You are not alone. In fact, EVERY franchisor has struggling franchisees, it is just a matter of how many and what they classify as struggling.
In fact, about 10% of your franchisees should be in your category of ‘struggling franchisees’ because no matter what, if you rank your franchisees, there will always be a bottom 10% just as there will always be a top 10%.
There are two things….
- What is your ‘classification’ for struggling? Is that they are not profitable? Is it that they are profitable, but not as profitable as they could be? (wouldn’t that be a great bottom 10%). Is it because they are struggling with time or health?
- How many are in this ‘Struggling Classification’? Just because you have a bottom 10%, that doesn’t mean they are the only franchisees limited to tick the boxes on ‘struggling’. If say you have 100 franchisees, then by the bottom 10% rule of thumb, you should have 10 (or hopefully less) franchisees struggling. But if 20 franchisees are meeting your ‘struggling classification’ then you have a problem.
My thoughts are that 1 in 10 franchisees probably shouldn’t have become a franchisee. It is no fault to anyone, just one of those things where by someone has got into business and then realised it is not for them. My analogy is always that I can go to a restaurant and see a chicken dish on the menu and say, ‘Oh, that looks good. I’ll have that’. But when the dish arrives and I start eating it, well, maybe I just don’t like it.
Having a bottom 10% is inevitable as you will always have a top 10% as well. You want the bottom 10% who are ‘struggling’ to actually be OK, not dire straights struggling. But at the same time, you could have 10% of your franchisees that simply shouldn’t be in the business just as I shouldn’t have ordered the chicken. No one’s fault – not even the chicken’s fault – just not right for me.
If though you have 20% of your franchisees (or whatever number above 10%) that “fit” the struggling classification…. Then YOU have a problem, not the franchisees.
Be it that you are not supporting them enough, your training is inefficient, your business model simply isn’t profitable or profitable enough or you are recruiting the wrong types of people. You need to stop and look at yourself and your business if you have more than 10% of your franchisees struggling. Something is not right, something needs to be improved.
What can you do if you have struggling franchisees?
Why not come an download my Top 10 Tips for Helping Struggling Franchisees (it’s free) to start with…. Maybe there might be an idea in there to help you.
http://www.tinyurl.com/strugglingfranchisee
Have a great week!
Tracey