The Corporate Puzzle
The 7 specific areas you need to consider in your franchise prototype process:
- Primary Aim
- Strategic Objectives
- Organisational Strategy
- Management Strategy
- People Strategy
- Marketing Strategy
- Systems Strategy
These 7 areas will fine turn your plan for the ultimate level of success. In this lesson, we are going to cover the first three.
Primary Aim
It’s essential in business development to set goals and see a vision for the future. This needs to go beyond the business and you need to think about what you want out of life. What do you dream about? How do you see your success unfolding? Knowing and understanding these things will give you the momentum to get started and the stamina to see it through. Even take a minute to write them down and tape to your desk for a constant reminder of what you’re aiming for.
Strategic Objectives
These are essential in taking your business from surviving to thriving. All of these objectives should offer solutions for how to get to your primary aim. There are many things you can use to set strategic objectives, but here is a couple of the most popular:
- Money: Setting monetary goals is a great, simple way to see how you are doing at any point in the game. It’s easy to measure and easy to find adjustments to help meet this goal.
- Worthy Opportunities: When considering partnerships and other business opportunities you need to think about whether or not they will help you reach your primary aim. Those that will are the best opportunities to seriously consider.
The key to setting standards and goals is not to limit you or stress yourself out. You need to find some quantifiable things you can use to measure your progress toward your primary aim. These are just two suggestions, but make sure no matter what your standards you set you are paying attention to the details, as these are one of the biggest keys to your success.
Organisational Strategy
The strength of your organizational structure can make or break your business, so it’s important to take the time to put together a solid structure for your business to grow from. Generally, a company is organized around the roles and responsibilities that need to be taken care of on a daily basis and the personalities that need to fulfill those roles.
No matter what roles and responsibilities you’ve defined for your employees, you must always keep your personal primary aim separate from your company’s primary aim or mission statement. Once you’ve identified the primary aim for your company it will be easy to set up a position structure that will work.
Don’t forget to put together position contracts. Your employees should sign a statement of their roles and responsibilities. This helps keep them clear for you, the employee and other employees/vendors or other individuals.
You can see how these areas all work together to build a solid structure on which to build your business. If you need help defining any of these areas, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Mortar Makes it Happen
Today I’d like to talk about the three keys to business development and how you can put the right bricks in place to build a solid foundation.
There are three main areas of business development:
- Innovation
- Quantification
- Orchestration
If done well these three areas will help you build a solid foundation for your business. Let’s talk about each one of these for just a minute.
Innovation
Innovation should not be confused with creativity, which is the expression of ideas. Innovation is taking these ideas and putting them into action. This is where a large amount of your focus should be in the beginning and even throughout your business’ entire lifespan.
Quantification
This, of course, refers to the numbers. We are talking about the value of your innovation. The best way to gauge this is by your customer response. Look to positive responses for what you are doing right and keep doing it. Look to your negative responses to find out what you’re doing wrong and fix it. This will enable you to keep growing and progressing with the needs of your customers and business climate.
Orchestration
Once you’ve had a chance to find what areas are working, you can narrow down those areas and concentrate on making them stand out ideas. You shift your focus here to get the most out of your business and to meet the needs of your customers.
I can help you work through these three areas to put together your franchise prototype during your GUIDED TOUR.
In the next few lessons we are going to transition to the 7 specific areas you need to consider in your franchise prototype process:
- Primary Aim
- Strategic Objectives
- Organizational Strategy
- Management Strategy
- People Strategy
- Marketing Strategy
- Systems Strategy
These 7 areas will fine-tune your plan for the ultimate level of success.
You Turn Me Right ‘Round Baby, Right ‘Round
The biggest area of turn-key businesses is franchises. There is a franchise for every industry in the world and they are fairly easy to acquire and come with practically a pop out of the box pre-assembled system. McDonald’s is a prime example. In fact, a $40 billion, 28,707 strong example.
There are a few things we are going to talk about:
- Business Format Franchise
- The Franchise Prototype
- Franchise Prototype Standards
Business Format Franchise
The business format franchise came from an earlier model call the “trade name” franchise. The big change was in the rights. During the “trade name” days the franchise owner only had marketing right’s, now franchise owners have ownership rights to the entire business including systems. This has allowed for a shift in focus to go from the quality and name recognition of the products carrying the business to sales techniques that carry the business.
The Franchise Prototype
It was really the franchise prototypes that allowed for the changes to be made that help today’s franchises really shine with the techniques developed by the owners instead of the corporation. This can make a significant difference in the success of the franchise as the owner can custom tailor their marketing and promotions to the direct needs of their local target customers.
Franchise Prototype Standards
Now, the above being said, no one in their right mind would purchase a franchise if the parent company didn’t have a solid plan of action set up to ensure the prospective success of the business. So, there are a few standards that are put into place that help jump-start the process of opening a successful franchise.
Build a model of prospective customers/clients, suppliers, creditors and employees who will consistently offer high-quality work.
- Build a user-friendly model that can be used by individuals of any skill set.
- Build a defect-free model.
- Build a model with Operations Manuals.
- Build a model that will provide guaranteed, consistent results.
- Build a model that encompasses the same branding in color, dress and facilities codes.
These are all ways the parent corporation makes sure their brand stays the same and in front of the minds of customers. When you are purchasing a widely-known brand you will attract customers just for being you.
Expand the Life of Your Business
Today I’m going to talk about the life cycle of a business and how to get the most out of each cycle while also extended the lifespan of your business.
The four different stages of a business life cycle are:
- Infancy
- Adolescence
- Growing Pains
- Maturity
We’ll talk a little about what each of these cycles means and how they can each help expand your business’s lifespan.
Infancy
This is generally considered the technician’s phase, which is the owner. At this point, the relationship between the business and the owner is that of a parent and a new baby. There is an impenetrable bond that is necessary to determine the path your business will follow.
The key is to know your business must grow in order to flourish. You cannot stage in this stage forever.
Adolescence
In this stage, you need to start bringing your support staff together to delegate to and allow growth to happen. The first line of defense is your technical person as they need to bring a certain level of technical experience. This cycle really belongs to the manager though. The planning stage needs to start and a relationship should be built with the entrepreneur to plan for the future.
Growing Pains
There’s a point in every business when business explodes and becomes chaotic. This is referred to as growing pains. It’s a good problem to have, but a problem nonetheless. You are often faced with a number of choices:
- Avoid growth and stay small
- Go broke
- Push forward into the next cycle
Maturity
The last cycle is maturity, though this doesn’t mean the end of your business. Your passion for growth must continue in order for your business to succeed. You need to keep an entrepreneurial perspective in order to push your business forward.
You see how all three of these cycles are connected and depend on a strong foundation for each one of them for your business to be and continue to be successful. All three of your key roles must also work together to work through these cycles.
If you’re having trouble putting together your business life cycles and figuring out which of the key roles you fit into, try a GUIDED TOUR and let’s work together to support and coach your business.
Gather the Troops
Today I’d like to chat about the different types of support staff you need and what makes them so important.
There are essentially three key roles that need to be filled to set your business up for success:
- The Technician
- The Manager
- The Entrepreneur
All of these roles need to be played simultaneously by different people with the right talents. It’s all about balance.
The Technician
This person represents the present and all that needs to be done for the physical aspects of the business-building process. They are the “doer”. This is usually the most visible person in the entire operation.
The Manager
This person represents the past and works to fix problems through learning from past mistakes. They are the practical side of the business and is in charge of putting together the business and overseeing the planning.
The Entrepreneur
This person represents the future and the vision for the business. They are responsible for the creative side of the business and are always considering ways to enhance products/services, business image, branding and more.
All three of these characters are essential in the success of any business and to build a solid foundation from the start, you need to work harder to find the right people to put in these roles. Obviously, you need to be one of these key people, but ensure you find the role that fits your skills and talents, not necessarily what you THINK you should be doing.
This may be a hard process for you as you will need to relinquish some control over the business and instill trust in people to allow them to do their jobs.
Remember, I can help you through this entire process and teach you how to avoid falling victim to e-myths when you try our GUIDED TOUR.