Experience Cloning Vs. Franchising

Here you are. All these years of hard work, long nights, sacrifices at home, failures, perseverance have created a money-making brand. People love what you offer and they tell their friends about it. When visitors ask people, "what should I be sure not to miss while I am in town?", the answer usually includes a visit to your store.

The first time someone asked you if you would consider franchising your business, it first surprised you but then you felt quite proud. "I built this and others want to buy it!?" After a little thought, you got a bit excited at the picture in your mind of many beautiful copies of your business perfectly situated in all the best spots in all the best cities! Perhaps you started learning more about the concept of franchising; expanding YOUR business without using YOUR capital... OTHER people shouldering a large part of the load of expansion, allowing you to grow profits without growing the stress level too much... hmmm... sounds appealing, right?

But then you started wondering about how it works. Could we really find the right investors who would treat this the way I would? Wouldn't it still be a LOT more work for me? What if we fail and damage our reputation and therefore our well-established brand? Plus, creating systems so that others can duplicate what we do... that's really going require a serious amount of work and you don't even know where to start.

So perhaps you thought about hiring a big name franchising company to help you. OK, fair enough. After all, they sure did well with big names like Jollibee, Bo's Coffee and many others...

Well, this article is not about all that :)

This article is actually intended to remind us what it is that we are selling and whose perspective we should be considering as we expand our brand. 

The word BRAND conjures up many logos in your mind, doesn't it? But is that what the word means? Not really. A logo is just the visual stamp we use to represent a company or organization and when we see it, what it really represents more than anything else is EXPERIENCES. And experiences are remembered mostly in emotions. If we have had experiences with an organization that gave us positive feelings, and especially if that has been consistently repeated over time, when we see that logo we feel those good feelings again! The same with negative or mixed experiences.

Assuming people love your brand, it means you and your team have succeeded in consistently giving people good feelings as they interacted with your products or services. Congratulations!

Now, what can we learn about this when it comes to expanding via the franchise model? Well, let's look at companies that we love already cloned en masse. Starbucks, Bo's Coffee, McDonald's just to name a few. Is it really their product quality alone that has given us the pattern of good experiences most people would report? For sure that is not solely what they built their reputations upon. Without delving into every nuance, let's just say that it is a PACKAGED EXPERIENCE that has been perfected and then CLONED with impressive precision. I call this Experience Cloning. And this, my friends, is at the core of successful business expansion whatever model you use.

It is also where most franchise attempts fail. They fail because the franchisor and the franchisee alike are too focused on their own interests (mostly financial) and the minutia of processes and logistics that they gradually forget all about what matters MOST! The emotional experience of the end-user, client or customer. THE original article, that first store or business center- everyone LOVED everything about it. From the location, ease of parking, easily visible signage, perfect lighting, comfortable air temperature, cozy layout and seating, the smile and greeting that always oozed positive energy and genuine care, to the amazing taste, perfect service, attention to detail, clean CR, etc. etc. etc.

But now somehow when they visit that copy in their home city that just opened a few months ago... they immediately feel some vital things missing. Maybe the food is still amazing, but the staff isn't smiling. Maybe the seating is not so comfy or the lighting is too dark. Maybe the wifi doesn't work. Who knows, it could be a thousand things. But the point is, most of the time because of various factors typically stemming from too much focus on short term profits with minimal time or financial investment, the CLONE IS FAULTY! It is a poor copy of the original. 

The oddest thing is, those little nuances may or may not be something the franchisee or even the franchisor can exactly put their fingers on... Because they are now suffering myopia; the inability to see things from a vantage point other than their own. They are standing too close, they are digging IN the trenches and they can't even see that they are digging the wrong direction.

The moral of the story is this- before you even think about duplicating, cloning or expanding, spend the time with someone who can help you define concisely and precisely what it is that you have built your brand on. What you also need to have written is your story. WHY did you build it the way you did? You can't even start looking for people to carry on your legacy if you don't know the answers to these questions. Find a consultant who can help you get that in writing (or even in a drawing or video) SO CLEARLY, that nobody including yourself could ever be duped by an imperfect copy. 

THEN and only then should you start the heavy lifting of planning, developing and executing a franchise system.

Eli Harrell