Finding the Sweet Spot: Best Practices for Field Ops

How to strike that important balance of openness and collaboration with your franchisees.

By Mary Kennedy Thompson, CFE

Franchising is all about relationships — those between unit owners and their employees, franchisees and their customers, franchises and suppliers. But the most important relationship — the one that is really the bread and butter of the franchise business model — is the relationship between the franchisor and the franchisee. In order to be successful, this relationship must be built on mutual trust, respect, communication, and collaboration. And the key people to making this work are your 
field consultants. 

Prior to my current position, I was a franchisee and then held practically every position in the franchise headquarters at Cookies by Design. Between those roles and now as the Chief Operating Officer of The Dwyer Group, overseeing 11 service brands in North America, I’ve learned a lot along the way. I’ve found, as I’m sure you have too, that striking the delicate balance of openness and collaboration between you and your franchisees is challenging. Here are the top six field operations best practices I’ve learned and aim to focus on when running all aspects of field operations.

Top 6 Field Operations Best Practices

Know who you are and what your values are. It’s important to define your company’s values, and every one of your employees should know them. This gives your company an identity and a roadmap. It ensures you are hiring the right people, both for your headquarters and for your franchisees. Your values set expectations for communication. This is the foundation of the franchisor-franchisee relationship.

Know your top business drivers. Your field team’s primary focus should always align with the top four to five areas that drive your business. If you were on a desert island, and all you had was a set of reports, which ones would you need, what information would you need, to know how your business is doing? Make sure your field team knows what these top business drivers are and truly understands how and why they support these goals. The process needs to be the same and regular measurement — and regular measurement of the right things — is key. By doing this, it keeps your field team accountable as much as they hold their franchisees accountable. 

Don’t boil the ocean. Sometimes I get too deep into details, which leads me to getting nothing done. At The Dwyer Group, we break down our initiatives into bite-size pieces with measurements. Remember, focus on those top business drivers. Compact your efforts into manageable chunks. Learn how to say “no.” Sometimes what you should stop doing is the most important thing. Remember that your field team needs a reliable system for teaching the system. It’s one of the things I like about FranConnect Sky Field Ops; it’s a system for the system. It keeps clear expectations between the field consultants and franchisees.

Knowing what the field does NOT need to do is as important as knowing what they need to do. We did an in-depth survey with our field consultants to find out how they were spending their time, what they wanted to do more of, what they wanted to do less of, and we compared this to how the franchisees were performing to find corollaries. It led us to create new processes, and we involved our top field consultants and kept them involved to continuously audit our visit process. This change has led our field consultants to have meaningful conversations with franchisees that encourage them to take action. We use FranConnect Field Ops to track and change activity by focusing on key areas that the field should be focused on.

Ready, aim, fire. Test small and test fast. If you’re waiting for perfection, you’ll never deploy. Help your franchisees understand that not everything is going to be perfect right away. Gather regular feedback, fix it, and keep going. Always strive for continuous improvement, but don’t get bogged down by perfection.

Manage the change. Communicate often. Do you remember the last time you communicated a success to your team? I hope so. Be sure you celebrate and reward successes. When you focus on opportunity, instead of what’s wrong, more people are willing to improve. Be sure you are following up and tracking progress through a system — this is how your franchisees will feel supported and valued. Create and celebrate success together. Use something like FranConnect Sky Field Ops to track progress and follow up on outstanding items. 

Mary Kennedy Thompson, CFE, is the Chief Operating Officer of Franchise Brands for The Dwyer Group. During the 2017 IFA Annual Convention, Thompson received the Crystal Compass Award from the IFA Women’s Franchise Committee.