How We Make A Difference

Neuro-science of Coaching Included in Field Manager Program

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 12:20:00 GMT

We are excited! The program for this year's Field Manager Summit is finalised and it has some great inclusions, such as Masterclasses on the Neuro-Science of Coaching and Social Media for Field Managers. We hope to attract everyone back who came last year plus a host of fresh faces. Click here to see the full program.

Other hghlights include multiple break out sessions and round tables on current hot topics and a special leadership dinner for operations executives on how to bring the best out in field managers. Click here for full details.

International Franchise Research Conference Best Ever

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 22:06:00 GMT

Over 60 academics from 16 countries came together this week at the University of NSW to share findings on a wide range of franchise research topics spanning marketing, legal, HR and economic issues. The Franchise Relationships Institute was pleased to be a sponsor of this 24th International Society of Franchising Conference (ISoF) which attendees agreed was the best ever held. In addition to rigorous discussion and the presentation of some ground breaking studies, we all had a ball.

At the opening dinner, Greg Nathan played the guitar and was joined by a talented waiter in the restaurant, who entertained participants with some excellent singing and led a singalong of Australian songs!

As part of the program Greg also facilitated a panel on "Franchising in South East Asia" with a diverse team of representatives from China, New Zealand, Vietnam, Malaysia and India. Each of these countries has a unique approach to franchising shaped by cultural, political, market and economic forces. It was a fascinating discussion where we learned that:

Vietnam has the youngest population in the word with a vibrant emerging franchising sector, since legislation a few years ago gave more certainty to the market.
While China has a population 350 times the size of New Zealand, its franchising sector is only three time the size. But China's franchising sector is continuing to grow with some Chinese home grown franchise concepts now expanding internationally.
Malaysia is beating its franchise expansion targets relating to its government sponsored franchising program.
As the Indian middle class continues to grow franchising is providing multiple opportunities at the business and consumer levels to meet growing demand for goods and services, especially in the education space.

This will be the fourth time FRI has participated in these International Society of Franchising Conferences. Last year in France we presented a paper on Psycho-Social Predictors of Franchisee Performance. As part of FRI's charter, we will continue to contribute resources to conducting and fostering quality research in the franchising sector.

Thanks to Lorelle Fazer (Griffith University), Jenny Buchan (University of NSW) and Liz Spencer (Bond University) for organising such a fantastic event. The next ISoF conference will be held in Boston.

Photos From Our FRI 21st Birthday Breakfasts

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 05:29:00 GMT

Did you attend one of our FRI 21st Birthday Breakfasts which have now been held in Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide? You might catch a photo of yourself in one of the following photo galleries from these fabulous events:

Click here for Brisbane Breakfast photos

Click here for Melbourne Breakfast photos

Click here for Sydney Breakfast photos

Leading the Way in South Australia

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 02:46:00 GMT

Strong leadership is essential when introducing change into a franchise system. Katherine Saunders and Greg Nathan spent a productive day cracking this topic open with the South Australian franchising community.

Greg opened the conference, organised by the Franchise Council of Australia, with an interactive learning session on leadership and change management.

Later in the day he faciliated a panel with four high performing franchisees from Wendy's, Mortgage Choice, VIP Home Services and Endota Spa, delving deeply into what franchisees need and expect from their franchisor. The panel included an interesting discussion on how franchisors can engage more effectively with franchisees where english is their second language. FRI will be exploring this topic in greater depth during Field Manager Week in August.

Inspiring Young Psychologists to Drop the Jargon

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 10:53:00 GMT

One of our core values is to communicate simply and directly with clients. So it didn't take much encouragement to get our Managing Director, Greg Nathan, to agree to recently talk on the topic of how to avoid jargon to a group of 26 in-training organisational psychologists at the University of Queensland.

Greg presented a number of tips on how to write simply and clearly, including the suggestion they use stories to communicate ideas in an engaging way.

With this in mind he finished with the following story......

"I once sat in a hot, crowded hall for 3 hours listening spell bound as a 103 year old nurse from Singapore shared her philosophy of life. Sister Teresa was a single minded, energetic woman who had devoted her life to serving the elderly. She always got straight to the point. When someone asked her the secret to a long life, she recounted how the flight attendants had asked her the same question on the flight over. She was eating a packet of potato chips at the time, so she replied “Chips!” and they all laughed out loud.

“Ah” she continued with a twinkle in her eye. “That’s the real secret!”

Franchise Relationships Rocks Denver, USA

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 02:45:00 GMT

Last week in Denver, 80 franchisors came together with 649 collective years of franchise experience. It seems that where ever you are in the world franchise relationships is a hot issue and these franchise executives were thirsty for practical strategies on building profitable partnerships with their franchisees.

This is the second year we have run the USA Bootcamp and it was great to see several faces back for seconds. And their feedback was that this year was even better!

Many of the franchisors reported that they are struggling with a disconnect between operations and the sales and marketing departments. They left bootcamp with fresh ideas on how to engage and communicate with their colleagues, such as inviting them to meetings and taking them out in the field.

Bootcamp is a great example to franchisors of how to run great conferences and meetings. Having a well-lit room, round table layout and an engaging program are just three of the 63 tips on this topic that attendees were able to take home with them.

Katrina Mitchell, our Denver agent, did another fantastic job of pulling the bootcamp together. And thanks to Katrina, this years bootcamp went 'green' with inititatives such as recycled learning materials, no bottled water and locally sourced food.

We want to thank out sponsors, The Jones Group, Faegre & Benson, The Franchise Business Review, One Point, Printing for Less, Conference Direct and Boundless Network for contributing to overhead costs and for their enthusiastic participation in all the sessions.

Greg will be back to run Bootcamp Number 3 in Atlanta in October, to find out more click here.

Interview on How a Healthy Franchise Culture Drives Results

Mon, 17 May 2010 08:06:00 GMT

Listen to a fascinating and wide ranging discussion on Franchise Radio between Greg Nathan and Paul Segreto where Greg shares his research and views on how a healthy franchise culture drives performance. Click here to hear the interview.

You will hear Greg talk about:

How a healthy franchise culture drives performance.
Why and how franchise sales and operations executives need to work more closely together.
Emerging trends in managing communication in franchise networks.
How to get franchisee buy-in to new initiatives.
Why conflict occurs in franchise networks and how to manage it.
Plus a lot more on the psychology of successful franchise relationships.

Greg also provides some useful information about his coming Profitable Parnerships Boot Camp on May 25 and 26 in Denver.

To hear the full interview click here.

For details on the Boot Camp click here.

Webinar on 10 Mistakes that Undermine Franchise Relations

Tue, 11 May 2010 20:56:00 GMT

Sitting in a hotel rooom in beautiful Prague, Greg Nathan recently broadcast a webinar for our friends in the USA. This 45 minute session was titled "Avoiding 10 Common Mistakes in Franchise Relations". Want to hear this? Read on...

Over 100 people joined in to hear Greg share 50 specific tips on how to maintain healthy franchise relations.

Due to the high level of interest in this topic we are making the recording available for a limited time.

To access the Webinar go to:

http://www.franchisespeakers.com/common-mistakes-webinar/

This Webinar was also a warm up for our "Profitable Partnerships Boot Camp" to be held in Denver on May 25th and 26th. Details of this highly interactive and exciting program can be found at the webinar site (see above).

How Not to Lead a Change Program!

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 06:53:00 GMT

The word participation took on a new meaning at the recent Franchise Council of Australia NSW conference. The mostly franchisor audience of over 100 people were invited to take part as “franchisees” in a simulation involving a change of ownership of their franchisor.

The workshop, facilitated by Greg Nathan with help from Aaron Chowdhury (our newest FRI team member) and Karli Furmage from Go Global highlighted the importance of trust and commitment during change.

Several interactive learning techniques were used to bring the session to life including story telling, role play and a technique we call a “Group Scoop”. These are regularly used by FRI consultants in their work with franchisors and franchisees to promote engagement, insight and collaboration. Because these same skills are useful when implementing change in a franchise network, the session was really operating on two levels.

Feedback from the session has been overwhelmingly positive.

As part of the session the audience came up with 22 really good tips for implementing change in a franchise network. We thought we would share these with you. Just click here to download the document.

“What a huge learning experience for dealing with change!”

Kate Groom, Starfish Consulting

The Franchise E-Factor HIts Brazil

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 03:27:00 GMT

Brazilian franchisors will now be able to read the popular Franchise E-Factor book in their native Portuguese. This week in Sao Paulo 300 franchisors attended the Brazilian book launch as part of a two day International Franchising Forum organised by FRI's new Brazilian agents, Bittencourt.

As part of the Forum Greg Nathan delivered a keynote address on international trends along with case studies by some of Brazil's largest franchisors. On day two Greg facilitated a full day Profitable Partnerships Forum.

Greg Nathan presents FRI’s Franchisor Wheel of Excellence to 300 Brazilian franchisors.

Brazil has a vibrant franchising sector which is similar in size and culture to the Australian franchising sector.

Bittencourt, one of Brazil's premier franchising consulting firms, will be FRI's exclusive agent, distributing our books and franchise management programs. Bittencourt are part owned by GS&MD the country's largest market research and retail consultancy.

Greg Nathan and Anthony Cannell from FRI have spent the past week with Bittencourt and GS&MD management familiarising themselves with the local market and tidying up details of the 5 year licensing deal.

Greg caps of his presentation with a celebration song about franchising.

FRI Celebrates the Past and Hails in the Future

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 07:20:00 GMT

Franchise Relationships Institute (FRI) has now celebrated two 21st Birthday Breakfasts with 130 clients, suppliers and colleagues. These Breakfasts are dedicated to acknowledging our roots and thanking the people who have made a difference to FRI and franchising, as well as introducing the "next generation" FRI team.

Some of the faces at our 21st Birthday celebrations (left to right): Row 1: Anthony Cannell, Ree-Anna Chatman, Aaron Chowdrey, Katherine Saunders. Row 2: Graham Bauer, Rebecca Murrell, Alb Carlton, Gary Shearer. Row 3: John O’Brien, Steve Wright, Shane Power, Joanne Connelley.

Attendees have commented they never realised we had so many talented young people working behind the scenes. As part of the proceedings Greg Nathan introduced our new "Franchisor Wheel of Excellence" which we are very excited about.

Greg Nathan addressing attendees at one of our 21st Birthday events.

The Birthday Breakfasts will continue this month in Sydney. If you are an Australian client or colleague and we have somehow left you off the invitation list please give us a call. We'd love to have you along to join in the celebrations. (International clients, be patient, we are working on a way to also involve you in helping us celebrate this significant year of our operations).

14 Tips for Improving FAC Performance

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 17:44:00 GMT

Our continuous research into what drives excellence in franchise operations includes "quantitative" statistical and "action" research in the field. The following tips have been drawn from reflections of some senior franchisor executives on what has helped to improve the effectiveness of their FAC meetings.

14 tips for running FAC meetings:

1. Invest time with franchisee members outside of formal meetings to build rapport and align expectations. This is particularly important in the early stages of an FAC.

2. Continue to keep in touch with members between meetings. Show your respect and gratitude for their input by taking opportunities to speak with them on the phone or visiting their business.

3. Don't assume FAC members understand what you are trying to achieve in the bigger picture. Put time and energy into educating them on the principles and strategy behind your brand. This will help to stop discussions going off track or getting bogged down in irrelevant details.

4. Encourage FAC members to get involved testing new initiatives in their own businesses. This will help everyone to appreciate the practical benefits and challenges of rolling these out.

5. Practice good meeting mechanics including having a clear agenda that is agreed to and distributed prior to the meeting.

6. Set specific goals and actions during meetings and ensure these are documented, followed up between meetings and checked off at subsequent meetings.

7. The chairperson or facilitator should preferably not be involved in detailed discussions. It is difficult to have your head involved in running an effective meeting process while also providing technical input at the same time.

8. Listen with your ears and eyes. Show respect for others by remaining focused and attentive. If the energy level drops or people are distracted raise this with the group. You may need to take a break.

9. Allow enough time for both formal meetings and informal discussion outside the meetings, e.g. over a meal. Often the best breakthroughs occur outside the formal meeting. Many FACs run over two days so issues can be discussed over dinner the first night and actions noted the following day.

10. Ensure everyone is clear on power and control issues and remind people of these when necessary. In one group the franchisees believed that being a "sounding board" meant they were the Board and the franchisor was required to sound ideas off them for final approval!

11. Bring in outside experts from within and outslde of the company to stimulate fresh ideas and lively, constructive discussion on specific topics.

12. It is important that the convenor or chairperson retains an attitude of genuine learning and refrains from getting defensive when ideas presented are different to what they may believe at the time.

13. Encourage franchisees to have discussions with each other prior to meetings. This can be useful to help them clarify their thinking and be more prepared to contribute to discussions.

14. The franchisor team needs to practice good teamwork in and between meetings. Executives should attend parts of meetings relevant to their portfolio and be prepared to step in to help with the chairing of meetings if needed, e.g. if the chairperson needs to focus on presenting or discussing data or trends.

In summary the effectiveness of your FAC meetings can be significantly enhanced by effective leadership and investing in the relationships between the people who make up the Council.

Further excellent input on this topic can be found in our guide, “Making Franchise Advisory Councils Work”, available from the FRI online shop.

Aussies and Yankies Unite with Waltzing Matilda

Sat, 17 Apr 2010 10:07:00 GMT

Eminent USA attorney, Rupert Barkoff from Kilpatrick Stockton, has created a tradition of hosting a gala (or should that be galah) Australian/USA dinner at the annual IFA Conventions. This year's event included a fascinating case study on American Land Rights, preceded by a song on Australian land rights! Kristen Sheehan from the FCA led a singalong of Waltzing Matilda.

Kristen Sheehan sings Waltzing Matilda accompanied by Greg Nathan on the dulcimer.

After the singalong (Kristen actually has an amazing voice) Kilpatrick Stockton's Managing Partner, Bill Dorris, shared a moving story of courage and determination over a Native American land rights case the firm had been fighting for 14 years! The plaintiff in the case was Elouise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet tribe from Montana, in a claim that dates back to 1887 involving 11 million acres of land.

Just prior to the dinner, a precedent-setting settlement had been handed down in favour of the Blackfeet tribe for $3.4 billion, the largest of its kind in US history. Proceeds will be used to set up an educational fund for Native Americans.

It was an entertaining and fascinating evening thanks to the generosity of Rupert and his firm.

Franchise Relations Clinic Rated Fun, Fast and Fantastic

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 23:32:00 GMT

A record number of attendees participated in our Franchise Relations Clinic, held at the front end of this year's IFA convention. And feedback has been fantastic.

The Franchise Relations Clinic class of 2010 still look surprisingly fresh after a full day’s learning.

This is the fourth time FRI has been involved in running this ICFE accredited program. It was an action packed day of fun and practical learning attended by around 60 franchisor executives.

"Attending your function in San Antonio and reading your works have been the best things I could do to boost my career and add more value to our Franchise.”

Omar Borrego, Chief Operating Officer, Knockouts

The Clinic focused on what franchisors need to know to build profitable parterships with their franchisees, especially during tough times and covered a broad range of topics including:

How to run engaging franchisee conferences and meetings; how to deliver effective field support; how to recruit better quality franchisees; how to get franchisee buy-in to new initiatives; and Greg's popular Franchise E-Factor model.

The Franchise Relations Clinic is in fact a cut down version of our exciting two day Profitable Partnerships Boot Camp, which will next be held in Denver on 25 and 26 May, 2010. For more details on the Profitable Partnerships Boot Camp go to:

http://www.franchisespeakers.com/franchisor-topic/franchise-relations-boot-camp/

800 Field Consultants Come Together at 7-Eleven USA

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 08:22:00 GMT

We were privileged in February to be invited to present at the "University of 7-Eleven" in Dallas Texas where 800 Field Consultants had come together to learn and share effective ways to serve their franchisees.

7-Eleven have one of the largest field consultant teams in the world and Greg Nathan delivered two interactive presentations to this group.

We have been impressed with 7-Eleven's commitment to supporting their Field Consultants and the company's recognition of the critical role they play in the performance of the whole network.

Greg says he loves the way the company has embraced the concept of servant leadership. For instance, the day he visited the Support Office in Dallas, the 15 members of 7-Eleven's training team had been out in stores sweeping car parks and cleaning ice-cream machines.

7-Eleven's CEO, Joe DePinto, was also recently featured in the reality TV series, Undercover Boss, showing that he is happy to get his hands dirty. Joe was also a guest on Oprah where he was interviewed about the series. Greg says "Joe did the franchise sector proud - he is an example of a great franchisor leader - a smart, focused, down to earth guy who really cares about his people."