A franchise training program is one of the fundamental reasons why your franchise business will succeed in different markets with numerous franchisees. It’s all there – product and service information, operations details, marketing, accounting procedures – everything you need to operate a business. As a franchisor, you know how the system works, you’ve refined it and can offer that valuable knowledge to a new operator.
The training is most likely going to begin with the franchise operations manual. This tool will lay out the operations standards expected of you as the franchisor. It’s a critical tool for development and operations that you’ll want by your side when you first open your doors and as you grow your franchise business. The operations manual is a good starting point and template for more intense and hands-on training that’s to come.
If you’re actively looking to expand your franchise, you probably have a lot of questions going through your head. Like:
- How much time and money should I need to invest?
- What franchisees profile should I look into?
- How long will it take to for my brand develop in different markets?
Without a doubt, those are all good questions to ask. Everyone looking to franchise asks them.
But what about the questions that aren’t top of mind?
Like, how am I going to ensure everything on how my franchisees will be operating my franchise business?
There are two ways for you to teach how to own and operate your franchise business.
1. Formal training by the franchisor.
2. On the job training.
Your job as the “FRANCHISOR” is to ensure your franchisees can replicate and operate your franchise business successfully. And a few weeks into the franchising your business, no doubt they’ll get the feel of it.
Once you’ve received your franchise fee and have signed your franchise agreement, several other things occur. There are other things that will happen once you’re officially a franchisor, but for the purpose of this article, let’s stick with the training.
Odds are you’ll have to get franchisees to travel to headquarters to get trained on various aspects of your franchise business. Thanks to technology, few franchisors now include online training. In most cases, the online portion occurs well before the travel to headquarters for in-person training. It’s known as pre-training, and it’s becoming more popular—especially given recent events.
As a matter of fact, most franchisees like this type of training a lot. In addition, they all feel it helps them feel way more prepared for their in-person training at headquarters. In a perfect world, you train on everything you need to know about operating your franchise business. In reality, typical franchise training programs come pretty close to that ideal.
One of the backbones of a strong franchise organization is training and support for franchisees. Here are some of the things you’ll teach about during franchise training:
- Organized and detailed information about the products and services of your brand
- Assistance in financial management, site selection, and real estate
- Help with building design, leases, and permits
- Some basic training on how to hire and manage employees
- Explanation of all marketing and co-op advertising initiatives
- Implementation of computer and accounting systems
- Details on how to procure inventory, equipment, and supplies
- Internal IT system management
- Employee management
- Payroll management
- Working with vendors
- Customer acquisition&Customer retention
Yes, This Can be Overwhelming
All new franchisors feel overwhelmed at some time before they open their businesses. It’s completely normal. That’s because if you’re leaving your business in others hands. But isn’t the “not knowing how to expand a business” one of the major reasons you went down the franchise path, to begin with?
Always include questions about franchise training. Ask them how well prepared they felt when they took the franchise training program.
There’s more to training than learning how to get your business open& running. When the franchise launches a new product/service, you, as a franchisor, will need to teach in regard to the same. In addition, with technology seemingly always being updated, and in some cases, changed, you’ll need to be trained on those changes.
You won’t need to train from the headquarters on new items. Instead, your franchisee training program will take place online in a group setting. Sometimes, this additional training is held at a regional location near to where you are located, or a trainer from corporate may be sent to your location.
Finally, if you ever feel you need to give a refresher course on some of the topics/operations, schedule a training program semi-annually/quarterly to update your franchisees. It is important for the franchisee to understand and the training given to them, as this will help them adopt and adapt to the business smoothly. We at Sparkleminds with over 20+ years of experience have developed some really complex franchise training program manuals for our clients and it has helped them immensely to establish fruitful franchises.
