Tick Tock!
As a franchise owner or manager, every minute is valuable. But when fires don’t need to be put out, what can you do to increase the value of your franchise?
1. Manage up close:
- Who is moving quickly and who isn’t? A little quality slip could be expected during peak hours, but is the cheese hanging off the side of the burger?
- Is the employee of the month respected by the other employees? Do employees know the benefits of taking a leadership role and excited to one day own their own franchise?
2. Get the right people:
- Ever had trouble finding good Millennials? Spend a few extra minutes speaking with your “star” employees to motivate them to help you find like-minded “friends” for them to work with. Chances are, good employees are friends with others who will be good employees.
3. Connect with your franchisor:
- Your franchise fee helps to pay for all the events, webinars and training franchisors provide to help franchisees get things working better, and ultimately increase profitability. Franchisors know that the more they help you, the more successful their franchise system will become.
4. Get funded:
- Accounting firms, trade associations and private equity firms have funding webinars to teach more about where funding can be acquired and how it can be organized. Find the right mix of capital to fund your business with less personal risk and more to gain. It takes time and energy to find the right partner while enabling you to hold on to the biggest portion of equity you can.
5. Get connected:
- With good restaurant accounting, you can show potential partners your auditable financial statements so they can feel comfortable investing their money and experience to help you grow. Do you know other franchise owners? Are you following industry blogs? Are you sharing information periodically to learn what opportunities exist to expand, new technologies to use?
6. Conquer the world!
- Explore new marketing techniques (Snapchat, your first TV commercial…).
- Improve your internal procedures for accounting and managing operations – franchises provide a manual, but does your management office? Improving and standardizing procedures is the only way you can expand without micromanaging.
- Plan your expansion! There’s nothing more fun than planning an expansion but it takes time to get it right. See here for more ideas.
