A Restaurant like a franchise?
Time can be considered as one of the biggest issues that single location restaurant owners out there in the world face. If you are one of them, you will know the struggle that you go through on a daily basis to manage your time. You will never have enough time. You will also find yourself working for more than 70 hours a week.
Running your restaurant like a franchise is one of the most effective methods available for you to overcome this hassle. If you are still not convinced, you need to go ahead and take a look at the below-mentioned tips.
Making your restaurant a franchise?
You will need to plan heavily before you can go ahead and run your restaurant like a franchise. In fact, there are plenty of things that you need to do during the initial stages. However, the time and effort that you invest will pay off within a short period of time. You can understand why by taking a look at the benefits that we are going to discuss at the bottom of this article.
The franchise restaurants are equipped with a strong system. In fact, all the franchise restaurants have a strong system, which allows it to get the day to day business operations done without any hassle. On the other hand, it can allow the restaurant owners to go ahead and offer great experiences and great foods to the customers.
The franchise restaurants often use systems for the kitchen, front of the house, marketing as well as HR. Therefore, the possibility for you to end up with unexpected surprises is minimized. That’s because the system allows you to predict what will take place in the future. Then you will be able to act accordingly and make sure that you don’t get the negative consequences of it.
How to set up your restaurant franchise system?
Now you must be wondering how to go ahead and set up your restaurant franchise system. This will be a time-consuming job to do. That’s because you will have to work on many different things.
One of the best approaches that you can follow in order to set up the restaurant franchise system would be to go ahead and take a look at all the issues, which can create an impact on the overall performance. Then you will be able to create high-level guides, which can act as procedures to overcome ending up with similar issues in the future.
You need to treat every single procedure as a living document. Then you should go ahead and assign an employee of the restaurant as the individual who is responsible for it. You should also make sure that you are interviewing the responsible person on a weekly basis. This will help you to capture all the variances and fine tune the processes that you have.
Once all the procedures are fine-tuned, you can make sure that they are correct. After that, your team can start solving the next set of pressing issues in the restaurant.
Here are some reasons why you need to think about running your restaurant like a franchise
- You can provide quick training to the staff
Most of the restaurants are dealing with the pain of high employee turnover. This represents the low level of commitment that you have towards the business procedures. Getting new staff can also provide you with a series of challenges to deal with. For example, they will not be able to work with maximum productivity levels. This can create a negative impact on the efficiency of your business operations as well. On the other hand, you will not be able to get any employees to become long term members of the team, who are well aware of your business values and how to serve the customers. That’s where you should think about providing a quicker training to the staff.
- You can ensure better productivity of staff members
Once you start running your restaurant like a franchise, you will be able to define proper job roles for the employees. You can also define KPIs for them. They will be allowed to work in better-performing roles, which can contribute to their productivity levels. In other words, your staff will be in a position to get more work done within a short period of time. Therefore, you can even reduce the total number of employees who are working for the restaurant as well. You can deliver better experiences to your customers through this approach while reducing the restaurant expenses.
- You can reduce staff turnover
As mentioned earlier, running your restaurant as a franchise can reduce employee turnover in an effective manner. Your staff will fall in love with the enhanced processes that you have. Good staff orientation, clear KPIs and better onboarding can provide them with the chance to work without worrying over anything. On top of that, they will be provided with better job roles to focus on as well.
As soon as you start running the restaurant business as a franchise, you will notice how the employee turnover is reducing dramatically. Once employee turnover is reduced, you can minimize the time and effort that you spend on training your new staff. As a result, you should only focus on managing the existing staff at the restaurant. This comes along with a large number of benefits. In fact, it is a virtuous circle, which can create more and more opportunities for your restaurant in the future.
- You can maintain better food standards
All the restaurants out there in the world are trying to maintain better food standards. If your restaurant also has this objective, you should think about working as a franchise. Then you will be able to implement better food standards in a convenient manner.
For example, you will have a proper recipe for all the dishes that are prepared. It will include pictures as well. The team of chefs who work for your restaurant will find it as an easy task to go through this recipe and work on the dishes. This can help you to make sure that all the dishes that are being served by your restaurant are identical to each other. Along with that, you can easily maintain the standards of the dishes as well.
All the dishes will not just look the same. They will provide the same taste. On the other hand, the portion sizes would be the same as well. Hence, you will be able to provide a higher level of consistency to the customers who walk in. This can also help you with creating better customer experiences.
- You can control your expenses
Running your restaurant as a franchise is one of the most effective methods available for you to control your expenses. If you are struggling hard to reduce the overall expenses of the business, this is something that you can consider. That’s because running your restaurant as a franchise can provide you with a higher level of control over the expenses.
Portion control is a perfect method that you can try in order to control the costs. A single chef will be able to manage portion control in an effective way. However, there will be significant differences when multiple chefs are working. This can create a negative impact on the overall ability that the restaurant has to take control of the cost of meals. This will keep you away from proper planning. On the other hand, you will also find it as a difficult task to ensure proper profit margins.
But when you are working as a franchise, there will be a proper recipe that all the chefs have to follow. When all the chefs are following that recipe, you can make sure that the portion sizes are equal. Hence, you have better control over the expenses.
- It can help you with marketing
If you are trying hard to take your marketing campaigns to the next level, you are encouraged to think about running the restaurant as a franchise. In fact, the restaurants that run as franchises are strong at marketing. That’s because there is a properly controlled head office.
The restaurants will be provided with a proper marketing plan to follow as well. They just need to stick to the marketing plan and they will be able to end up with positive results. That’s because the marketing plan has been developed by marketing experts, after doing their homework.
This is how a restaurant should conduct a marketing campaign in today’s world as well. When you execute a proper marketing plan, you will be able to run with maximum force. This marketing plan can deliver amazing results to you within a period of six weeks. You are guaranteed to receive positive results out of the time, effort and money that is being spent on marketing.
- You can end up with better profits
At the end of the day, all restaurants are struggling to end up with better profit margins. If your restaurant is the same, you should go ahead and run as a franchise.
You can increase your profit margins because you have better control over the cost factors. In other words, you have better control over your employees and kitchen, where you spend most of your money. On the other hand, you will be running better marketing campaigns as well. The team will also work in a productive manner to contribute to the profits that your restaurant can gain at the end of the day.
- You can move out of the restaurant
If you are a stressed restaurant manager, who is looking forward to moving out of the restaurant and take the much-deserved breaks, you need to run the restaurant like a franchise. That’s because you don’t have to micromanage the restaurant. You will be better at hiring and retaining the staff. On the other hand, the staff will also work in a productive manner. You will also have better control in the expenses.
Due to all these reasons, you will find yourself spending less time on a daily basis while chasing the tail. You will hardly come across emergency situations to deal with as well.
In such a situation, you will be able to find extra time to focus on other aspects of the business. You can also spend more time on yourself as well. When the restaurant is making profits, you will even be able to take multiple holidays throughout the year.
When it comes to small scale business, taking a holiday is something critical. When you do it, you will be able to recharge the business. You will also be able to take a break from the pressure that you are exerting on a daily basis.
Final Words
These are some of the best reasons available for you to think about running your restaurant as a franchise. I believe you got convinced to go ahead and take the next step, which is to start running the business operations as a franchise. This can provide amazing results to you in the long run.
However, you should also keep in mind that running the business as a franchise requires a lot of time investment at the beginning. That’s mainly because you will have to introduce all the procedures and systems from scratch. If you can come across this challenge, you don’t need to worry about anything in the future. That’s because the franchise business operations that you manage can provide great assistance to you with taking your business forward.
