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Young franchisees help drive change: Paul Constantinou

Sarah Stowe

Paul Constantinou, CEO and founder of Quest Serviced Apartments, is banking on young franchisees to be the driving force for the business

Franchised brand Quest has built its business on providing serviced apartments oriented to business travellers and has outsourced the more specialist areas such as food and beverage and gyms. Today the business travel market is less concerned with price than certainty, says Constantinou, and is looking for accommodation in regions away from city centres. So what’s important for Quest and its franchisees right now?

“What got us here isn’t going to get us there. It’s easy to make changes when you want to, not so easy when you are forced to. We need to ask, what are our customers doing tomorrow, where will they want to stay?

“Some of the businesses are not doing so well. Retail for instance won’t be the same, we might like it to be, but it won’t be. We have to look at our skill sets meeting our customer needs.

“Anyone can make a bed, anyone can check someone in. Technology just helps. We focus on people who can build relationships, who can talk person to person and we build a culture through staff. Relationships reveal the true integrity of a person.

“It’s surprising to see people come out of other businesses without clear goals. If there’s no alignment [with the franchisee] with us, it’s just coming to work as an employee. We need to on the same path, whether the goals are financial or human.

“We look for someone who always tries to do a bit better, one percent better each week. Disciplines and systems don’t make it work.

“Where we’ve been 70 percent of our franchisees have no small hospitality training, some come through our business, then join management, and hopefully end up as franchisees.

“We’re not hierarchical and we help our employees develop. We owe it are them to support them through the infrastructure.

“The success of any business is bringing youth through. They have a hunger to succeed, as older people are more accepting. We need franchisees driving the franchisor. If they ask the questions, we keep evolving.”