In my over three decades of experience as a franchise consultant, I am often asked about different significant issues in successfully franchising your business.

In my opinion, a well-planned initial training program is an important consideration when franchising your business.

An effective initial training program could make the difference in the success of your franchisees and ultimately your franchise program.

When initially franchising your business, consider the following five aspects of your franchisee training program:

  1. Who will you train? Who will do the training?
  2. When will the training happen?
  3. How long is the training program?
  4. Where will the training occur?
  5. What topics will be covered?

The answers to some of these questions will change over time as your franchise program matures. For this blog, I am addressing the issues to be decided when initially franchising your business.

  1. When franchising your business, who on the franchisee’s team must be trained initially? This answer will vary. Certainly, all franchisees involved in the operation of the business. Also consider training any key employees who supervise others, such as an Assistant Manager, Service Manager, Kitchen Manager, Shift Supervisor or similar position. When franchising your business, also determine who on your team will conduct the training. Who has the knowledge, ability and personality to effectively train others?
  2. When franchising your business and designing your initial training program, the when is important. For the franchisee, you may divide the training program into different phases, allowing your franchisee to be at his/her premises for key events, such as starting the build-out, hiring key personnel, inspections by local licensing agencies, etc. As you are franchising your business, the other important when is the timing for training any franchisee employees. These employees must be ready to begin operations on opening day and may help train the franchisee’s remaining personnel. They must be fully trained in advance. However, avoid the following pitfalls: (a) saddling your new franchisee with unnecessary payroll for months before opening, (b) forcing the franchisee’s fully trained employees to find other jobs while waiting for the franchise to open and (c) allowing the franchisee or his/her employees to forget training completed too far in advance. The when of the initial training program is quite important when franchising your business.