Who is the most important person in your franchise? The answer is quite simple, it is YOU. The owner of any business is the most important person in it. Your franchise is your chosen vehicle to serve you and your family and to help realise your goals and dreams. Second to that is not your customer, but your staff or your team. I recommend the word team, because it is much more descriptive of what you and your staff should be.
The challenge however, with many franchisees is that you either are dealing with junior, sometimes entry level staff, or simply cannot afford the best staff yet. Because of this, staff retention becomes a major headache and you are either stuck with bad staff who don’t ever leave, or the opposite, where your great staff always leave.
The cycle of business
The solution is a simple one and involves mastering the “cycle of business”. Too often however, we as the owners of a franchise want to jump in and serve the customers ourselves. We either ‘push’ our staff out of the way and do it ourselves or, even worse, go over their heads, or behind their backs, all in the interest of great customer service. If you shortcut the cycle, you will always be at the mercy of your staff and your business will become your biggest nightmare. The ‘Cycle of Business’ is therefore critical to master. First and foremost, it starts with you, the owner, serving your team. You’re the team captain and your role in your business is no different to the role of the captain of your favourite sports team. You nurture, motivate, challenge, direct, support, instruct, provide a shoulder to cry on, sometimes speak loudly and everything else that is required to move the whole team towards the desired outcome. You need a clear direction or target and as captain you need to take them there with you. Sometimes you’ll lead from the front, sometimes you’ll push from behind and often you may walk next to them but your focus should always be the team and it’s collective performance.
Collective learning
Secondly, you need to work hard and consistently at leading, managing, training and directing your team to serve your customers. Staff members are wired to try and impress and generally want to provide good service; often they simply don’t know how. Make sure you prepare your team for every eventuality and role play different scenarios before they happen. If ever there is a breakdown in a customer experience, use the opportunity to learn from it and empower your team to be better equipped next time round. A mistake is simply feedback that the whole team can learn from – collective learning for the greater good of the team.
Happy customers
Thirdly, with your high-performing team owning the customer relationship, you should have much happier customers. Happy customers come back more often and tend to spend more money when they do. They also tell their friends and families and the profitable interactions can therefore snowball. Let your team see every potential customer as a lifetime customer and treat him or her accordingly from the first contact. Have your team nurture them, invite them back, show gratitude for their business and allow them to feel special, and your profitability will increase beyond your wildest dreams.
Business growth
Fourthly, those happy customers help grow your business, which in turn serves you. Grumpy, unfulfilled business owners tend to permeate their feelings throughout their teams and seepage to their customers is inevitable. When you can see your business serving you, both in financial terms and in hitting milestones, achieving goals and providing a vehicle to support you and your family, you will fall back in love with your business over and over again. If you’re in love with your business, you drive that cycle even harder and ever faster and results are astounding.
A winning team
Mastering the ‘Cycle of Business’ is not only critical to a thriving business but an absolute imperative to your success. If you serve your team, they serve your customers and in turn the business is vibrant and successful enough to support you and you end up winning. Any team loves winning and your staff want to be part of that winning. Winning in business is profitable, comes with less effort and ensures you’re making a significant contribution to all the stakeholders involved.