Franchise Owners: Be the Face, or Be Forgotten | Franchise Fridays with Jeff Dudan #192

If you're considering franchise ownership for the first time, I've got some things that I would like you to listen to and here's my best experience, not advice that I can share with you. When people are unclear, they do three things. Number one, they hesitate. Creating latency. And latency is simply this. It is from the time that a decision is made or an action is clear, how long is it till the action is taken? Your job as a business owner is to use clarity to get latency out of your business so that you can deliver more, more, more, faster, faster, faster. Here are a few of my favorite leadership roles that you must embrace, all with the fine details as you are the face of your business. Hey everybody, Jeff Duden here. Welcome back to Franchise Fridays. Today we're exploring why you must be the face of your franchise in your community. For some, that might sound daunting, but I'll tell you right now, it's the greatest gift and the greatest opportunity you can give yourself. As always, if you're ready to think differently about what it takes to succeed in franchising, stick with me while you're here. Click the links below, grab a free copy of my book the Business Athlete's Regimen for a Great Life Through Better Decisions, or check out what we're building at Homefront brands over@homefrontbrands.com now let's get you unemployed in the best way possible. The people and the math of the business. And you've heard me say it before. Businesses succeed by being excellent at two things, people and math. Stepping up and accepting full responsibility to be the face of your business and your local market. That's how you solve the people piece. Every business has a dollar per person equation. That's not an opinion, that is fact. I was once in a marketing Mastermind with a $35 million contractor, and after a few quick questions, I reverse engineered his operation in terms of people. 70 technicians, 12 people in dispatch, a fleet of vehicles, sales team. It's not magic, it's just math. It's the science behind the people side of the business. And as the owner, your job and nobody else's is to get people aligned with your vision. Pulling on all the same levers like an orchestra conductor, coordinating employees, subcontractors, vendors, your entire support community. Getting them to execute with priority and with excellence. That's how businesses start well and that's how they grow well. There are three big reasons you must be the face of your business to accomplish this. This is a job nobody else can do. And if you don't do it. It creates risk, period. Number one, you create certainty in the diversity of leads. The stability of your business is determined by how diverse your lead sources are. And not all leads are created equal. They vary in close rates, cost per lead, average job size and repeatability. Your business fundamentally improves when you create reputational leads. What do I mean by reputational leads? People refer your clients and opportunities to you instead of you just buying digital leads. I'm talking specifically about key accounts and as an owner, I personally make sure I have a direct relationship and regular touch points with all key accounts critical to my business. Relationships with these key accounts can mean for you that they won't walk out the door with a salesperson if they happen to leave. Number two, they might break ties and competitive bids and go with you because of the relationship. And those key accounts. Relationships will create reciprocity so you can help each other grow your respective businesses in community based businesses. Honestly, in any business, the owner and the business should be interchangeable in people's minds. When someone refers your company, they should mention you by name in the same breath. That's trust and that's staying power. You've got to be constantly adding these inputs into the top of the funnel, building new relationships and investing in existing ones. And many new franchise owners don't necessarily get this right out of the gate that it's their highest obligation. You've heard it, your network is your net worth. And that's true. And when things go wrong, people might sue a contract, but they're much less likely to sue a relationship built on trust and mutual benefit. Number two, building capacity. Once you have these lead sources and you have a diversity of lead sources, you've got to build capacity. A franchise owner's inability to attract, train and retain quality people is one of the biggest constraints that I see. It's on you to build the machine that produces the work, that delivers consistent, high quality customer experiences, that excels in sales and customer acquisition, and that manages resources and expenses to create net income. Think about all the different personalities and skill sets you'll need and then realize you'll need them all working in harmony. And as a leader, your actions and your words must make people proud to be a part of your organization. Proud enough to give that extra discretionary effort to build something great. And you've also got to create an environment where people know they will be rewarded on the merits of what they do, where they'll feel safe and comfortable, and where they will trust that will they will be treated fairly. Even when they're running 100 miles an hour and something doesn't go perfectly, they will get rewarded based on their intent and their effort and their ability to learn and adjust going forward. And number three, it's about your support community. You must engage your support community. This is often overlooked. So what do I mean by support community? Who is it? It's your banker, it's your key suppliers, it's your marketing agencies, it's your payroll providers, it's your building inspectors and maybe even your landlord. It's those people that you need that are critical in making your business go. And as the face of your business, you must engage them not just as vendors, but as partners in your success. I spent over two decades in disaster response and when hurricane sit the demand on suppliers and subcontractors was insane. My labor provider, who traveled with me for 20 years, become one of my closest friends and we would fly into disasters together, managing up to 800 people per day on my projects alone. Without that relationship, we'd be standing alone on huge job sites with no ability to get the work done. Another example, we're partnered with a third generation family business that manufactures drying equipment. And when hurricanes hit, their inventory and everybody's inventory ran out. So who got the limited stock, who got the inventory? Those with a history of paying on time and keeping strong relationships were the ones that would get what they needed when they needed it the most. You can't take advantage of people in peacetime and expect them to show up for you big in wartime. And as the franchise owner, you've got to look these people in the eye and ensure that you are on the same page with them. It makes a difference and only you can do it. Here are a few of my favorite leadership roles that you must embrace, all with the fine details as you are the face of your business. Number one, you must speak a bold and powerful future into existence. It's your job, and your job alone to paint a clear, compelling picture of the future for everyone tied to your business. At Homefront Brands, we teach our owners to build a three year vision and work backwards from it. Describe exactly what's going to happen, explain why it matters to every stakeholder and and map out where the inflection points will be so that you can anticipate them. Then in a disciplined way, be able to articulate perfectly who you are, what you're doing and why somebody should want to work with you. It's not just about doing it at the monthly meetings or once in a while or at your annual event. Speaking A bold future has to be reinforced in every conversation and every decision and every action a thousand times over so that people can align with you. And that's a high bar. And it takes energy to do it. But that's what every great business demands, is that level of leadership. And speaking of energy, that's my second tip for you, is you've got to bring your unique energy and your focus. Your team's energy will always be a subset of yours. You don't have to be allowed cheerleader if that's not authentic to you. But however you show up, you need to show up consistently and with intention. And if you bring sharp energy and relentless focus, people will mirror it. If you're scattered or inconsistent or flat, they'll be even more scattered, more inconsistent, and more flat. And that will be the reflection that your customers get from your business. That's just how it works. And number three, you got to create clarity. When people are unclear, they do three things. Number one, they hesitate. Creating latency, and latency is simply this. It is from the time that a decision is made or an action is clear, how long is it till the action is taken? Your job as a business owner is to use clarity to get latency out of your business so that you can deliver more, more, more, faster, faster, faster. So when people are unclear, they hesitate. They make something up which could be wrong, or they sit there and do nothing, which is the biggest killer of momentum. And the creator of latency that could possibly exist is failing to act. Your job as a leader in the face of your business is to eliminate that. So from the moment a decision is made, how fast does that action happen? The faster you pulse, the faster your business grows. And the tireless pursuit of clarity will reduce this latency. And if you build a culture that pursues clarity and defaults to action, your business will grow exponentially. If you're considering franchise ownership for the first time, I've got some things that I would like you to listen to, and here's my best experience, not advice that I can share with you. You need to commit, and you need to commit fully. Fear doesn't disappear after you sign the check, sign your franchise agreement, and finish training. Business ownership is tough. It is a full contact sport. It's probably the hardest thing you'll ever do, but it is not fatal. And once you step across that line, slam the door behind you and give yourself no option but to succeed. Because your path to your next opportunity depends depends on you succeeding in the one that you're in. Your people of every type, at every level will only commit to your cause if they see your conviction. Tip number two for you, train like a business athlete. Look, as a football player, I trained 300 days a year, sometimes two or three times a day for that eight second opportunity on some busted play, to shake free in the back of the end zone and to try to win the game on some jump ball. And as a business owner, you need to train yourself in every discipline. In sales, in leadership, in marketing, in strategy. But just as importantly, you need to train in mindfulness, physical health and spirit. You have to be fully present and fully engaged when it matters the most. Your rituals become your habits, and your habits will create your outcomes. Tip number three for you relax. I know this sounds like I'm yelling at you, but you need to relax and enjoy the process because this is a. This is a beautiful path. We're not chasing happiness. Happiness is fleeting and it's occasional. You get happy on occasions. We're after fulfillment because fulfillment includes the struggle, it includes the failures, it includes the constant adjustments that we're trying again and again until eventually you win. And you will only lose if you quit before time runs out. You've got to trust the process, got to embrace it. You've got to even enjoy the rituals and routines that the best business owners build their success on. Because you can be the one in your family who breaks the mold and does something truly great. You can be the one. As I think about being a business owner and the fear of stepping into this role where all eyes are on you, I think about the speech that Teddy Roosevelt shared in his man in the arena speech in Paris in 1910. It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man or woman who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes up short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasm, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, or at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither knew victory nor. Nor defeat. That's business ownership, that's franchising, and that's life. I loved making this episode because this is the stuff that truly matters. I see it every day in franchise owners who get the people piece right and build massive networks of people and align them with their business. The people matter, and as a business owner, you get to change lives. If you're fired up like I am, click below and explore the franchise opportunities with Homefront Brands at homefrontbrands. Com. Opportunities designed for people who want to lead, not just manage. And of course, grab your free copy of my book Discernment and sharpen your decision making. Thanks for hanging out with me on Franchise Friday. Stay sharp, stay focused, stay unemployable in the best way possible. Let's go build something great together. I'm Jeff Duden. Thanks for listening.