Franchising is a growing sector with franchise employment having risen by an estimated 10% this year*. The need for the right recruitment, training and launch processes to maintain your franchise’s winning edge has never been more important in the battle for market share. Kevin Thackrah, Director of pet-care services franchise Petpals, comes with a wealth of knowledge on the subject, with 15 years’ experience in recruiting and keeping the right people in his award-winning franchise network. Here, he explains why recruiting, training and launching franchisees has never been more important.
The first question you must ask when approaching your franchise recruitment strategy is what are you looking for in your prospective franchisees? If you do not have a clear vision of what you want from the franchisees in your network, it will ultimately be difficult to maintain your businesses winning culture. A great tactic for ensuring quality recruitment is to consider modelling your prospect profile on the qualities of your current stars. Once you’ve unpicked what makes a franchisee special, you can create a checklist for success. Having this ‘perfect’ franchisee profile to refer to is a powerful tool to use whenever you are in the recruitment stage. At Petpals, we look for many things in our prospective franchisees – but a required quality for us is a passion for all things pets, a commitment to our brand ethics and a determination to succeed.
Although all new franchisees will be passionate, capable and knowledgeable, most will not initially have all the expertise required to operate your business model. Therefore, initial training is vital in creating the path for all your trainee’s future success. Not only does it give an overview and insight into the operations of your business but it also gives you a real opportunity to spread your culture to your new franchisees. After the initial training and on-site launch package, the franchisees in our network receive regular reviews and support along with business coaching. Ultimately, we want them to get off to a strong start.
The training should give your new franchisees a clear strategy on how to move their business forward. Offering a proven marketing support package is a great way of giving your brand a competitive edge. By supplying branded collateral, marketable tools and support to your network you are not only putting them in a great place to succeed but also your franchise too. Helping locations by securing local press coverage to build your franchisee’s brand is another valuable tool that goes a long way in setting them up for success. At Petpals, we have a great social media following which we often harness to help support the launch and continued visibility of our franchise network.
Once your new franchisee has had its successful launch you should continue to offer ongoing support. The end of the training period is just the start of your franchisee’s journey with the business, so it should not be the end of your assistance. Encouraging a culture of sharing in your network is also vital and will create a partnership of collaboration that spreads throughout your franchise. For instance, events like an annual conference create a sense of community in your network – offering time out of the day-to-day operations to share and contribute to the wider franchise. At Petpals, for instance, we like to encourage business coaching partnerships as we are aware that the language of business is a skill that you should carry on developing throughout your career.
We are very proud of what we have built at Petpals, and we want to preserve this as we continue to expand. As the need for pet-care services increases, we will need to maintain our excellent service and standards to stay ahead of the game. Therefore, finding the right people and empowering them to be successful is pivotal to our business model.
