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| 3 Biggest Challenges Every Franchisee Faces—And How to Overcome Them Posted: 14 Jul 2019 11:42 AM PDT By Josh Cohen When you buy a franchise, you're not starting a business from scratch, but you still have work to do. Many new franchisees underestimate what it takes to succeed—they don’t realize there’s more to franchising than just picking a brand and opening a new location. Becoming a new franchisee is an uphill climb that requires a lot of time and effort. Think of yourself as a mountain climber. You have tools like ropes, a pickax, and a harness, but now you need to start climbing. Success is waiting at the top and you just need to get there. It's much easier to navigate your route if you know what you're in for. That way you can prepare ahead of time and sidestep these challenges with ease when they rear their ugly head. Challenge #1: Building the brandJoining a franchise isn't a walk in the park. But even though it's tough, it's also exciting. You get to take an established brand and blaze a trail into uncharted territory. Your personal efforts are helping the brand find a new audience—and that alone should build your confidence and make you proud. You're building something with the support of a larger, experienced team and you'll be wearing different hats every day. This work requires a hands-on approach, especially during the early stages. Be prepared to invest a lot of personal determination, long hours, and patience. If you're not ready for this investment, you might want to bow out. But if these requirements sound more like motivators than roadblocks, then you're going to get a lot of value out of your franchisee role. You'll be tempted to fine-tune everything inside your business, but don't get off track. This will prevent you from scaling the brand. Before committing to a marketing decision, ask yourself if it helps build the brand or not. You need to fill each day, week, and month with actions that create brand awareness and drive revenue. If you're unsure of where to start, here are a few tactics you can use to build your franchise and increase brand awareness in the market:
The biggest takeaway is to always work on your business. Don't get stuck working in your business. Challenge #2: Managing employees effectivelyYou could try to do everything yourself, but that would waste time and lead to burnout. Get help from trusted employees instead of taking it all on solo—but that's easier said than done. The challenge here is to hire the right people to work in your franchise. You don't have the luxury of an HR department to hire and train new employees, but this lets you vet potential employees based on what your business needs. You have to build a team (and fast), but it doesn't mean hiring anyone just based on credentials. Look for people who are independent self-starters that crave responsibility. These people will be your pillars as you grow. Remind yourself that you're only as strong as your weakest link—it will keep your franchise afloat. Hiring is only one piece of the puzzle. You must also find ways to motivate your team to grow the franchise and customer base. This allows you to test new methodologies and find what pushes certain people to be their best selves. Use the company mission to your advantage. Reiterate it constantly in your emails, meetings, and actions. Tell your employees how their work directly affects the success of this mission. You'll hold them accountable and show them they're more than cogs and make the whole operation run smoothly. Nothing motivates employees like knowing that their actions make a difference. Other Articles From AllBusiness.com:
Challenge #3: Creating a vibrant company cultureCompany culture determines how the sales process works. It influences your customer service; it even helps potential employees decide whether or not they want to work for you. The toughest part about culture is creating it. The good news is you can adopt the existing culture from the brand—it's already established. The unique challenge is bringing it to your market and adding local flavor to it. The franchisor will share this vision as part of the business model, and you'll be responsible for making it stick. Company culture will embody:
It's everything that makes the brand tick—a succinct way to describe why the company is in business. Remember that company culture goes beyond perks. It's not about office ping-pong or free snacks. It's about how your employees feel and how they operate. It's important to get it right because your culture will shape your work environment. The ball's in your court to make it happen. When the right company culture is in place, you'll see:
A good company culture benefits customers as well. When the company’s culture resonates with an employee, they're generally happier. Happier employees provide better customer service. It's a win-win. Get a leg up on the competition by knowing your challenges ahead of timeThere's a false statistic that convinces many people to become franchisees. It says that franchises have a success rate of approximately 90%. The study compares this to the 15% success rate for businesses started from the ground up and makes franchises seem like easy “get rich quick” opportunities. I'm here to tell you that succeeding with franchising takes more than just an investment of money. Franchises require a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to succeed. They're not easy to build, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Franchises have a higher rate of success than independent startups. They also connect you with a new network of like-minded professionals. And they give you valuable business experience: You learn how to become a well-balanced business owner. Your hard work on your business pays off over time. It's not an easy path to take, but with the right mind-set and support system in place, you can understand how a successful business operates. The entrepreneurial lessons you learn along the way are invaluable. Once you're through these challenges, it's an easier climb to the summit. You'll still hit some rough patches, but at least you can divert your path and work around the big challenges. RELATED: 8 Warning Signs You Shouldn't Buy a Franchise The post 3 Biggest Challenges Every Franchisee Faces—And How to Overcome Them appeared first on AllBusiness.com The post 3 Biggest Challenges Every Franchisee Faces—And How to Overcome Them appeared first on AllBusiness.com. Click for more information about Guest Post.  |
| How to Maintain Your Brand Voice When Globalizing Your Business Posted: 14 Jul 2019 11:29 AM PDT By Kashif Naqshbandi The moment you're ready to expand your business is arguably one of the most exciting—and perhaps daunting—moments in your professional life. However, it's one thing to have the resources necessary to go global, but to actually overcome the challenges that brings and achieve the kind of global success you need abroad is another matter entirely. Whether you're growing your presence regionally or gearing up to take your first steps on the international stage—and no matter how long you've been in business—one thing that remains certain is this: you need to maintain the brand voice and identity you've worked so hard to establish and build over time. The challenges of going globalKeeping that unique voice consistent across regions and countries can be tricky, but this is essential if you want to expand your business without diluting your brand. From cultural differences to varying belief systems, different legal procedures to linguistic nuances, going global can be a real marketing minefield for any businesses expanding its operations. So how can a business avoid these potential hurdles? It starts with awareness of the main challenges you'll face along the way; accept and prepare for the fact that, just because your advertising was an undeniable hit at home, doesn't mean it'll be effective elsewhere in the world. For example, when industry titan Procter & Gamble decided to start selling Pampers in Japan, the image of a stork delivering an infant was lost on its new audience. Why? That imagery and what it implies is part of U.S.—not Japanese—folklore. Rolling up your sleeves and doing the legwork early on in your expansion strategy will save you not only time and money, but a few faux pas too. Other Articles From AllBusiness.com:
How to maintain your brand voiceWhen it comes to crafting a truly successful brand, creating the right voice to reach and attract your audience is crucial. It's essentially the personification of your brand—the distinctive way you want your brand to present itself not only to current and potential customers, but to the competition too. Before you decide to share your brand across the globe, you need to have absolute confidence in the strength of that brand voice. Here are a couple of key points to consider before pushing the big red button: 1. Review your customer personasIt's wasteful to spend time and resources on curating a brand voice if you haven't yet understood exactly who your ideal customer is and what they want from the brand. Enter, customer personas. If you're up and running as a business, you should already have these firmly in place; when you're thinking about expanding into foreign markets, take the time to review them to help you get to know your new audience. To get started, ask the same type of questions you'd typically cover for domestic markets:
2. Don't get lost in translationReal translation is about far more than word-for-word definitions; it's about capturing the sense of what's being said and expressing it in another language and appealing to a different culture. Translation hiccups can be a source of amusement for the entire internet, but there's nothing funny about the damage this kind of blunder can do to your brand from a marketing and PR perspective, so invest in the talents of a strong native speaker right off the bat. This is one area where you don't want to cut corners. 3. Have a unique voiceConsider bolstering your efforts by bringing an expert consultant on board who really understands the market, language, and culture you're looking to expand into. You'll need someone with an insider perspective to help you appreciate what kind of competition you'll be up against, and set your brand apart from the crowd. Ask yourself: Is your brand voice really unique? There are a few points to keep in mind here. First, think of three words that describe your brand. Do these keywords work in the context of the new markets you're looking to break into? Do they carry the same meaning? Do they translate well? If you answer “I don't know” to any of these, then return to your customer personas and take your research a little deeper. 4. Trust your regional teamsNobody knows your global audience quite like the people you've got on the ground in those regions. Before you sign off on any fresh marketing efforts, talk to employees operating in-country. They'll be able to flag any potential cultural issues before they actually become issues, and give you peace of mind before launching a brand or campaign. Ensure you get a diversity of opinions from your regional experts. 5. Lock it downNo matter how long you've been in business, it's vital that you create guidelines to cement your brand's identity and maintain consistency across all communications and customer touch points. When you're addressing a global audience, it becomes doubly important. Create and continuously review a style guide that everyone in your organization has access to and that covers marketing across all your regions. RELATED: Is Now the Right Time to Expand Your Small Business Internationally? The post How to Maintain Your Brand Voice When Globalizing Your Business appeared first on AllBusiness.com The post How to Maintain Your Brand Voice When Globalizing Your Business appeared first on AllBusiness.com. Click for more information about Guest Post.  |
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