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The next excerpt is from Mark Siebert’s ebook Franchise Your Enterprise. Purchase it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes
To develop a sound coaching program, that you must begin with an understanding of your franchisee. Is that this new franchisee somebody with industry-specific information? Particular abilities, corresponding to gross sales or administration skills? Or will that you must deal with your franchisee as in the event that they have been studying completely every thing for the primary time?
Finally, your coaching program should be adequate to make sure that the least-skilled new franchisee will signify the model to the usual of high quality related to the idea.
The most effective franchisors are big advocates of coaching and make investments closely in it. Despite the fact that the coaching performed by newer franchise firms is usually pretty casual, the most effective new franchisors make it a precedence to develop extra formal packages as quickly as doable. These packages will prescribe intimately precisely what every franchisee and their personnel should grasp. By specifying precisely what should be taught and the way the instruction shall be performed on an hour-by-hour foundation, these coaching packages present information in a fashion that may foster consistency.
As soon as a brand new franchisor decides on the subject material, they have to then determine easy methods to conduct the coaching. Typically, this coaching takes a number of varieties:
Coaching on the franchisor’s headquarters
For many franchisors, the hands-on portion of coaching begins at their residence workplace. This coaching can final for a number of days or perhaps weeks and, for newer franchisors, is usually held in lodge convention rooms or non permanent workplace amenities to maintain prices below management.
Typically talking, residence workplace coaching begins with a tour of the prototype operation and company workplaces, and an introduction of employees and their roles. As soon as the formal coaching session begins, most franchisors concentrate on topics finest taught in a classroom setting. Among the many dozens of matters often included on this portion of coaching are company historical past and philosophy, website choice, lease negotiation, pre-opening procedures, every day operations, insurance coverage necessities, vendor relationships, and reporting necessities. This section of coaching usually entails hands-on coaching inside your franchise prototype (or maybe a particular coaching prototype constructed for that goal).
Franchise coaching courses ought to be energetic and interactive. A mix of coaching codecs corresponding to video (for instance, displaying a key provider’s facility), lecture, dialogue, and hands-on work (corresponding to product preparation or easy methods to present the franchise companies) creates an inviting coaching surroundings for franchisees. Furthermore, varied research have proven that franchisees retain extra data when the coach makes use of a wide range of coaching methodologies combining visible, auditory, and tactile studying. We regularly suggest that our purchasers contain their administration employees within the residence workplace coaching session as nicely. Exposing a number of employees members to franchisees energizes the method and helps construct franchisee relationships all through the group.
House workplace coaching, like all coaching, ought to be accompanied by testing, analysis, and different procedures to make sure that franchisees are certainly able to prime efficiency.
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On-site coaching
The following step usually entails spending a number of days to a couple weeks (or extra, relying on the complexity of your operation) helping franchisees and their employees on the franchisee’s location.
As with residence workplace coaching, it is best to develop an in depth coaching agenda for this stage. Coaching ought to concentrate on helping the franchisee in changing into extra acquainted and cozy with the day-to-day operation of the enterprise. Franchisees new to the {industry} could have totally different questions and expectations than franchisees with prior expertise in associated companies. One of many key aims of the on-site coach is to determine and prioritize the franchisee’s wants through the first day or two so she will be able to tailor the remaining coaching schedule to finest meet these wants.
On-site coaching is a vital extension of the franchisor’s pre-opening coaching program. New franchisees can simply grow to be overwhelmed and may typically momentarily neglect every thing that has been taught to them. Having the franchisor’s representatives on the website — usually within the type of a gap staff — can ease this transition and be certain that prospects get first impression of the model and the franchisee’s operations. A gap staff helps franchisees break into day-to-day operations slowly, so they do not really feel they’re leaping into the deep finish alone, with out help from the franchisor.
Inside a number of days of the completion of on-site coaching, it is best to present the franchisee with an general written analysis of his or her efficiency within the coaching program. The analysis ought to reference each the franchisee’s strengths and areas during which the franchisee wants further work, and it ought to embrace a selected motion plan with a transparent checklist of aims for the approaching weeks and months.
Ongoing coaching
For the most effective franchisors, coaching would not finish as soon as the startup interval is over. It is a very important ongoing a part of the franchise relationship. For a franchisor to be aggressive in the long term, its franchisees should stay present with {industry} developments and adapt to adjustments available in the market, incorporating new merchandise, companies, advertising and marketing, and working procedures into their companies.
With this in thoughts, each franchise settlement ought to comprise not solely preliminary coaching necessities but additionally particular necessities for ongoing coaching. To attenuate the erosion of system requirements over time as a consequence of an absence of coaching, you could wish to take into account requiring periodic recertification on core competency points for franchisees and their key employees members. Such a program would possibly embrace commonly scheduled refresher coaching for these prime positions, in addition to detailed coaching for all employees on any new merchandise, companies, or procedures which can be launched now and again.
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