The Franchise Test: Could Someone Run Your Business Without You?

Imagine waking up tomorrow and deciding not to go into work. Not for a day or two but for several months.

Would everything continue as normal?

If the answer is a confident yes, you may already have one of the most important ingredients for franchising your business: a system that does not rely entirely on you.

For many who have started their own companies from the ground up, it can be surprisingly difficult to step back and let others take over some of those responsibilities within the company. Many of these people feel an overwhelming sense of responsibility for the company and its various aspects and therefore struggle with allowing others to perform certain tasks.

While that strategy works for one business, it becomes much more challenging for another individual to replicate that same business in a different location.

The franchise must be repeatable. The processes that you use in your business should be clear enough for another person to follow, including the customer service that you provide, the sales approach that you use, the training that your employees receive, and the day-to-day operations of your business. For help to Franchise My Business, contact www.ashtonsfranchise.com/franchise-my-business/

This does not mean removing everything personal from your business. Your experience and vision are still valuable. The goal is to turn what you know into a system that other people can understand and use.

One useful test of the criticality of a task or decision is to consider what would happen if you were to step away from that responsibility tomorrow. Would anything stop? Would anyone else have the knowledge to make the same decision? Are there tasks that would cease to exist if you were to leave?

These gaps in the data are not necessarily bad news. They can be clues to what is happening with the data that is missing.