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RSS feedsStuart Henry
Professionals specialist, HSBC
Having successfully grown the business, one of the challenges is to make the franchisees self-sufficient. To do this, Julie and Deborah need to ensure that each franchisee knows what to do, how they are to do it and what performance and quality standards need to be in place. They need to develop a continuous training programme with regular monitoring of performance.
The marketing research for driver skills awareness should have identified the potential market and competitors. A strong marketing strategy is essential to ensure the right areas are being targeted. The use of press coverage could be invaluable or linking up with a law firm to provide seminars on recent legislation changes. Business networking events could provide a valuable source of potential leads providing a platform to market the new business and service.
There is a danger of insufficient time or resources to provide the necessary focus to ensure success. Having both businesses established and profitable would provide a better base for launching the consultancy business.
Despite their poor previous experience, Business Link can be an excellent source of advice and assistance offering training schemes, which could benefit the partners in areas of time management and administration.
John Dunsmore
Managing director, British Chambers of Commerce
Administration and red tape are the bane of all small businesses. Franchise businesses suffer more than most as they are required to ensure compliance and consistency across their network of partners.
Get a grip of your admin and systems while you are still relatively small. Start by deciding what administrative practices and documentation are critical to successfully run your business. Document them. Create rules, tools and systems for their efficient delivery. Then make compliance and training on how to use them a mandatory part of your franchise agreement.
Invest in defining business-enhancing systems up front and they will help you run the business better and help with the professionalism of the company. Over time, they will reduce the time spent redoing admin or chasing instructors.
At this level of turnover you should take this seriously.
Now you can create them quickly, link them to your brand principles and
implement without it being too costly.
Finally, look at how the internet might help you to manage the business more
effectively – the establishment of a private intranet would help to link your
instructors and act as the glue that holds your administration and management
together.
Nick Winters
Partner, Vantis
What really strikes me here is the lack of useful business intelligence that Julie and Deborah have access to. By not being able to say what their pass rate is, they are missing a potentially very powerful marketing trick.
They should design a very simple form for each instructor to fill in on, say, a monthly or quarterly basis. This should provide basic information on the number of students/hours taught/tests entered/passes and fails.
Julie and Deborah have said that time management and failure to charge for all the services they offer are issues. The two go hand-in-hand. They need to find out which of the things they currently offer are real differentiators for the business. Pupils should be asked to complete a short questionnaire after taking their driving test to find out some simple information such as what made them choose to learn with Ab Fab and why they would recommend Ab Fab to others.
Similarly, days out for instructors and their families may foster team spirit, but they take up time with no known return. Julie and Deborah should do some research among their instructors and pupils to find out which services they really value and, crucially, what they would be prepared to pay extra for. This will allow Ab Fab to introduce charges without concern that this will turn instructors away from working with them.
To read the case study click here
All Practice Management
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