YES, YOU CAN ACHIEVE THOSE GOALS

How to gain confidence in your business so you can hit your targets.

Good training can give you the confidence to reach your targets.

What would you need to develop business confidence for your franchise?

For most of us, great training is essential. That’s because when you’ve done all the homework and committed to an exciting new adventure as a franchisee, it’s still all new and unfamiliar. Even if you bring industry experience to your business there will be new processes, systems, rules and, on top of that, business ownership, to manage.

Training – building business confidence – is fundamental.

David Wilkinson, InXpress Asia Pacific franchise sales director, says helping a franchisee gain business confidence can be challenging, especially when they are entering a new industry and/or new role. An ongoing blended learning approach is crucial, he suggests.

“At InXpress, we understand that learning is not just an event. Learning is happening all around us, all the time through informal learning. InXpress is continually evaluating our entire learning strategy but has placed a new emphasis on informal learning strategies to keep the franchisees engaged and involved in learning.

“Our franchisees develop a level of business confidence when we keep them connected to content, the business and to others that can help them learn and grow.”

ALLAYING FRANCHISEE FEARS

Business confidence comes from understanding how to deal with the unexpected or unknown. Wilkinson says it’s only natural for brand new franchisees to be anxious about their responsibilities.

“If you’re buying a franchise on Friday and starting on Monday, I’ll ask, ‘Are you nervous?’ Everyone says yes. And you should be. If you’re calm and collected after making such a massive life change, maybe you’re not taking it seriously enough,” he points out.

“If you’re nervous, you are uncomfortable so you’re in a position of learning, and that’s good because the next 12 to 18 months will be a huge learning curve,” cautions Wilkinson.

“Some of the fears are ‘What happens when I get face to face with a customer for the first time?’ Sometimes the fear is ‘What if they say yes?’ It’s easy to handle a no, you’re in and out in five minutes. Another fear is ‘What if they ask questions I don’t know the answers to?’.”

At this point Wilkinson references what he calls iceberg options. As you would imagine, most of us deal regularly with the tip of the iceberg.

“I don’t know everything. We don’t know everything. So we teach our franchisees where to find the answer and who to turn to.”

CASE STUDY: BOOTCAMP IS JUST THE

BEGINNING

InXpress is a business-to-business freight and logistics service. Starting out in this type of industry is quite different from opening the doors to a cafe or a gym. Business confidence is particularly important to business service franchisees, who have no tangible products or assets to attract customers.

That’s why in a two-week bootcamp that marks the start of InXpress training for newbie franchisees, a full five days is devoted to business confidence. But the lessons learned are equally applicable to any franchise operation.

The first five days of the fortnight are about learning systems and technical aspects of the business. InXpress brings in a mix of trainers to coach, including partner carriers to educate franchisees about products and services.

The second five days, devoted to

mindset sales, are managed by the internal training team of David Wilkinson, business performance manager Alan Brackenbury, and Bobby-Jo Monro, operations and training manager.

Apart from the passion for personal development through training, the success of the learning process comes from setting really clear expectations, says Wilkinson. He often cites a Mike Tyson quote, “Everybody has a plan until you get hit in the mouth”.

Says Wilkinson, “In a business based around cold calling, you’re going to have to deal with lots of rejection from day one. It’s what you have to deal with on a daily basis. We teach franchisees how to keep their mindset in the right space.”

Openness and transparency about what to expect before they sign up is a crucial step in franchisee success in training, he points out.

“We bring franchisees in throughout the process to share their experiences. It’s really beneficial to hear from the mouths of franchisees, that’s a little bit of confidence. The other thing we do in 52 weeks of onboarding [integrating new franchisees into business] is constant contact. We’re talking three points of contact every week, and then a group call with the onboarding team.

“One thing I think we do really well is harbour communities of franchisees in different steps of the journey.”

The seven new franchisees who participate in any onboarding bootcamp will be forever linked as a class and put into a WhatsApp group so they can share their failures and successes. The peer-to-peer learning is a significant element of continual learning for the franchise network, says Wilkinson.

InXpress mixes up the novices group with an experienced franchisee able to add some balance to the conversation.

There are three distinct franchise groups in the logistics network.

First up is Onboarding, which is expected to be a 12-month process although some people do graduate early.

Heart of the Network caters for the middle 60 per cent of franchisees who require less intensive support and don’t need three calls a week. They might be employing a staff member or looking to sign up offshore support.

“We’re looking for and starting to build different skill sets,” says Wilkinson.

The high performing 20 per cent of the Network sits in a Top Gun group. “They are growing exponentially and their skill set is very different. They might need help with self-management, scaling the business differently, or boosting automation so they can step out of the business.”

In addition to any phone call mentoring sessions, franchisees learn about business through the business and quarterly reviews, which are all numbers driven. There is financial and business planning early on. Wilkinson talks of “firing the CEO” in the first 12 months and building margin or revenue from the start.

“I think it’s quite a relief for new franchisees that you don’t have to wear the

CEO hat for the first year.

“What you have to do is produce income, ask great questions, and consult with clients. You’ll be doing the ‘do’.”