A considerable proportion of any leadership role is concerned with understanding how to use time and how to prioritise its use as finite resource.
It was one of the world’s most outstanding authorities in the fields of goal setting, motivation and time management, Paul J Meyer, who said: “Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.”
If we apply the idea of considered time allocation to franchising, it’s easy to see how planning ahead to prioritise tasks based on their importance is key. However, unless conscious effort is made to manage time in this way, it’s easy for inevitable, more trivial tasks to get in the way of where the real work needs to happen. We are all so often drawn to activities which don’t have an impact.
The mistake many people make when it comes to trying to put more control into time management is treating every task with the same degree of importance. However, a one size fits all approach is not appropriate. There needs to be a focus on outcomes. As a franchise owner, look at what drives your business’ success. Identify ten elements and prioritise them in relation to the percentage contribution they make to overall profitability. Does the percentage profitability for each task match the amount of time spent on it?
The Pareto principle or 80/20 rule can be helpful to illustrate the point, where only 20% of your effort as a leader contributes to the 80% of your results. It’s the same for other parts of a franchised business. 20% of customers usually bring in 80% of profits. 20% of your team produce 80% of the results. 20% of marketing brings in 80% of leads and so on… Understanding this phenomenon helps highlight your most productive tasks and where more time should be spent within the business – on that lucrative 20% rather than the ‘unproductive rest’.
It’s the same when it comes to team management. Everyone’s busy but time allocation needs to be prioritised on those 20% customers or franchisees which generate 80% of the revenue.
If we break that down further it can be helpful to think of a split where the top 10% are elite, the next 80% the majority and the final 10% are underperforming. This can apply to stores, units or franchisees themselves. The elite 10% will do well whatever you do. However, by spending time looking at ways to elevate some of the top few in the main 80%, a greater impact can be made overall. For example, this may be by encouraging those that are capable of raising their game to spend time with the elite franchise or store managers. Then support structures can simply be put in place for the rest of the network.
It’s easy to get stuck into the day-to-day ‘busy’ work. However, to use time to its greatest effect it is necessary to prioritise tasks based on the net gain of the outcome. Staff and franchisees should be encouraged to do the same. It’s all about focus and planning to make the best use of the limited time available to us all.
“The question I ask myself like almost every day is, ‘Am I doing the most important thing I could be doing?’ Unless I feel like I’m working on the most important problem that I can help with, then I’m not going to feel good about how I’m spending my time.” Mark Zuckerberg.
For more information about Papa John’s multi-unit franchise opportunities please see: www.papajohns.co.uk/franchise
