A Little Help Here, Please! By: Roy Bergold How the corporate guys can help franchisees weather the recession. I want to talk about what franchisors should be doing in these exceedingly tough times to help out their franchisees. I want to be an advocate for the operator and his needs, and, in so doing, get some profit back into the till. If you are company-owned, take these thoughts in terms of your managers. You are probably tired of hearing about all the opportunity out there when things get like they are today. You don’t see opportunity, you see empty stores. I saw a statistic recently that 30 percent of folks who used to eat out a lot are not eating out because they do not have the money or are scared to spend it on restaurants. You call that opportunity? Well, everyone has an Uncle Cornie story. My Uncle Cornelius lived during the Great Depression. He didn’t much like kids. He used to make us stay outside until my Aunt Myrtle found out and let us in. But, one thing about him was that he knew opportunity when he saw it, and he could grow a rose out of a granite rock. He bought a bunch of oil stock for a quarter a share. Mortgaged his house, sold his car, tried to sell a couple of us kids, but again Aunt Myrtle found out. Sold the stock. Made a fortune. After that, he gave us a quarter to stay out of the house. So let’s take a look at that opportunity out there. The first thing is to renew the wedding vows. The ones between the company and the operator. Remember why you loved each other in the first place and rededicate those promises. The operator is the front line, the life blood of the company. We have to do everything we can to help him succeed. Our only priority is sales and profits. Everything else gets put on the shelf. If it doesn’t increase sales and profits, we don’t do it, no matter how nice it seems. Let’s start with operations and then get to marketing later. We need to get every store to at least a B grade. If the restaurant isn’t operating competitively, we are wasting our time bringing in more customers. There are lots of things the company can do to help. (By the way, much of what I discuss here was done by McDonald’s back in the ’70s and ’80s when the economy got really bad.) First, indentify the stores that need help and can be helped. Location is something that usually can’t be corrected. Every store in the system should be given a brief field visit—a total operations blitz. A good field consultant can hit two stores a day. Heck, use everyone in the office. We are all customers and know what we want. Close the office and get everyone into the stores. McDonald’s used to do Store Day. Everyone, including suppliers and agencies,... Read More