Gather you, then me

One of the prime advantages of franchising is that it enables an entrepreneur to get on with the real task of selling goods and services. The 'other' stuff - ensuring that the franchise concept remains relevant to the market and retains a market-leading position - is then left to someone else (ie, the franchisor).

The responsibility of developing, improving, enhancing and modifying the system, as well as the small matter of innovation, rests with the franchisor. More often than not, this is written into franchise agreements as one of the franchisor's key obligations. It is also something upon which franchisors place a great deal of importance and which they promote as a positive characteristic of their franchise.

But franchisors know that they cannot work in isolation. They may be at the coalface themselves, through their own company-owned operations, but few have the sort of geographical spread of company-owned operations as would enable them to assess the true requirements of the market.

Any research and development policy of a franchisor therefore should include a degree of franchisee involvement. Most franchisors take one or more of their franchisees into their confidence and use them as a sounding board for their intentions. Franchisors also use selected franchisees to market-test an innovation. This aspect of the franchisor's obligations can therefore be performed with relevant ease.

However, the story does not end there. Having developed a new product, devised a new method of offering a service or developed or improved the system, the franchisor then has to sell it to its franchised network. Although the franchise agreement may give the franchisor certain rights to insist upon franchisees adopting and or adapting any change, common sense dictates that franchisors will be more successful if they can persuade their franchisees to buy in to the change.

The practical way to do this is to invite franchisees in for face-to-face meetings. These can be held either on a regional or a national basis, depending on the size and nature of the franchise.

Most mature franchisors hold such gatherings at least once a year. In the US, there are certain times of the year - usually January, February or March - when convention fever grips the franchise sector and franchisees head south towards the sun for a two or three-day convention.

Franchisee meetings serve a useful purpose. Many are designed to be motivating sessions to enthuse franchisees into increasing their turnovers and so on. Some are used by franchisors as a means of explaining to their franchisees the franchisor's policies and intentions for the short and medium term. Some are used as a means of introducing and selling to their franchisees new products, services, changes to the system and so on. And for others, the aim is to facilitate "bonding" among franchisees and between franchisors' personnel and various franchisees. Mostly, such franchisee meetings provide for a combination of a number, if not all, of these features.

It is not unusual for US franchisors (and increasingly for UK franchisors) to encourage intra-group competition by having their own system of awards. Award categories often include the greatest improvement in performance, the largest turnover, the biggest contract, or the most pro-active (for example, by putting forward new ideas for a product or services).  This sort of feedback is taken seriously by many franchisors and, indeed, is increasingly recognised as a means by which franchisees can make a valuable contribution for the benefit of the network as a whole. 

If it is all so easy, logical, sensible and constructive, why don't all franchisors hold such gatherings? 

Some of the answers are obvious. Fledgling franchisors do not have a good enough reason to organise a convention during their formative years, while other franchisors may not have a sufficient number of franchisees to justify organising such an event, especially if they are able to deal with most of their franchisees on a one-to-one basis regularly.

Some franchisors, however, are just plain scared of holding meetings. This may be a result of insecurity on the part of the franchisor or their fear may be based on a genuine reason. But too often, the fear is simply that if they get all their franchisees under one roof, the franchisees will start 'bitching' about the franchisor. Some may even form pressure groups and gain strength from their numbers, something which their franchisor may feel it can do without at a particular stage of its development.

But on the whole and almost without exception, it has been my experience that franchisee meetings can be a positive force within any franchised network. They help to create an esprit de corps, encourage the commercially ambitious to perform better, fire up those franchisees who may be in the doldrums and motivate those who are under-performing.

Franchisee meetings can be a very important tool in managing a franchised network and, as with everything else, if well planned and executed can benefit all concerned. For franchisors, it is not an easy task. But then, success seldom comes easily and if at the end of a franchisee meeting it seems to franchisees to have been worthwhile, then the franchisor will have succeeded.