There are 5,000 franchise companies operating through 500,000 outlets and accounting for sales of 2-trillion dollars. The average franchise fee is $20,000-$30,000 with some of the larger franchise businesses requiring much more. Besides becoming a well-known name, what else does a franchise offer? Systems.
By purchasing a franchise the processes for the business to function is already designed to ensure maximum efficiency. These processes are documented allowing for easy training and implementation allowing the business to grow and duplicate.
As a small business owner, we often struggle to get through the day. We possibly repeat many of the same tasks without much thought on the way in which we do them or if it’s the most efficient way to get a job completed. We are masters at multi-tasking and individually perform tasks handled by many different departments marketing, information technology, accounting, human resources, service delivery, customer service, product development, etc. and yet we often don’t recognize the different functions we perform every day.
The beautiful part of developing an operations manual is it allows you to design your dream business and start to take the steps necessary to get there. Take a minute to think about it. If you were a full functioning business what departments would you have? How many employees would you have in these departments? What roles and responsibilities would these employees have? How would you train these employees to perform tasks, interact with customers, and deliver your product or service to the world? How large could you grow with efficient systems in place? How easy would it be to start adding employees to your company even if only for a few hours per week to get started?
Are you able to start to see your business forming? You can begin to create systems in your business and allow for growth by following these steps:
•Document all the tasks you perform
•Group these tasks into department functions
•Write work instructions of the most efficient way to perform these tasks
•Start to identify roles and responsibilities for your first employee or independent contractor
•Write a job description and performance expectations
•Conduct training on the tasks you are delegating
Before you know it, you will have a living breathing operations manual for all functions of your business allowing you to duplicate your business tasks and grow to a million dollar business. For a free webinar outlining the steps to create an operations manual, visit http://bodyworkalternatives.com/Organized_Operations.html
Lisa Meloche
