stopped treating team culture as something to sort of maintain and started treating it as something to actively build. Those are very different things.
Hiring is not about filling a seat
When I ran the restaurant, hiring was instinctive. A good chat and a gut feeling that they would ‘do alright’.
In care, this ‘good enough’ approach does not work. You are placing a person in a position of responsibility, in the home of a client who is relying entirely upon your service. Those human stakes recalibrate what good hiring actually means.
My process became more rigorous and values led. I learned, slowly (and sometimes painfully), that the right person in the right seat adds something that no job description can quantify. And the wrong person in any seat costs you far more than a vacancy would have.
The best franchisees from Walfinch’s network are curious and, more importantly, coachable. They have treated the agreement for what it is: an opportunity to develop through focused support and to build through the practical application of real-world learning. The results are much more satisfying than a supposed ‘qualification’.
The results are truly thriving businesses that transform people’s lives.
Class dismissed!
