When we first began franchising our company we believed that the franchisees should be able to call up the founder anytime they wanted to ask a question. We know this would not last forever, in fact we figured until about 120 franchisees or so. We later learned 70 is about all any one person can handle and I beat my head against the wall micro-managing all aspects of the company. It seemed at the time relevant, as I had built the company and knew every single aspect of it, you name I knew it, from legal documents to soap supplies for our Mobile Car Wash Rigs.

It wasnt until we had about 50 franchises or so before I realized that the franchisees had felt intimidated to call with what they believed to be non-essential things and thus were flustered and frustrated in not knowing answers to their questions. We solved this later by putting massive amounts of information online in the Intranet System and hiring staff and getting our vendors to better coordinate more positive or absolute timetables.

One day we contacted all the franchises and asked what can we do better? I actually felt hurt by the answer a bit, as it seemed that they did not want to talk to me when they had a simple question, as it made them feel insecure. Here is what one franchisee said:

Right now we would like to have a contact person other than you who can answer the everyday stuff that you don't need to deal with anymore. Someone who can get something in the mail for us today or even better-yesterday. But it needs to be more than a secretary or assistant-it needs to be your right hand man (or woman) if you will. Someone who can go over the franchise agreement, who can answer questions, explain the timeline of the business launch, make recommendations etc. etc.

Wow, unfortunately at the time I didnt have anyone who could do everything I could do, few could and it could take six months to develop such a right hand man. We finally did, we trained three, which was good because one quit later. But the point is that sometimes delegation is not only needed, but rather respected. It was not an anti-founder statement, it was a statement about how the team expected and wished to do business with us you see? Think on this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

Currently Lance is retired at age 40 and is running an Online Think Tank Forum while traveling North America. Perhaps considering something extremely challenging to do that will exercise his mind and utilize all his experiences, observations and skills. Any ideas?