Franchisees’ Biggest Growth Roadblock

As a franchisor, do you know what one of the most common growth roadblocks of franchisee profitability is?

I’m Angela Cote, Franchise Growth Catalyst, and I’m here to give you your exponential growth tip. I’m actually sitting right now at my daughter’s horseback riding stable, and she’s just tacking up the horse, so I thought I’d sneak out here and take this opportunity to give you my quick exponential growth tip, which is long overdue

Not only am I a franchisee, but over the years I’ve had the opportunity to work directly with franchisees both in the family business and beyond. One of the number concerns I hear from franchisees is the need to feel heard. When franchisees don’t feel heard, it leads to frustration, lack of trust, and lack of collaboration, which all result in growth roadblocks.

If you’ve been watching my Exponential Growth Tip videos, you probably have clued in that I’m a firm believer in setting up systems, especially systems to support your franchisees (which, hello…, franchising is really all about!). When I’ve sat down to work with franchisees to get to the bottom of their lack of engagement or growth roadblocks, I start by letting them vent and letting them share what’s on their minds.

It’s amazing that there’s almost this tangible shift forward that happens when they have someone listening and when they feel heard. It’s almost visible, this forward momentum, like a horse making it over the hurdle.

Often I find that once they feel heard, they are good-to-go, inspired, and motivated to inject their energy into their business. Other times, their input and feedback need to make it back to the corporate Head Quarters and get built into the support systems on the franchise. And on that note, many of the best ideas out there in franchises come from the franchisees who are on the front lines, including McDonald’s’ Big Mac and their very first drive-thru!

Listening to franchisees not only helps keep them inspired to grow their business, but it also leads to awesome ideas and ways to fix problems, so there’s a ton of benefits from implementing systems to ensure that your franchisees feel heard. And there are lots of neat ways you can do this – everything from the obvious things like weekly phone calls, meetings, and conventions to implementing feedback portals where franchisees can share ideas.

So… The exponential growth  tip for today is:

Make sure you have support systems in place to ENSURE YOUR FRANCHISEES FEEL HEARD!

If this gets your wheels turning, I would love to hear from you and share with you ways that you can implement systems to really ensure that your franchisees feel heard – so they can grow exponentially – a win-win!

I’d also love to hear your stories and examples of how you deal with franchisees that are facing growth roadblocks relating to not feeling heard, and how you show them that, as the franchisor, you are listening to them. What strategies have you implemented and systems to intentionally overcome or minimize these growth roadblocks? I’d love to hear from you either through email or in social media comments. And … in the meantime, don’t forget to … go be awesome!