Big Isn't Always Better

by John DeHart

I befriended the franchisee of a competitor, through a keynote speech I was delivering on building a great culture within your company. They are a franchisee of a system with about 200-300 units, and from the outside, they look pretty good (I don’t admire all of our home care competitors out there but there are a few good ones). As I have gotten to know this franchisee, a few things have stood out.

• Their franchisor hasn’t visited her yet. (They have been at it over one year now). At Nurse Next Door, we make it a point to see our franchisees every four months for a total of three times per year. Why? Because we know that in a relationship, that’s when you need to "talk". That is about the time when frustrations (on both sides) can start to build. So we see them. It is also a great opportunity for training.

• The franchisee’s real frustration came with the lack of response to her issues. Apparently she wasn’t getting answers to some of the problems she was struggling with in the business. So, I told her to forward me some questions, and I would pass them on to our team. I thought it would be a good test to see if my team could do it. When I got the questions, I was surprised. I wrote back. "These are fairly simple questions, go back and re-read your operations manual, all of the answers should be in there". Well, I guess they weren't.

They couldn’t respond to her and give her an answer? Crazy. At Nurse Next Door, we are building a culture of caring – for our home care clients but also our franchisees. Our team has to get back to a franchisee within 24 hours when they have an issue/question. And usually it is much faster.

I am sure her system does many great things, but a system should be visiting their franchisees, they should have established guidelines of how they will respond to questions (including the time it takes), and it should have an established support team, (I have no doubt that her franchisor could answer these questions, but are probably overwhelmed because of a lack of support infrastructure.

So as you look at franchise systems, ensure these seemingly simple practices are in place. And remember that just because the system you are looking at is "big", it doesn’t mean its better.

John DeHart
Co-Founder
Nurse Next Door

Learn more about Nurse Next Door at topfranchises.franchisebusinessreview.com.

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