Franchisees Provide Insights on How to Improve Management and Business Operations

Question: What are the top three pain points in running your business?

Dennis Pace: Having a properly trained workforce is essential to the success of our franchise. The challenge can be finding candidates that are reliable and can be easily integrated into our system and our way of doing things. Over my three decades of running a franchise, our team has developed unique practices and terminology within the industry that can be challenging to new employees who are already familiar with the industry. Finding the balance between being qualified and trainable is crucial to future growth of the company and customer satisfaction. 

• Secondly, finding enough time to focus on systems and practices is difficult for any small business balancing the many different demands of growing a business. Growing multiple franchises with business partners by my side has allowed us to spread out the responsibilities and increase the amount of time we spend evaluating the core functions of our business operations. Our team creates a detailed monthly report that gives us a snapshot of how to better optimize our business moving forward.

• A third and final pain point for any industry is compliance. Regulations can vary state to state and for any business owner it falls on you to make sure that your team is adhering to those policies. The process can be draining to resources and increase the number of variables that make it difficult to plan for the future. However, it is essential to your customers that the business remains on top of standards and best practices within your industry.  

Dennis Pace owns seven N-Hance franchise units with his business partners and is the sole owner of two Chem-Dry franchises.

Kyle Bohrer: Recruiting and staffing remote franchises can be difficult. You are facing an uphill climb in any new area that you may not be accustomed to. Without a familiar pool of talent to tap into, it can be difficult to build a successful foundation. Because it’s not possible to be in every market all the time, it is vital to install a team leader in the market that you can trust. That way, your franchise is being properly represented at all times.

• It is very important to understand your franchisor’s growth requirements. A typical mistake by a young franchisee is to grow as fast as possible through additional market acquisition. Make sure you understand your contractual agreement and have a plan and available resources to meet it. Taking on too much territory or market without the proper resources could put you upside down on staffing to hit growth requirements.

• Cash flow can tighten as you invest in additional franchises. Make sure you operate each franchise separately so you know where potential issues may be occurring. When you purchase a new franchise, you have to account for staffing, cost of goods/services, etc. Making sure you have the necessary capital is very important. Separate business plans, entities and cash to avoid hiding under-performers or proper investment and focus in each franchise.

Kyle Bohrer owns three territories with Unishippers – one of the nation’s leading shipping resellers – in Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio.