The Keeper of the Royal Documents

Do you know who in your organization is the keeper of the official System Standards of your franchise system? If you don’t know, then you wouldn't be alone. When asked, many franchisors that we speak with are unable to put their finger on the exact person who is responsible for maintaining one of the most important documents to the company, the System Standards.

The System Standards are the standard procedures that a franchisor requires of all franchisees in order to duplicate the customer experience in every location. The customer experience is the driving force behind profitability. If you have a well prepared Franchise Agreement, it will refer to the Franchise Operations Manual as THE System Standard.

Knowing who is responsible for such an important document is vital to the health of the company. In most cases, nobody knows who is the official keeper of the royal documents, and everybody thinks that somebody else is “that guy”. 

2012 Update

Another year!  Maybe this should be a yearly update like the family Christmas card. 

We’ve continued to add some great new clients over the past year and have had the opportunity to work with some wonderful people.  If you’re thinking about franchising, or need an update to an existing manual, give us a call (214-717-5239) or send an email.  We’ve even been doing some non-franchise manual work.  Oh, and if you just have questions, feel free to drop us a line.  We’re pretty low pressure around here and always love the opportunity to talk shop. 

We have continued to add new clients to the online manual.  We just recently added Radio Shack which has been a great addition.  They have made some great suggestions for improvements to the online delivery system and we’ve added some fantastic new features.  Keep in mind, anytime we add features, we can roll them out to every client free of charge.  Since we recorded our online sales video we have added a ton of new features.  So if you are looking for an online delivery method for your manual, contact us and we can show you some of the new features we’ve added this year.

2011 Update

The horror! I can’t believe it’s been over a year since we’ve updated the blog. Well, much like the postman not wanting to go for a walk, it’s difficult to make time to write blog entries when we’ve spent the day writing great new manuals.

Besides writing new manuals, this year we’ve added more happy clients to our online manual roster. And with new clients come new requested features. One of the great things about the online manual is that when we add new features, typically developed from client requests, we can then roll them out across the platform at no additional cost to you. I think the coolest new feature this year has been a more robust tracking feature. It really makes tracking, approving and monitoring changes simple. As always, give us a call at (214) 717-5239 or shoot us an email if you have questions or would like to see a demo.

Selecting a Franchise: How well is the System Documented?

Recently, on one of the franchisor forums, one of our clients, Thomas Scott of Showhomes, published the following article on how they are using our online manual. It’s a wonderful piece that shows why they are the leader in the home staging business and why they have so many well-informed and successful franchisees.

When you buy a franchise, you are really not buying a business.

You are buying a system for operating a business.

One of the most overlooked pieces of evaluating a franchise is how well the system is documented, how often is it updated and equally important, how accessible is the documentation.

Why is this important?
Most franchise companies use paper manuals – enormous 3-ring binders – that help you get your business off the ground. They may be broken into several smaller binders and labeled Operations, Marketing, Accounting or Grand Opening. These critical documents explain in detail how you open an office, ramp it up, generate revenue and at the end of the day, turn a profit. Following the ‘system’ in a franchise company is the quickest path to becoming a Top Performer.
Not following the system is almost always the quickest path to becoming an Under Performer. Remember, a franchisor doesn’t make money if you don’t so they have a vested interest in making sure you have a well documented, step-by-step procedure to becoming profitable.
Or at least they should. The truth is how do you know before you buy?

At Showhomes Home Staging, my company, we stopped using paper manuals all together. We use a very sophisticated and secure online manual that serves out information in the way you want – always accessible, searchable and secure. Our franchisees can use keyword searches to get basic questions answered, can access documents and can even suggest changes when they come across a hole so our documentation stays sharp 100% of the time. When we add new content, our franchisees get notification emails and have to check off they’ve read the new content so no one gets left behind.

On the franchisor side, we track how often every user accesses the manual, have metrics for how many pages they access and understand how long they spend on each page. This way we know what our franchisees want to learn and what parts are in use so we can always adapt. It also helps us understand what questions franchisees are interested in so we can develop more of what they want and need.

When I ask other franchise executives what percentage of their franchisees access their manual on a regular basis, the number is always shockingly low: 5-10% or less. That means a stunning 95% are not using the system documentation to help them make better decisions day-to-day. Think about it – a huge 3-ring binder is likely to sit on a shelf, gathering dust. Most franchisees have a need to access it but the format makes it difficult. As a result, they ask other owners or call their operations staffer with basic questions, over and over.

Does this hurt the franchisee? You better believe it! When that operations person – the most important person on the corporate team – is answering basic questions, they are not thinking proactively about how to help you grow. Face it – there are only so many hours in a day.

Because we pay attention to this, we know that 35-40% of our franchisees access and use our online manual on a regular basis. We know who does and who doesn’t and this helps our operations and field staff help franchisees grow. It makes for more specific conversations and because our documentation is online, it allows us to leverage the content whenever and wherever we are. Most importantly, it gives our franchisees the ability to help themselves 24 /7. We’d like that number to rise and because we measure it, it will.

Whatever franchise you look at, make sure to ask about the system documentation. Go beyond looking at the table of contents in the FDD. Ask franchisees if they use it on a regular basis and if it helps them run a better performing business. Ask if it is online – in today’s online world, it should be.

We used Kit Vinson from http://www.franman.net/ to help author our manual and port it online.--


Thomas Scott
VP Marketing and Systems Development
Showhomes Home Staging
http://www.showhomesfranchise.com/

Is it OK if your manual is out of date?

“What’s wrong with having a Franchise Operations Manual that is a little out of date? We haven’t changed that much in the past 5 years. Nobody looks at it anyway, right?”

If you have ever thought or said those words, then I encourage you to keep reading because you might walk away from this with a new perspective on your Franchise Operations Manual.

So, what is wrong with having a manual that is a little out of date? There could be a lot wrong with it. Let’s start with the phrase, “a little out of date.” That phrase is relative. To some people, a little out of date might mean 3-6 months. Believe it or not, some franchise systems make it a point to update their manuals every month, and even every week. With the Online Manual by FranMan www.franman.net/onlinemanual.html , you can update your manual multiple times per day if you wanted to. However, the managers that stay on top of the operations manual that way are very few and far between. Usually the manual gets pushed to the back burner because there are always other pressing issues to deal with. This is because most people don’t see a direct correlation between the operations manual and the bottom line. But I digress. We’ll save that topic for another blog entry. Usually, the phrase, “a little out of date” means 5-10 years. I know, it sounds horrible, but I see it all the time.

Here is where the disconnect is. Most people see the operations manual as an event instead of a process. Somehow, somewhere, from somebody, most people are taught that the EVENT of producing an operations manual is completed once the manual goes to print. That is usually followed with a big sigh of relief, “Whew, man am I glad that’s done!” This, in turn, is followed with 5-10 years of silence – nothing but the crickets chirping.

On the surface, everything is fine until one day somebody in the home office decides to crack open the manual and learns that the procedures that are supposed to be the official System Standards are so outdated that they still refer to floppy disks and the up-and-coming World Wide Web. Laugh all you want, but I have seen it, and I have seen it in big systems as well as small ones.

Underneath the surface, however, everything is not fine. A great deal of damage is being done. Here is what’s happening. Existing franchisees have been conditioned to NOT use the manual, and new franchisees learn quickly to NOT use the manual. You might respond, “What? Nobody here teaches our franchisees to NOT use the manual.” Indirectly, you do. By not providing an up-to-date operations manual for your franchisees, you are teaching them that they will not likely find what they need when they reference it. Experience is the best teacher. If experience tells them that the document is useless, then they will conclude that in fact, the document is useless.

Additional damage is being done by the out-of-date manual when it causes franchisees to rely solely on the home office staff to answer all questions. That puts a burden on staff that keeps them from performing other necessary duties. They can’t get anything else done if they spend all day fielding questions from franchisees.

Finally, out-of-date franchise operations manuals can be a nightmare if you ever have to go to court, and the lawsuit involves one of your out-of-date System Standards. That can be very costly.

You can avoid all of this mess by resetting your perception of “manual=event” to “manual=process.” Your Franchise Operations Manual is a process that begins with the production of the manual, but never ends until the company does.

It really does matter if your manual is a little out of date. That’s why nobody looks at it anyway.

Do You "Know" Your Franchise Training Program

Robert Bilotti with Novita www.novitaunique.com recently published a paper that was written for the benefit of the potential franchisee, entitled, “Discovery: The Questions a Potential Franchisee Should Ask About Training.” http://www.novitaunique.com/blog/ (March 26, 2010). In this paper, he does a fantastic job of educating prospective franchisees to ask questions of the franchisor about the training program that they might receive if they decide to invest in the system.

After reading that paper, it should make you think. When was the last time that you stepped back and took a good look at the training program that you provide to your franchisees? I am not talking about the table that you have included in the FDD about what you WANT the training to be like. I am talking about the product that the new franchisee actually receives. Is it organized? Do you provide sufficient training materials? Do you utilize all of the media available to you such as video, e-training, printed materials, etc.? Does your training program actually follow the Franchise Operations Manual that is supposed to be the master document of all of your system standards?

HAVE YOU ACTUALLY SAT IN ON AN ENTIRE TRAINING PROGRAM to “enjoy” the entire experience? Maybe you should.

You should read the article and ask yourself the questions that prospective franchisees may be asking you. Can you answer all of the questions? If you were a prospect, would you be satisfied with your answers?

In reality, you are probably not the best judge of the effectiveness of your training program. Even if you did take the time to sit through your entire training program (assuming that you are not the person that usually delivers it), there is still the problem of perspective. You have a base knowledge of your business that that should be more comprehensive than anyone else in the world. You are the “World’s Leading Authority” on your franchise system. That means that when a concept or procedure is explained in a training program, it could possible sound perfectly clear to you while the rest of the class receives the message with glassed-over eyes.

So, how do you get a fresh perspective on your training program? The best way is to solicit the opinion of a company that specializes in training, more specifically, franchise system training.

To quote Tom Peters, it is always a good idea to “Manage by wandering around” (MBWA). Take off the manager’s cap and wander around your business and observe. Observe your training process for yourself, through the eyes of the student, and see if it meets the same levels of quality that you expect in all of the other areas of your business.

Online manual

It's been a busy month, thus the lack of updates, but if you haven't had the opportunity to look over our Online Manual by FranMan, you should make the time. If you mail out many franchise manual updates, it could save you a ton just on postage and headaches. And as always, if you would like a quick, no pressure, personal demonstration, give Kit a call or drop him an email.