As your franchise grows, you’ll need more help running the business and assisting customers. If you’ve never hired or managed employees, this may be new to you. Here’s your guide to knowing when the right time is to start hiring staff.
Do You Have More Work Than You Can Handle?
When you bought your franchise, you might have been able to manage most or even all of the tasks your business required. But as you’ve attracted more customers, that might now be more challenging. Do you end each workday with piles of work still untouched? Are you stressed at trying to figure out how you’ll manage it all?
If so, this might be the perfect time to hire help. Look at each aspect of your business and decide which would be the easiest to hand over to someone else. If you run a quick service restaurant franchise , hiring one or more people to take orders and prepare the food will free you up to focusing on admin tasks like creating the work schedule and ordering inventory.
Is Quality Suffering?
If your customers are starting to complain that the quality of your products or services isn’t meeting their standards, that’s a pretty good indicator that you’re overdoing it. Remember: you can’t do it all alone, and trying to may be the end of your business if you can’t deliver results that delight your customers.
Above all, you should be delivering the goods to your customers on time and exceeding expectations. If you’re not, you need more hands on deck to ensure you can. Remember: people may already know your franchise brand, and they have certain expectations of your franchise. If you can’t live up to them, you may find your career as a franchisee a short-lived one.
Can You Afford to Hire?
If business is booming, likely you can afford to hire help, even if it’s just part-time. But make it a priority in the budget, even if it means taking a pay cut yourself. As you hire more employees, you’ll be able to serve more customers, and you’ll attract more business. You can then bump up your pay accordingly.
Do You Know Exactly What You Need Help With?
Hiring staff when you’re desperate is never good. You may not even be clear on what you need help with. So before you put your Help Wanted sign out, stop and consider what areas are crying out for help. Do you need someone to take on outside sales for you? To man the cash register? To fulfill orders? Each of these are tasks that can be done by affordable labor, giving you more time to think about business strategy.
Once you hire and train employees for your franchise, you’ll be amazed at how much free time you have to work on other aspects of your business.
Susan Guillory is the President of Egg Marketing & Communications, a marketing firm specializing in content writing and social media management. She’s written three business books, including How to Get More Customers With Press Releases, and frequently blogs about small business and marketing on sites including Forbes, AllBusiness, The Marketing Eggspert Blog, and Tweak Your Biz. Follow her on Twitter @eggmarketing.