Why do your employees quit? It’s because they do the same jobs/tasks over and over and it’s boring. Make it interesting by gamifying they job and they will stay and look forward to coming to work. Everyone likes a challenge they can handle and have control over. I give you an idea on what worked to make scooping ice cream fun. What will you create to allow your teams to have fun?

How much have you thought about the sincerity of your interactions with your customer base? If you are an average franchisee, you haven’t thought much of it. Of course, you can be blind to why customers choose a competitor if you don’t grade the sincerity of your business. However much time you spend understanding your own sincere approach to your business is equal to the sincere way your employees approach working with customers. Enjoy the podcast and use the information to improve your franchise.

What red flags do you have in your business to alert you to problems? Are you paying attention or are you a key tosser? We cover many aspects of what to look for to ensure when things go wrong, and they will go wrong, that you have the ability to recognize it and correct it. Why do most businesses fail? Because, owners aren't paying attention to things that are small, but significant and can alert you to bigger problems BEFORE they happen. We cover problems extensively in my book, The Prom King Bought A Franchise. If you need a reference for how to tackle everyday problems, read the book. It will show you how to work with a problem to correct it, how to work around a problem you cannot change, and how to crush a problem to make it never come back. Let's Break Franchising! is all about how to make a better business for you, the franchisee. So, listen to the podcast, send questions to [email protected], and never stop making your business grow!

Does anyone know you are a franchisee? Really? Do a little experiment. Go down the street or even within your own shopping center and ask people if there is a good place to buy whatever it is you are selling. You will be shocked at how many people don't even know you are there!  Now, go back with a coupon, giveaway, introduction, free food or anything and ask them to visit you. Introduce yourself as the owner and that you are personally inviting them to visit your store TODAY. Be ready for a big, exhausting day because that personalized marketing is going to blow the doors off of your business.  Stop creating a distance between you and your customers and start making a personal effort to be known as the franchise guy in town. LOTS of great things happen then...including record breaking sales. Listen in and then do your homework! Let me know how it goes with a quick text to (404) 962-0541. It comes directly to me and I will reply back. Thanks, Bob Griffin Business Bulldog Brand Founder

You did your Grand Opening and everything looked amazing! You staff was well trained and ready to help every customer. Then a few weeks pass and you lose some good employees and replace them with new hires. You follow the corporate training program and have them watch the webinars on how to work in your location. The second group of hires aren't as good as the first ones and customers notice. What Happened?!?! You didn't train your staff the same way and it shows all the way down to the profit line.  We discuss how to train your staff, what you should do differently to get the best results, and how to know if it worked. You will have your employees train you on the tasks you trained them on and see for yourself if they understand what to do, how to do it, why to do it, when to do it, and (most importantly) if they WANT to do the task correctly. We cover the difference between training and disciplining. There is a time for everything, but you need to make sure you know that you did your part well in training staff. If it is just a bad fit for an employee, it should be easy to part ways as adults. It's time to review the second half of the job of being franchisee! Are you ready to break your store training? Got Questions? Text me directly (404) 962-0541 or email me at [email protected].

What is the most needed and least used part of your business? Tracking the numbers in the business. Yes, I mean sales, but I also mean costs and breakeven and how many more customers do you need to hit certain benchmarks. The numbers of your business are critical to knowing the health of your business. We discuss the basics and look at breakeven costs. We also look at what it takes to gain customers in a pandemic and how your breakeven changed since the beginning of the year.  Are you still a franchise that keeps customers coming back? What is the value of one customer? How can you influence that one customer to bring in more customers? Does it change the value of that customer? Yes, it does. A customer who does word-of-mouth advertising for you because they love your store is worth plenty! How are you using your business culture to make that customer valuable? Business by the numbers means sales, costs, and growth. Tracking key performance measures each day makes all the difference between growing, struggling, and failing. Where are you on that scale? Listen in and enjoy an early morning podcast on the last day of Pandemic Year 2020! 

How do you challenge your competition when you both sell the exact same items or provide the exact same services? You hire crazy people, of course!  The premise of this episode is to change the way you look at your employees and hire people who are comfortable in their skin. Layer on top of that the Bulldog Rules for Business and our proprietary way of both developing vision goals for teams and fundamentally changing the way leaders look and interact with their teams and you have a recipe for success. If you see your team as "replaceable", then you should be replaced. If you see your team as not motivated, then you should learn WHAT motivates them. If you can't see (vision goals) the goals and be able to explain what it looks like to exceed those goals, then how can you expect your team to buy-in? Listen in and find the parts of team building that will make the difference between customers going to your competition for convenience versus driving past them to go to your business where they like your team and want to spend their money with you!

COVID is horrible. Not just as a virus but also as another speed bump in your business. More than 500,000 small businesses have already gone out of business and cannot pay back the stimulus money. Many of them are franchisees who got stuck in doing business the same way they always have and the customers have changed their habits. In order to survive any major changes, you have to think bigger, wider, and more creatively. I read the first part of chapter 4, The Brainiac Still Can't Figure It Out, to make the point that even really smart people are dying in business because they can't think of change as a good thing. If you know that the business model you use has worked for years and you don't want to change it, then you'll lose. Being smart isn't as valuable as acting smart. There is a disconnect between "knowing" and "doing". That's why the guy with no formal education can whup the guy who has been running businesses for decades.  "If you're green you're growing. If you're ripe, you rot.", has been in my tool box for consulting for years. How you think of your franchise is how you and your team will treat it. Act like you have something to prove and that you want the entire community to rally behind you and, guess what, that will happen. Always think about growing your business.

What are we really, really, good at? Complicating the crap out of everything.  We all only have three resources to be successful - Time, Money, and Effort. If you add more garbage to doing the basics of running your franchise than you need, you are stealing from yourself. We look at a couple specific areas where we spend too much time and limit our ability to earn more money. Focusing in on clearing up time and how you use that time to grow your franchise locations is critical to adding profits.  Stop complicating everything and get back to what makes sense. Use your TME to make your business grow and keep you from being that crazy owner we cross the street to avoid! Listen, take notes, and email us at [email protected]. If you are lucky, we may interview YOU for one of our podcasts.

How many times a day does a marketing company come to your business, email, or call you to tell you about how much Return on Investment (ROI) you would get if you just spent money with them? I average around 15 per day. Just to be clear, there is nothing wrong with it. I don't know if they can get you a "240% Return on Your Investment" or if they are full of it. Maybe they can.  Here's the deal, I want you to look at the bigger ROI. The one that builds your business and grows your brand within the brand. You have limited resources. You only have so much TIME, MONEY, and EFFORT. Spend it wisely.  What would the CEO or President of your franchise say about your business? Would he be wowed or would he even remember you?  ROI is your entire investment.  How are you investing your time each day? How are you spending your efforts each day? How are you spending your money? Are you growing your brand or are you spending to maintain? **Here's a hint** You aren't maintaining...you are failing slower. Look at your entire spend when you look at ROI. That includes how you spend your time, money and effort at home. If you "have to spend more time at work than at home" because you can't have the standard of living if you take time to enjoy being with your family, you are DOING IT WRONG!  Franchising is great when it is done right. Take the time to review your ROI.