Veterans wholeheartedly understand the culture of teamwork. Camaraderie is an essential element to a successful organization.

By Ron Holt

Franchise system representatives were once able to walk into the homes of franchise candidates. Sitting down in a candidate’s living room, franchisors could observe the potential franchisee in his daily environment. A franchisor was able to easily analyze the candidate’s lifestyle and ability to manage daily activities. The process was extremely interpersonal, but it allowed franchisors to make real-time assessments and provided an efficient system to grow their business. Bill Rosenberg, the founder of Dunkin’ Donuts, is well known for having employed this strategy while growing his business during the early days of development.

Today, it is extremely rare to perform this type of research when vetting a candidate during the discovery process. Fortunately for franchisors, there is a select group of individuals within our country who have lived similar lifestyles and also exhibit desirable traits that create superb franchise candidates. Those select individuals are the veterans of our armed forces, the real-life heroes that now live and work in our communities. Veterans possess several traits that afford a franchisor a level of confidence that a candidate’s lifestyle is a good match for its system.

Trait No. 1: Systematic

Systems are ultra-important in the military. The heart of the best franchise organizations is the ability to develop, teach, and support systems that allow for franchise units to operate as efficiently as possible. Veterans are accustomed to operating within a regimented environment. The military develops a level of respect for chain of command. In the military, your career path is strictly planned in advance and your daily tasks are formulated by the leadership. This is the operating environment that many franchisees will work in and one of the primary reasons that many franchisors should seek military veterans to develop their territories.

Trait No. 2: Perseverance

Veterans understand that Rome was not built in a day. One of the primary reasons for the failure of a business is the owner’s lack of willpower to overcome the early obstacles of building a successful business. Some of our country’s most celebrated companies have endured hard times. The founders of these companies were forced to fight through those difficult periods. Due to their professional training, veterans are not easily deterred when confronted with obstacles. The military has instilled the necessary grit and determination to accomplish goals and overcome obstacles before them. While franchised businesses are able to eliminate many of the start-up headaches, new business owners will be presented with hurdles. Veterans have proved within their military training that they have the capability to clear these stumbling blocks and achieve goals. This quality of perseverance should be highly sought by franchisors.

Team No. 3: Leadership

No organization is better at building leaders than the military. In order to build a successful business, an owner must have a vision of the organization he wants to build. Especially in the early days of any new operation, the franchisee must be able to convey this vision to the people around them. The military forms these leadership qualities during the basic training of a soldier. Along the way, every soldier within the military system will hold some type of responsibility. In many cases, extreme leadership is required in order to provide safety and security to fellow soldiers. The servant mentality fostered within the military can be difficult to replicate for a business owner without similar training. As a franchisor, your most important goal is to create franchisee success. Having a franchisee with real leadership qualities is essential if your goal is to foster an environment for franchisee success.

Trait No. 4: Forthrightness

Honesty is the only policy in the military. The initial application for a franchise candidate is an important piece of the discovery process. But often, the information contained within the application is either misleading or downright false. This creates serious issues when evaluating the merits of a franchise candidate. Sometimes these issues do not manifest themselves until after a territory is under development. In the military, there is an expectation of honesty not only with supervisors, but also with the people being led. The ability to be forthright regardless of situation is a desirable trait every franchisor should consider when evaluating a candidate during the discovery process. This trait is an integral component of a veteran’s personality.

Trait No. 5: Teamwork

Veterans wholeheartedly understand the culture of teamwork. Camaraderie is an essential element to a successful organization. The ability to appreciate and develop this culture of interdependence is invaluable to both the franchise and the franchisee-franchisor relationship. Guess what? Veterans understand this better than anyone else. Their existence is built around trusting that someone else is performing his job perfectly. During the discovery process, a franchisor can be confident that a veteran will place a high emphasis on the value of teamwork within their business.

As the CEO and founder of Two Maids & A Mop, I’m proud of the work our franchise has done to aggressively to recruit veterans into our franchise organization. We’re an emerging franchise concept with 24 locations across nine states so the early success of our franchised units is extremely important to the long term success of our brand.

Recently, we awarded territory development rights to veterans in Greenville, S.C. and Savannah, Ga. In both cases, the franchise candidates treated the discovery process with the proper amount of due diligence required to make an educated decision regarding the franchise opportunity. In our short time as a franchisor, we have observed that many people treat the discovery process similar to purchasing a new car. But as every franchisor knows, the discovery process requires extreme patience and serious homework before a franchisee should ever make the decision to invest in a franchise concept.

Veterans are an integral part of our society and sometimes have a difficult time re-entering the workforce after years of dedicated service to our country. This is the reason that the IFA’s VetFran program serves the franchising community so well. Many franchisors have joined the organization over the past few years by offering discounts toward their initial franchise fees.

While this is a valuable reward for a veteran, franchisors may consider being even more aggressive with their recruitment methods. Veterans are far better suited to operate franchised businesses rather than simply working for an employer. Many people don’t fully understand the training that veterans receive as active duty personnel. Our recent success has proved that getting veterans involved results in much more conservative and healthy franchise candidates.

Ron Holt is CEO and founder of Two Maids & A Mop. Find him at fransocial.franchise.org.