TOPICALADVICE
Phil Harrison (FCA) has over 30 years’ experience in the franchise sector and heads the franchise department at Morris & Co Chartered Accountants – bfa affiliates and accountants for several franchise networks. Phil regularly shares his knowledge at training seminars held on behalf of the bfa.
I have been told that my franchisees’ performance could be improved by having a network-wide accounting and reporting system. Would this really help to improve my business?
A network-wide accounting solution, which these days often includes an online accounting package, can certainly improve profitability if you choose a good supplier of accountancy services experienced in the franchise sector.
You and your franchisees should receive prompt management information that will help franchisees develop their businesses. By having a network supplier of accounting services you will be able to benchmark your franchisees against key performance indicators. This will enable you to focus on problem areas when you are speaking to your franchisees and help them improve those areas. It will also motivate underperforming franchisees to improve if they see that they are below the network average.
A good accounting solution will also give you more detail and insight into your business and trends. If your network is stagnating there are various questions you should be asking: • Does it provide sufficient incentive for your franchisees? • Is the product too expensive or the royalties too high? • Would it be better to increase the franchise fee to enable more ongoing training and reduce royalties to encourage growth?
• Do you need to encourage the resale of franchises to bring in new franchisees with renewed enthusiasm?
All these factors should be discussed with the accountancy provider and if the right systems are in place, the necessary reporting to enable you to make these decisions should be readily available.
Sally Anne Butters is director of media at Coconut Creatives, a leading franchise recruitment marketing company.
How do I get rid of negative feedback online about my company that could affect my business and moreover put off potential franchisees?
If you were to have a 100 per cent customer and franchisee satisfaction rate then you’d be one in a million! There will probably always be a negative review of your service or product out there somewhere on the web at any given time. What is important is that you monitor all mentions of your company online so that you can react if you need to. You can do this simply and for free by setting up a Google alert for your company name.
Most prospects will google your company name before proceeding too far down their research line and if they find negative reviews of the franchise or your core business in the first page of results then this could mean that they simply reject you there and then. A simple google of your brand name will show what comes up. Firstly, if the negative review is recent then you should try to contact the reviewer privately, address the problem and then ask them to remove the review once they are happy with the resolution. You can also use your website and other websites to publish positive new stories to push the negative reviews off the first page of Google results.
Quite often, a negative review can come from a customer or franchisee not having their expectations met. Misunderstanding invariably comes from marketing messages not being clear across a brand’s full communication mix such as ads, brochures, videos and website. If you make all of your communications consistent then you will set clear expectations of your company behaviour, product or service and reduce the possibility of negative reviews. n
If you would like to ask our experts a question please email
fnews@vmgl.com Franchisor News | 15
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