What would motivate a company to select the franchising model for company growth? Most people will consider franchising a large and unfamiliar undertaking. It’s certainly easier to interview and hire managers for each new location and work them through your standard system, teaching them the detail of how your business is run and allowing them to do their work. Franchising requires legal document development, a new advertising strategy, understanding requirements that differ depending on the areas you’ll be expanding into and numerous other specialized tasks that have to be mastered in order to sign up successful franchisees. Why bother with all of this “new work” when your current system allows you to forge on with your current strategy?
The answer to that question is both simple and powerful: Ownership Stake.
Franchising brings in a completely different level of commitment from your new stakeholder, elevating them from and employee to a partner. The vested interest a partner has in succeeding is difficult to achieve when hiring an employee. A partner has a demonstrated commitment to the company whereas an employee an employee may move on to another company, may become disgruntled and work with less than full devotion or may simply lose interest in the company’s higher aspirations and achieve only what they perceive is fair to them in their work day. Employees are generally great, but things do change and if an employee leaves based on their new circumstance, you are back at point A and starting again with the hiring and training process.
A partner recruited as a franchisee is in for the long haul; they have a stake in the future of your company and are far more likely to maintain a serious commitment to your business for the balance of their career. Turnover is drastically reduced, allowing you to invest your time into a person who will be there in the future, regardless of changing circumstances. Yes, there is an investment of time and money at the outset of franchising, but once you get it set up the value of having vested partners instead of employees is almost impossible to overstate.
