So you have a teenager. You have told this teenager an important tip, idea, piece of information, say like one hundred times before and then a friend tells them this same piece of information just once and it is like your teenager has seen the light and that this is the most important piece of information EVER and why has NO ONE told them this before!
It is what is called Parent to Child and Peer to Peer relationships.
Within a franchise, the Franchisor is often in the role of Parent and to a Franchisee in the position of Child. Not that there is an obvious hierarchy, it is just how people work and what happens naturally. On the other hand, the Franchisee to Franchisee relationship is more peer to peer and this is important to have in every great franchise.
Sometimes the best way to get a message to a franchisee is via another franchisee, not from the franchisor.
Just as it is important for a teenager to have friends, not hanging with Mum and Dad all the time, it is important for Franchisees to have friends on the same level as them, experiencing and feeling what they feel on a day to day basis.
Makes sense right?
So how do you encourage this as a Franchisor?
It isn’t actually that hard and it doesn’t actually require lots of ‘formalised’ peer to peer support structures.
One thing I use as franchise business coach is simply dropping the hint to the Franchisee that I’m speaking with that Franchisee XX has done the same thing/gone through the same challenge/has a similar personality and it would be good for them to simply pick up the phone and have a chat.
Use your conference to encourage peer to peer support via team building activities or more formalised, but still ‘casual feeling’ of having round table topics with a Franchisee facilitating the discussion on that topic. That works a treat.
I work with a group that has a closed Facebook group for their franchisees to ask questions and to ‘talk shop’ and it is brilliant. The Franchisor uses the group too, but they kind of use it like, everyone knows they are there and they will post notifications every now and then, but they also don’t butt into the Franchisees ‘conversations’, they let them talk shop. It is hugely successful and if you are worried about negative comments from Franchisees – most of the time, the other Franchisees will pull the negative Franchisee into line, not the Franchisor!
As a franchise business coach, I know I have the answer for franchisees most of the time and even though I have the answer for them, what I’ll do sometimes is get the Franchisee in question to actually ask the question to other Franchisees. Not because I can’t answer it, but because when they talk to the other Franchisees, the original Franchisee realises that they are just the same, everyone goes through these challenges and it gives them CONFIDENCE to move forward. The answer may solve the problem today, but it doesn’t solve the bigger problem of confidence whereas the peer to peer support will.
Yes, peer to peer support is vital. Does it need to be a formal ‘mentoring program’ between franchisees? Not necessarily, sometimes the more casual approach will feel more natural and give a better result. But why risk it – do both!
Tracey
PS. If you have a struggling franchisee, why not grab my free download on my top 10 tips for helping a struggling franchisee – http://www.tinyurl.com/strugglingfranchisee