Grow From Here

So You Want To Franchise Your Business by Harold Kestenbaum and Adina M Genn, 2008

This book  is jam-packed with ideas, suggestions, reminders and information.  It is invaluable for anyone who is thinking about franchising their business.  As a sidenote, I have been interviewing a number of franchisors about their experiences recently, and the most common advice they have for someone thinking about franchising is ‘know what you’re getting in to’ or ‘do your homework about franchising’ or some variant thereon, so this book is a great resource to help you do just that.

So You Want to Franchise Your Business contains four main sections, a useful add-on; guidelines for an operations manual, and lots of good stories – both success stories from franchisors and also warnings from franchisors who got some thing wrong.  The four sections are

1. Why Franchise?
2. Moving Forward (information about advisors, operations and so on)
3. Rolling It Out
4. Keeping it Going

I found Part 1 to be the most valuable.  As I kept reading, I realized I was mentally accumulating a huge to-do list, and it started to feel a bit overwhelming.  This is not a book to try and read in one sitting.  But do read it.

This is clearly written by people who have been through the wars (or, if they haven’t, have spent a lot of time with people who’ve been there!).  I was struck by the phrase ‘you get what you pay for’ – one franchisor I spoke with a couple of days ago was telling me what a disaster one particular attempt to do things with few resources had been for her in her early days.  There is also a good exploration of what makes a succesful operations manual (including a sample table of contents) and a whole chapter on exit strategies.  The exploration of what makes a suitable franchisee is also a nice combination of theory (fit, skills, attitude, funding) and practical (review committee, discovery day, earnings claims, etc).

Technology – Integrated Throughout

I have read a lot of books about franchising, and since I run a company that uses technology to help build businesses, I am always curious whether technology is even mentioned.  Often not.  With So You Want To Franchise Your Business, I was intrigued to find ways to benefit from technology running through the various sections:

• Chapter 6 talked about website and marketing tools, including how to provide branded sites to franchisees
• Chapter 8 talked about training tools and how beneficial automated or online training programs can be
• Chapter 9 was all about the website, including how it can support and strengthen branding, sales, quality assurance and lead generation
• Chapter 10 talked about advertising, building buzz online, internet marketing, public relations and electronic coupons
• Chapter 11 talked about online support; including internet training, the convenience of web access, the advantages of a strong audit trail, the benefits of communications tools and how to advance your branding.

This type of integration of technology into core business strategy can be a huge competitive advantage for franchises that see the value and implement it.  One franchisor said to me that technology had been her source of greatest expense & irritation, but had also provided opportunities for revenue and company growth that she would never have had otherwise.  So thank you to the two authors for including the technology thread in their exploration of how best to franchise your business.  And guess what?  You can find Adina Genn online via twitter at http://twitter.com/AdinaGenn (no real surprise there, right?).

Words of Wisdom/Quotes:

“For starters, not every business is franchisable.” (p. 10)

“Most franchisors agree that moving into the business of selling franchises is a tough transition….  So the more you know about the difficulties, the better equiped you may be at overcoming the challenges ahead.” (p. 21)

“If you have franchisees but do not have the appropriate infrastructure to handle them, it can lead to disaster.” (p. 34)

Past Book Reviews

Outliers by Malcom Gladwell

The Franchise E-Factor by Greg Nathan

What No One Ever Tells You About Franchising by Jan Norman

Book Review, Franchise, Technology

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, 2008

I have enjoyed each of Gladwell’s books, but was surprised by Outliers.  What I had heard about it was that he said one needs 10,000 hours of practice to get to an expert level in any field.  That would seem to reinforce the common idea that if one just works hard enough, then success will come.

Instead, my take away from Outliers was that he is saying success is not a matter of personal effort but rather a combination of a variety of social/cultural/historical factors as well as personal effort.

Take Aways / Practical Applications

One of the questions I took away from Outliers is how we can use the various factors that Gladwell has identified as leading to success and use them to increase the chances for success within a business or franchise.  If the late nineteen hundreds were the perfect time for Jewish immigrants to New York who had skills in sewing/garment making and 1953-57 were the perfect years for great programming/computer gurus to be born, then what are the factors today that we can take advantage of? 

I do wonder if internet marketing is today’s equivalent of garment making in New York in the 1930s.  If so, then that’s a great place to put effort since the payoff has a greater chance of success than (for example) traditional media marketing.  What are the other areas that in 50 years looking back will have been the ‘right’ places to put effort today?  It’s certainly worth some thought.

On the human level, Gladwell talks about a combination of factors that can lead to success, from the time of year an athlete is born to the ability to stay with problem solving for an extended period of time to learning that putting in effort will pay off to cultural differences that lead to different outcomes from the same event.  Again, I think it’s well worth looking at our businesses and our clients’ businesses with that in mind.  What are the factors that we need in employees in different roles?  What are the power differential attitudes that will lead to success for a franchisor and franchisees?  And how do we build those considerations into our selection and training processes?  Then add in Nathan Greg’s great books about strengthening franchise relationships (see my previous review about The Franchise E-Factor) and we have greatly increased the chances of building a strong and succesful franchise or business.

Great quotes:

“the values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are.” (p. 11)

 “These three things – autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward are the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying…and that’s worth more to most of us than money.” (pp 149-150)

 “No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich.” (chinese proverb – p. 249)

Past Book Reviews

The Franchise E-Factor by Greg Nathan

What No One Ever Tells You About Franchising by Jan Norman

Book Review

The Franchise E-Factor by Greg Nathan, 2007

The Franchise E-Factor is well known within the franchise industry and was recommended to me by one of the franchisors we work with when I asked him about good resources on the franchisor-franchisee relationship.  It is a small book with 8 chapters that almost serves as a workbook.  Each chapter covers one key concept and then has concrete Action Tips to help you actually implement (and keep implementing!) the concepts.  Greg Nathan is an internationally respected corporate psychologist with a specialization in franchise relationships.  In 2007 he was named one of the top leaders in Franchising by the Franchise Times.

The core of the book is the stages in the relationship between Franchisor and Franchisee.  Greg Nathan breaks these up into 6 key stages; Glee, Fee, Me, Free, See and We, and talks about key elements of each stage in the relationship as well as how to best manage each stage.  I won’t tell you more about each stage – this is where you really want to read the book.

The core of The Franchise E-Factor’s concept is that in any relationship, we go through three stages.  He calls these dependence, independence and interdependence.  I have heard them described in other contexts as heaven, hell and then reality.  We’re all familiar with the experience; when we start a new relationship (personal, business or communal), the first phase is exciting and everything seems wonderful – it’s the honeymoon phase.  Then cracks start to appear and everything seems awful – disappointment reigns.  Then if the relationship continues, it get to a more realistic phase where the good and the bad are both recognized and accepted and there is a possibility to build for the future in partnership.  Nathan uses his expertise in psychology to examine what’s happening underneath each stage for both the franchisor and the franchisee.

The Franchise E-Factor is concrete, easy to read – and funny.  It is full of real life experiences with franchisors and franchisees.  This is definitely a must read for anyone involved in building a franchise.  The only disappointment for me was that I could not find it in a local bookstore or on Amazon.  You can order a copy through the website and have it delivered in one – two weeks (to Canada).

One great take away from this book is the line “When Perception meets reality, reality always comes out second best.”

Best Practices, Book Review, Franchise

What No One Ever Tells You About Franchising by Jan Norman, 2006

This book has three main sections; Franchisors, Franchisees and Experts.

It is a great book for a newcomer to franchising and developing a franchise, but it’s also a good reference manual for people who just want a quick reminder and overview of some of the many balls you need to keep in the air as a franchisor.

Each ‘chapter’ is one to a couple of pages related to one concept, and each concept is told as the story of an actual franchise experience along with the important concepts.  Even the chapter titles alone are a good reminder of some of the basics.  For example, under ‘Franchise Relationships’, the core concepts are

• A Fair Franchise Agreement
• Give Franchisees Value for Their Money
• Teamwork with Franchisees
• Persuade Franchisees to Follow the System
• Communication is King
• Creative Franchisees Improve the System
• Franchisee Training is the Number One Priority
• Ongoing Franchisee Training
• Train for Sales, Not Just Marketing

Because of the story format, the real life experiences, the short chapters and the overall breadth of concepts covered, What No One Ever Tells You About Franchising is an easy, appealing read and a good reference manual.  No brilliant new insights, but solid information and very realistic.

Book Review, Franchise