Rod Young Tells us How to Build a Successful Franchise

Rod Young is the founder and Executive Director of DC Strategy, a company which has helped brands such as Australia Post, Aussie Home Loans, Gloria Jeans, OPSM, 7 Eleven, Telstra and ANZ. In this interview he shares his expertise on how to make franchises fly.

Rod Young is recognised as one of the world’s leading franchise and channel strategy experts with over 30 years experience establishing and developing successful networks and brands in Australia, Europe, China, South East Asia, India and the United States.

Rod young spoke to Franchise India and shared his views on how to build a successful franchise.

With 30 years of experience in Franchising, how have you seen the industry growing especially with the advent of technology in ecommerce?

In terms of franchising, unless you are in the ecommerce business you are really not in business. We see the best brands are using the ecommerce strategy in parallel with retail strategy. You need to able to use technology to leverage your expertise and provide experience to your customers as well as manage your database, which is a key to your communication with your customers in the future.

What mistakes people do in hiring franchise partners?

The biggest mistake while acquiring franchise partners is not focusing enough on how well these people will perform their role as your brand ambassador. Having knowledge of their long term expectations, and also how comfortable are you with them representing your business in the way you wanted. We see that the mistakes are looking at selling a franchise rather than breaking a franchise.

What is the apt way to form right franchise partners?

I think the focus should be on what you need as a franchisee in your network. If you are opening a company owned store or a company owned franchise in the service business, will you hire this person as your store manager or your operations manager within your business. If the answer is no then you shouldn’t be granting him a franchise because they don’t have the skill sets that are necessary in running a business.

When we talk about Franchising, it is a marriage between a franchisor and a franchisee. What advice would you give them to grow the long term coordination with their franchise partners?

The key is to understand the business model and ensure that the business model is going to provide satisfactory return to your franchisee and if the model can be developed over the next 5-10 years, you are going to add new franchisees into your network.

If it works for your franchising and the franchisee can get a fair and reasonable return for his capital invested and his labour invested for the long term, your foundation for the future is very sound.

What are the 3 things that will help the industry to take it to the next level?

The first thing should be thinking about the welfare of your franchise owner. Because at the end of the day, your franchise owner is going to be your brand ambassador and you got to ensure that your business is going to support that franchise owner. 

Secondly, be committed to marketing and promoting your brand. Without marketing promotion you can’t grow your business.

Thirdly, continue to innovate because whatever you have done in the last 5 years will probably not be relevant in the upcoming years and think about developing and innovating your business.