Tips for Successfully Onboarding Your Franchisees: How to Ensure a Smooth Transition and Accelerate Growth

You know the success of your business relies on the success of your franchisees. With their support and achievements, you can certainly fulfill your vision of scaling your brand. We get it- it can be overwhelming to ensure you have taken the necessary steps to set them up with a solid foundation for success, all the while not overstepping.  Proper onboarding is critical for ensuring that new franchisees understand your business systems and receive the necessary training to be successful.  A well-planned onboarding strategy can provide several benefits including establishing trust,  ensuring collaboration, minimizing conflicts, preventing disruptions, and enhancing the credibility of the brand.

When does Onboarding Begin?

Onboarding will actually begin when you are introducing your brand, culture, and story during a detailed introduction to potential franchisees. Once you have awarded a franchise to a new franchisee they have officially become part of your team and a comprehensive onboarding process should begin. This will include teaching processes, procedures, policies, and providing resources to help them operate their business successfully. It’s also important to provide detailed training so that they understand how to use each of these resources. This could include manuals, videos, webinars, or even one-on-one sessions with experienced professionals who can explain the finer points of your operations.

Values , Goals and What Makes your Franchise Unique

You should also emphasize your goals/expectations for franchisee performance and the steps needed to achieve these goals.  Also, make sure to explain key differentiators that your franchise offers compared to competitors. This is what sets them apart in their territory! In addition, you’ll want to ensure your franchisees understand your company culture and how to represent it by sharing your brand’s mission statement and core values. This will help establish positive habits from the start.  Now let’s break down key onboarding steps.

Steps to Consider During Onboarding

• Orientation and Training: The franchisor should provide a detailed orientation program that covers the basics of the franchise system, including the business model, brand standards, and operational procedures. Additionally, the franchisor should provide comprehensive training on how to run the franchise business.
• Legal and Financial Assistance: The franchisor should help the franchisee navigate the legal and financial requirements of starting a business, including setting up the franchisee’s legal entity, securing financing, and obtaining necessary permits and licenses.
• Site Selection and Equipment: The franchisor should provide guidance if a site is needed, which includes helping the franchisee find a suitable location for their business based on demographics, competition, and other factors.
• Marketing and Advertising: The franchisor should provide the franchisee with marketing and advertising support, including guidance on branding, promotional materials, and advertising channels. You can maintain the image of your brand by making marketing support an ongoing process.
• Plans and preparation to open their franchise: The franchisor should provide resources such as a checklist to help the franchisee track progress, plan their opening date, and prepare for their grand opening event.
• Accounting Procedures: The franchisor should share expectations for the franchisee’s financial records and books while providing other helpful guidance on accounting procedures.
• Franchise Business Coach – FBC: Onboarding can be a stressful time for new franchisees as they adjust to a new system and learn their roles. An FBC will provide help the franchisee set goals, manage expectations, provide ongoing support, and ensure success.
• Consider Monday.com. This is a cloud-based, user friendly project management platform designed to help teams plan, organize and track their work. It provides a suite of collaborative tools including boards, timelines, resource lists and more that can be used to manage your onboarding, or projects, from start to finish. Monday.com also offers powerful automation capabilities that allow users to automate repetitive tasks and streamline team processes. Learn more here. Monday.com

Ongoing Support

Supporting your franchisees should be seen as a continuous journey, not just limited to initial onboarding and training. it is essential to know that your franchisees will require dedicated, ongoing support for long-term success. This may include ongoing training, marketing assistance, operational support, regular check-ins, and access to support materials, such as webinars and training sessions. Regular communication is essential to ensure that your franchisees are continuously staying up-to-date on the latest changes, best practices, and marketing and promotional strategies. This will help keep them motivated and accountable.

Consider Hiring an expert in Onboarding, Training and Support!

At EmmerScale, we use our proven system and our expertise to ensure your new franchisees know your system and have all the necessary training to become successful. EmmerScale’s onboarding processes will leave your Franchisees feeling prepared, valued and supported as they begin their new business. In addition our onboarding specialist will provide disruptive solutions to support your training and onboarding processes. We will leave you prepared to provide ongoing support. CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE.

In Conclusion

Overall, your onboarding program should set the franchisee up for success while also helping them feel valued and supported as they begin their new business venture. Display and encourage open communication and transparency.  This approach can lead to greater engagement, positive feedback, and more success for franchisees across the board.  They should feel they are part of a successful, unified team. Increasing franchisee satisfaction ensures your brand is well on its way to scale and your franchisees are well on their way to success!