Entrepreneurial Roller Coaster

by John DeHart

I’m a big culture guy. It is my passion. I spend a lot of time in our own company and franchise system, focused on it. To me, you have to have a great culture INSIDE your company in order to build a great brand OUTSIDE of your company. The best and most enduring brands in the world have proven this.

Building a great culture in a franchise system is a unique challenge: at the core, it is a business relationship, which means there is inherent conflict built into the relationship. And that can make it challenging when trying to build a world class culture! So when we started to franchise Nurse Next Door (almost 4 years ago), we started to study the stages of the relationship that a franchisee goes through when they buy and run a franchise. We figured that if we could start to understand this dynamic and evolving relationship, it would help us build a better culture. So we turned to Greg Nathan’s ”6 Stages of a Franchise Relationship.”

Greg Nathan’s “6 stages” model is what every franchisee, no matter what system it is, will go through during their business ownership. Outside of franchising, this model is often referred to as the “entrepreneurial roller coaster.” Here are the 6 stages:

The Glee Stage
When your franchisees are awarded the franchise, and come to training, they are in the Glee stage. Everything is going to be “gleeful” and they love their franchisor, because you are really smart!

The Fee Stage
Once their business is up and running, and they aren’t making much money yet, the franchisee starts to look at the royalty they are paying. They say “Gee, if I didn’t have to pay this royalty I would make money.” This is the Fee stage.

The Me Stage
Once your franchisee has had some time in your system and they start to build their confidence, success starts to come. At this point they may attribute their success mainly (100%?!) to their own hard work. At this stage they start to wonder why they have a franchisor, and believe that they could have gotten to where they are, and succeed on their own ever thereafter, without the franchisor.

The Free Stage
Confidence (or frustration) has grown to the point where it might be time to leave if significant changes don’t occur. A franchisee may start to feel resentful at having to follow the franchisor system, and may start to gain some freedom by doing it “their way.”This is the make or break stage and usually requires a good, (and serious) face to face conversation between the franchisor and franchisee to discuss the mutual frustration both parties are experiencing.

The See Stage
If the conversation in the FREE stage can happen, and if acceptance and letting go of the past by both parties can occur, then the “See” stage can happen. This is where both parties SEE the benefits of having each other, and realize everything isn’t always the others fault! This is a good place to get too.

The We Stage
From the See stage there is a natural progression to the We stage – a move from independent to interdependent thinking. At this point the franchisee is prepared to put his or her ego aside and recognizes that success and satisfaction generally come more easily from working with, rather than against, their franchisor.

At Nurse Next Door, we not only teach our business development coaches on how to handle these stages, we teach our franchisees on what to expect at each stage. They’ll always ask, “really? I’m going to go through that?” Yup.

By doing this, it has helped us build a strong culture because we understand how to coach and guide a partner through each of the stages.

John DeHart
Co-Founder
Nurse Next Door

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

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