"I wasn’t looking to do this,” admits Peter Irvine, of his role as mentor for a number of franchise businesses following his step back from Gloria Jean’s Coffees, the largest specialty coffee retail business he founded 11 years ago and which now counts more than 765 coffee houses in 25 countries.
Irvine believes he is able to bring a day to day commercialism to the mentoring process which consultants, who have rarely run a
retail franchise, are in not a position to do. “I can say this is what you need to set-up, this is what you need to do for trademarks, to cover payments, for renewals, and what to pay.” Consultants tread a conservative path, he suggests, and yet details can still be overlooked. Legal and consultancy advisors are not necessarily the best placed to give detailed commercial opinion.
Mentoring can take many forms. If someone is just growing their business then a business mentor is likely to focus on issues like leadership and staff concerns. Internal mentoring can work to some extent, confirms Irvine, particularly when other franchisees are the mentors. Franchisees will listen to someone who is not the franchisor, he says. And although franchisors do provide assistance in terms of Key Performance Indicators and management skills, not all franchisors are geared up to provide expert advice. While the franchisor has a role in delivering support, so franchisees must heed the advice given; hearing without listening is a common issue in the franchising field reveals Irvine. “There is no use getting advice if you don’t listen,” he warns.
“Mentoring has proven an ideal way for our franchisees to capitalize on the tremendous combined experience of our existing and successful franchisees,” explains Brian Pretorius at
Signarama. “We have slowly introduced mentors into our Australian system, being careful to not always choose just the most successful owners but rather those who are successful and who have become knowledgeable about the industry and who are good communicators.” There are 13 mentor stores in Australia.
“Our official rollout of the mentor program began in 1997, after many of our owners had expressed their satisfaction and gratitude for the information they had gathered from their peers at our franchisee convention where we had successfully promoted ‘rubbing elbows with the elders’ at roundtable discussions, after hours of activities and the like.”
At that time two dozen of the most successful franchisees were asked if they would be willing to voluntarily work with existing and new franchisees as a way to solidify the system and reduce the learning curve for new franchisees. The response was unanimous.
Of course gaining hard-earned experience from a traveller who has already passed along the route cuts down some of the risks but it doesn’t mean mistakes won’t be made along the way. And sometimes advice has to be repeated: recommendations are initially ignored because the person thinks a particular event or process won’t happen but down the track when, inevitably, the problem has occurred, the counsel given again is heard properly, reveals Irvine.
“In some cases other issues come up, refinancing or how to get a loan, and I can give directions.” With his advertising and marketing background Irvine can also share schemes to get the most out of a limited budget and encourage effective marketing.
“People think because they don’t have the budget of McDonalds they can’t do anything.” For instance, investigating how to build a link with charities and community projects is something that often develops in mentoring discussions and Irvine’s advice is to match the business to a charity that will work in partnership, that will provide benefit to the franchise business, and not one buried in sponsorship. Looking ahead is important for any business and mentors can assist in refining partnership plans.
“I ask, where do you want to be in five or 10 years time?”
Mentoring allows Irvine to share both the mistakes and good things that have happened at Gloria Jean’s. “For me to see people succeed is a great thing, rather than see mistakes and failures.”
“One of the biggest benefits from our perspective,” says Pretorius, “is that storeowners can get advice, business answers and direction not just from our corporate staff, but also from their peers who have gained broad experience while building their successful businesses. We’re not as concerned with where they go for the answer, rather that they get the answer they are looking for. We know that the answers a new owner gets from a mentor would be the same answer they would get from corporate staff, and that’s what being a part of our system is all about.
Signarama mentors also help new storeowners who are fresh out of training with on the job training in the mentor’s store, prior to the opening of their new locations. Trainees typically spend up to five days under a mentor’s wing before opening their new location.
Many business start-ups receive a lot of advice from other people, including friends and family who may never have run a business. A mentor’s value is in having had that experience. At Signarama
business services franchise, mentors are accessible through the online franchisee bulletin board which contains a profile of each mentor, including valuable information such as their area of expertise, their backgrounds before joining the network, their location size, staffing levels, sales volume awards and achievement awards.
“A mentor newsletter called the Mentor’s Message is distributed to all of the stores, highlighting a selected mentor, and containing a question corner where owners can read several mentors’ responses to queries that have been submitted to us,” explains Pretorius. Mentoring can give you a hand up so why not take advantage of someone else’s experience? After all, isn’t that what franchising is all about?
9-May-2008