Franchising provides opportunities for both franchisors and franchisees. It gives franchisees a chance to have their own business, and franchisors are able to reach out to more customers by adding more locations. However, with multiple owners handling their respective units, controlling quality and information dissemination becomes challenging. 

Continuous training helps franchisees to stay up-to-date with franchise and industry standards. Giving franchisees the necessary knowledge and skills to operate successfully is the importance of training for franchises. Plus, who can remember what was taught on day one of in-person training? It’s like drinking from a firehose. 

Why Do Franchisors Need to Provide Ongoing Training? 

For franchises, the key is ongoing training for building franchise success. Ongoing training for franchises empowers each franchisee, ensuring they have the most recent knowledge and skills they need to operate properly. At the same time, ongoing training for franchises also benefits franchisors in several ways. 

1. Maintain brand standards: Ongoing training helps franchisees keep up-to-date with brand standards and best practices, ensuring that products, services, and customer experience are consistent with the franchisor’s expectations. 
2. Enhance performance: Ongoing training is vital for building franchise success because training, particularly on sales techniques, customer service, and operations, improves the franchisees’ performance and increases their sales. 
3. Support innovation: Franchisees who undergo training are more likely to introduce new products and marketing strategies, keeping them competitive in their local markets. Without franchisees, we might not have Mcdonald’s breakfast or the Big Mac.
4. Ensure compliance: Ongoing training for franchisees helps disseminate information about laws and regulations that affect the business. 
5. Foster a stronger partnership: Through ongoing training, franchisors can develop a sense of partnership and collaboration with their franchisees. 

Franchisor’s Training Program

The purpose of franchisee training is to impart knowledge and skills necessary for proper operation on franchises. The method of how training is conducted is vital to ensure material is retained and skills are efficiently increased. Franchisors typically incorporate several types of training for franchisees to improve their training program’s effectiveness.

1. Initial training: A franchisee receives initial training before starting their business. During the initial training, franchisees are informed about the franchise’s business plan, brand standards, and operational requirements. 
2. Operations manual: A useful tool franchisors can offer is an operations manual detailing franchise policies, procedures, and best practices. When necessary, franchisees can quickly access the operations manual for their specific franchise.Sadly many franchise brands think having an operations manual is akin to having a training manual which is not the purpose of the operations manual. While it does list the items you need to  be prepared to cover in training it stops short of providing any actual training like the “how”, “what” and “why’ things are done to follow brand standards. . 
3. Headquarters training: This kind of training is typically completed before a franchisee starts a firm. The headquarters training is a thorough classroom course that offers practical instruction, the chance to ask questions and get feedback, as well as hands-on training.
4. On-site training: After opening a new franchise store, on-site training takes place there. This program seeks to evaluate each franchisee’s operations, pinpoint their needs, and offer tailored assistance based on their area.
5. Ongoing training: Ongoing training is needed for building franchise success. Ongoing training ensures that franchisees are up-to-date with changes affecting their business and will assist in optimizing their operations.

Each of these is tailored to a specific stage of a franchisee’s journey. However, they all work hand-in-hand to make sure that franchisees have the necessary skills and knowledge from their onboarding to operations. 

What Does Franchise Training Include

Aside from being continuous and regular, training should also be extensive. Franchise training should not be limited to operating a franchise. Instead, it should give franchisees skills and knowledge to help them operate independently. 

1. Brand training:  Franchisees should be taught about the franchise’s branding strategy, such as the brand’s unique selling proposition and image. Brand training ensures the customer experience is consistent with all the franchise branches. 
2. Sales training: Franchisees are not just taught how to sell when they receive sales training. Franchisees should also receive training in sales opportunity creation, customer service, and negotiating. Each franchise’s output will be maximized by sales training.
3. Marketing training: Marketing is an important aspect of any business. Teaching franchisees how to promote their branch and attract customers is one of the importance of training for franchises. 
4. Technology training: Franchisees need to be trained on the technology used in their daily operations, such as point-of-sale and inventory management systems.
5. Leadership training: Franchisees should also be trained on how to handle their own teams. Leadership training will help franchisees develop skills such as employee communication, motivation, and decision-making. 

Effective Training

Training is the best tool for a franchisee to help replicate a franchisor’s business. On-going training is important for franchise success because it allows the franchisor to impart new information and innovation to their franchisees to ensure that they operate according to franchise standards. 

Training, however, is a daunting task. Designing the training program, organizing information, and coordinating with franchisees are a few of the challenges a franchisor will encounter. Simplify training with LearningZen. Our e-learning platform will help any franchisor build and conduct an effective training program easily, improving retention rates and training efficiency. Visit our website to get started today!

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