Greg Nathan Franchise Relations Tip #36: Six Ways to Predict Franchise Success

This week Greg discusses tips and tools to help franchisors predict the success of potential franchisees.

Six Ways to Predict Franchisee Success

Years ago an enthusiastic client, Grant Garroway, asked if I could develop a tool to help him assess the future performance of potential franchisees.

Grant was the recruitment manager of an established franchisor and had a wicked sense of humour.

“You're a smart guy,” he quipped. “Perhaps you could develop something the candidate puts his finger into and it prints out a detailed profile of how successful he will be.”

We both laughed at this ridiculous idea. But I did take up the challenge of finding a way to help franchisors wanting to understand how to assess the suitability of prospective franchisees.

Why employee measures don't work on franchisees

As a psychologist, I have access to a wide range of assessment tests and research.

What I discovered is something most of you already know. Being a franchisee is very different than being an employee. This meant the traditional employee assessment tools didn't work very well on franchisees.

In fact, I found a negative correlation between some of the most common measures, such as intelligence and franchise performance. I guess sometimes smart people just think and question too much when they should just be getting on with things.

Research findings

Some 15 years later I've learned a thing or two about franchisee recruitment and performance. Here are a Si vous etes passionne de jeux de roulette, blackjack, baccarat ou des cartes a gratter, Rome met ces jeux a votre disposition. few gems we've discovered through our research on thousands of franchisees.

1. The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. So if you want to know whether a person will take initiative or cope with pressure, find out how well they have done this in the past.
2. Most franchise recruitment managers talk too much in meetings with franchisees. If you want learn about someone, ask good, quality questions and listen carefully.
3. The extent to which a franchisee has people in their life that care about them will have an enormous impact on their motivation, ability to deal with the challenges of the business, and their ultimate performance.
4. A franchisee's attitude to your brand and culture, what we call their level of “brand passion,” will have a highly significant impact on their engagement with your franchise programs as well as their sales and profit performance.
5. The only way to get an accurate view of someone is to look at them from three different angles, a technique known as triangulation. The three best techniques to use are a carefully worded application form, a self-assessment profile, and a structured interview.
6. While personality tests are poor predictors of business performance, some traits such as optimism, achievement drive and the ability to connect with people are good predictors of performance.

We'll be talking more about predictors of franchisee success at our upcoming Profitable Partnerships Boot Camps September 23 & 24 – Dallas and October 4 & 5 in Denver.

Until next time.

Greg Nathan
Founder
Franchise Relationships Institute

P.S.  I'll be a guest this week on a Special Edition of Franchise Today on BlogTalk Radio. Join us on August 23 and August 24 at 11:00 CDT for a lively discussion with Paul Segreto on how to create healthy franchise relations in any system.

Here are the links to the two Special Editions of Franchise Today: