If you’ve built a successful business, you may be considering (or have already started) franchising as a way to grow and expand the company.
You know there are many components to establishing a franchise, including legal and financial considerations that need to be locked down before moving to the next steps.
You’ll want to begin recruiting the best potential franchisees to represent your company and help it grow into the next phase. Before you can do that, though, you need to have a strong system in place.
This system needs to detail how every aspect of the business is to be managed in order to continue the initial success. Once complete, you’re ready for your first franchisees to join you.
While certainly time-consuming, it’s manageable at first. You can devote time to helping your first few franchisees get up and running. But what happens when you have several new franchisees coming on board at the same time? And to make matters trickier, they could be spread across a wider geographic territory. Now, you’re dealing with increased travel and time away from the business. You’re growing beyond the capacity of your existing staff.
This is the point when it’s good to consider other options for onboarding and training new franchisees. Integrating eLearning technology into your existing program will not only help you scale the growth of your company, but better utilize resources and even save money.
How? Read on.
How Does eLearning Help Franchises Grow?
There are several ways in which eLearning can help a franchise scale and grow:
- By adding eLearning to a centralized dashboard, you can onboard more franchisees at once.
- eLearning is more efficient in sharing knowledge than in-person training. Shorten the ramp-up period and get them started sooner.
- Since everyone will access the same modules via the knowledge sharing platform, you will deliver consistent training to each individual franchisee.
- You and your leadership team can be focused on other critical aspects of the business while new franchisees get up to speed with the basics. eLearning gives you back time you previously spent onboarding.
- Once word gets out about your incredible training, it works like a magnet to attract more of the highest quality franchisees. Good training and support serves as a competitive advantage.
How Does eLearning Save Money?
Building an eLearning program does require up front investment. Courses need to be created and a platform on which to house and track those courses needs to be built. However, once this is complete, franchisors benefit from significant cost savings:
- Decreased travel expenses from bringing franchisees to headquarters, or sending corporate staff to visit franchisees.
- Less time spent training means less downtime for the business. Less downtime means increased revenue opportunity.
- With a shorter ramp-up time, new franchisees can start making money sooner.
- Updates to training content are quick, easy and inexpensive to make.
- Integrating technology lowers training overhead, like printing and facilities costs.
How Can eLearning Augment an Existing Training Program?
We’re not suggesting you replace every piece of your training program with eLearning. In fact, doing so could be detrimental as many franchisees benefit, especially in the beginning, from face-to-face interaction and shadowing. But there are many topics that can be covered more efficiently (and effectively) online. Make the most of your face time by prepping new franchisees with the fundamentals online. Face time should be spent allowing them to observe the less tangible nuances of your brand. 
photo credit: Vintage Grow Your Money