Franchisors Should Avoid Special Treatment
As a former franchisor, now retired, I often think back about the relationships I’ve built with our franchisees when we first got going. It seems to me that our first 25 to 50 franchisees were all on my speed dial, I knew them all by name, as well as their families, and even their pets. However, as the franchise company grew larger and larger, I didn’t know all the franchisees by name, nor did I talk to them very much. Rather I relied on our older franchisees that I had a relationship with to feed the information the marketplace to help us modify our franchise business model to compete.
Now then, I would like to explain how old a franchisor founder can get into this trap. You see, if you are constantly talking to a small group of franchisees, they will come to you with their complaints, and you will solve their individual problems, and yet you won’t assist other franchisees with the same problem, or handle their frustrations, and therefore allow hostility to form with disgruntled franchisees, that you had no idea were out there.
Sometimes, it’s good to take some of those original franchisees and put them into more of a leadership position, making then the regional heads of larger groups of franchisees, and sort of a mini Franchisee Association within your organization. Therefore, franchisees that are having problems will go to them first, and then when those leadership franchisees get a number of complaints which are similar, they will come to you. I used to have a rule; “call three, then me,” in other words, talk to other franchisees first about any challenge you have, then if no one knows the answer call me personally and here’s my direct cell phone number.






