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Franchisors: You Gotta Know Your Numbers

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Last week I attended the inaugural meeting of the Philadelphia Franchise Association.  It was a lunch meeting with about 30 minutes of networking at the beginning, a great Italian lunch (Maggiano’s), and a panel discussion afterwards.  The topic of this meeting was near and dear to my heart; “How your franchisees can make more money & you get better numbers.”

Philly-Love-Park-Cropped

Love Park in Philadelphia

Thanks to Tom Spadea of Spadea, Lanard & Lignana for organizing the event, and selecting such a great topic for discussion.

Marty Ferrill, CEO of Soft Pretzel Franchise System in Philadelphia, started off the discussion and emphasized how important it was to “know the numbers.”

The three panelists talked about how important working capital is to the success of new franchisees.  They all stressed how critical it is to get monthly Income Statements from the field.  I asked a question about Balance Sheets (after all – you need a balance sheet to monitor working capital).  The consensus seemed to be that you need to walk before you run – and the income statement was a good place to start.

One of the panelists, David Gould,  recalled how he used to be a field consultant, and the first thing he would do during a visit is look at the Zee’s Accounts Receivable.  Anything over 30 days, he would call and say “I’m from the corporate office, and I noticed you have a past due amount.  Can I stop by and pick up a check today?”  He said he collected thousands of dollars for his Zees, and was pretty popular among them as a result.

Another panelist, Dana Kline,  noted the importance of context.  So you’re collecting all these numbers.  Is a value good or bad?  The Zees need guidance on what defines good performance, and what is not so good.  I couldn’t agree more.

Someone from the audience asked about compliance:  “how do you get the Zee’s to report their numbers?”  Dana Kline said that you just have to make it part of the “system.”  Tell them, “This is just how we do things.”  Others chimed in that the franchisor  should make monthly reporting a part of the franchise agreement.  All agreed that feeding back useful information to the Zees was essential to achieving a high rate of compliance.

I talked to a couple of CPA’s in the audience who re-iterated how important Cash, Working Capital, and other Balance Sheet Data is to understanding the financial health of the Zees.  Plus KPI’s that involve data outside the accounting system.  One accountant mentioned to me that getting the data helps illuminate book-keeping problems.  Many Zees scrimp on book-keeping and often leave it to untrained family members.

Joe Caruso (head of the Capital Area Franchise Association) talked about the need to know about debt service and whether a Zee can cover it.  He cautioned that some of the debt may be outside the company books.  He cited the example of a franchisee that takes out a home equity loan to help purchase a franchise, and sees his mortgage payments double from $2,000 to $4,000.

One of the panelists reminded the audience that  success of the Franchisor depends on the success of the individual Franchisees.

There’s a great video summarizing the event with snippets from each of the 3 panelists, and interviews with members from the audience to get their reactions at the end.  I’m the one 2:25 into the video who doesn’t know how to tie a tie.

http://www.franchise-info.ca/PFA/2013/09/inaugural-meeting—panel-discussion—video.html

My takeaway:  It is critical for the Franchisor to actively monitor and analyze the financial performance of all Zees in the network.  It’s not easy, but it has to be done.  It’s a good thing there are tools like SurvivalWare that ease the burden of collecting financial information in a common format so that it can be properly analyzed.  The cash flow projections are icing on the cake.



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