Ongoing support

After the initial set-up, many lawyers and consultants do not offer ongoing support and systems. EXB offers ongoing support and has systems, processes and documents in place to support you and manage your documentation with franchisees and your ongoing needs.

The role of franchisor does not stop after the franchisee has signed up and paid. EXB can be available to support and advise you on an ongoing basis. See the section on Ongoing Support under the Services tab. In addition, EXB can offer a fixed fee system for managing each franchisee's legal documents, and that fee can be built in to the upfront fee that you charge franchisees.

With no surprises on fees or invoices, you can structure your system with peace of mind that it will be managed for you and that you can factor in the fees .

Franchisor's ongoing role

Team picture Once you have finished your preparation for franchising, you have to balance three main roles:

- operating your core business
- recruiting and training new franchisees
- supporting and managing existing franchisees

As you expand your business and your franchised network, you are likely to need to take on additional personnel for assistance.

During recruitment of franchisees, you need to plan how best to target people who would be appropriate franchisees so that you do not waste marketing budget. It is advisable to have clearly defined criteria for the people you want as franchisees and their personal attributes and then adhere to your own guidelines. Although recruitment of franchisees is partly about "selling" yourself and your business, it is vital to be honest and open with franchisees and in particular not to give financial forecasts that have not been proven or any other information that could be misleading.

Once you have recruited a franchisee, there will be an initial intensive period of support where you train the franchisee and help him or her to set up the business. The training programme needs to be planned and prepared in advance and should cover clearly defined topics and go through the Operations Manual that the franchisee will use to guide him or her as they operate the franchised business.

The role of franchisor is to support and advise franchisees, but after initial training and the early months of more intensive support, you should not need to be as closely involved, and should move into a more supporting background role, so that you can focus on improving and maintaining the core business. It is important to remember that it is the franchisee who is running his or her own business, and it is not part of your role to operate the business for them.

Together we can manage a successful franchise network

Please see our sections on Ongoing Support and on the Circles of Franchising for more information on how EXB can help you. If you are an existing franchisor, please contact us to discuss how we can help you in relation to support and services for you and / or your franchisees.