Many managers want to do everything. They think it is there job to oversee every part of the business, micromanage all the executives, undertake the sales of every product, and handle all the day to day operations. What they don’t do is what they are actually paid the big money for – Managing the Business!

Many white collar business people give the corporate life the flick (either voluntary or involuntary), and decide to put their skills to work in a small business for themselves. I personally did that aged 44, with 2 kids in private school etc etc ,and went into our own small consulting firm – a fairly high risk period of my life!

Whilst this article is not about me, I did end up being a Director of the Institute of Management Consulting (IMC) for 6 years, so do have some idea of the challenges before you. Taking on a white collar franchise can be the solution between going alone, with all the risk as an individual consultant, and partnering with a known concept, and using the systems and processes already established to your benefit.

I am a very keen Hawthorn fan, and now have the personal record of attending 7 Grand Finals in which they have played – and seen 7 Premiership wins.

So what does Hawthorn do differently from the other 17 teams in the AFL? They work to Their Rules – and do it the best way possible. Whilst I cannot say I am an expert, these are my views – and I think they have a real business connotation:

1. Recruitment.
Hawthorn has been amazing at identifying young talent, and then developing it over a few years. Some of this talent comes in quickly, but they are not scared to wait and let the bigger boys develop, even if they play in the Box Hill Hawks for a couple of seasons.

I am surprised by how many businesses decide to opt for a franchising model with no plan for how to properly achieve it. I see businesses that have tried to do it themselves, engaged a lawyer as a consultant, or just tried a shotgun approach and fired off volleys whenever they see a problem fail miserably.

Let’s start with a franchise consultant who can take an overview of the development of the franchise. 

Franchise consultants are specialists who act like conductors of an orchestra, Their job is bring in (and out) the various instruments as and when required. In our case I say our business is the first violin – needed for strategic network planning, site selection policies and territory planning – and then we pass our work back to the conductor and the client to move to the next steps.

In a franchise operation you need to have teamwork and cohesion so everybody knows what their responsibility and job is, and by achieving that, we normally see the most competitive and effectively performing franchise systems.

As a Certified Management Consultant, it concerns me in many franchise businesses in how they are so short staffed that management move from one crisis to another, without setting up the long term position correctly.

I was recently talking to a client who wants to expand their network into strip shopping centres, and he is continually being offered new strip sites.  The company has an issue running that is taking up 80 per cent of his time.  Unfortunately they cannot seem to address the local issues, so doing some simple planning to prioritise future expansion areas seems out of the question.

In all steps of the franchise process, be it internal operations of the Franchisor, the interface to Franchisees, or the internal operations of the Franchisees, having delegated roles and responsibilities makes the process of getting the job done far more effective.

It is not very effective having the CEO of McDonalds licking stamps for envelopes, and a young backroom burger flipper telling the CFO how to invest the spare cash!

I had the privilege of attending some of the America’s Cup racing in San Francisco this Spring, and if you want to see how to run an efficient operation, just have look at these teams. 3 years ago the concept of racing 72’ catamarans on hydrofoils was just a dream, and never had such a vessel been built. 

International yachting came together and decided to start by building and racing Americas Cup 45 Catamarans, to have sailors become use to racing such vessels, and then to graduate to AC72’s around 1 year before the America’s Cup.

This was a “start from scratch” event where the teams had to design and build their vessels, learn to sail them and become extremely competitive for the racing that was to start in July 2013, with the finals of the America’s Cup in September 2013 in San Francisco.

Despite not regaining the America’s Cup from the Americans, in what turned out to be a nail biting series, let’s compare the Emirates Team New Zealand to a Franchise system, and see where it comes together?