telcoinabox

In April 2008, Telcoinabox changed the franchisee recruitment process by working with the Franchise Relationship Institute (FRI) to introduce a scientific franchisee selection process called the “Nathan Profiler”. FRI developed the Nathan Profiler to assist franchisors in reducing the cost and indirect negative impact of poor selection on their franchise businesses.

The Profiler has been developed from extensive research on franchise systems and we believe it will provide us with a systematic selection process for assessing prospective franchisees.

With this new process, when a prospective franchisee is confident that they wish to proceed and buy the franchise, their contact details are passed on to Senior Management, Paul Line (General Manager) and Claire Smith (Operations Manager), by our Sales Department. Paul and Claire introduce themselves and set the candidate up with log-ins for the online Profiler.

The candidate then receives an email inviting them to complete an Information Request Form and a Self Assessment Profile.

The Information Request Form is similar to an application form and gathers information on basic personal details, reason for choosing the franchise, commitment to the business, proposed family involvement and attitude about the business, goals, past business and/or employment experience, referees, and legal information.

The Self Assessment Profile measures 17 attributes that drive franchisee success and compares the candidate’s results to a benchmark franchisee profile. This benchmark has been developed from the FRI research into franchising. While some attributes are more important than others they all play an important role in contributing to a franchisee’s potential success.

The attributes are weighted to suit the Telcoinabox franchise system. The attributes measured are business acumen, practical intelligence, computer literacy, family and social support, personal organization, stamina, emotional resilience, communication skills, service orientation, drive for success, sales orientation, openness to growth, team leadership, optimistic outlook, cooperation, reliability and personal presentation.

When both sections of the online Nathan Profiler are complete by the prospective franchisee, it produces 2 reports for Telcoinabox. In these reports the candidate is awarded scores for each attribute and an overall rating, which is an indication of their potential success as a franchisee. Senior Management then decides if they would like to interview the candidate or decline their application.

If the candidate is invited to an interview in the Sydney office with Paul and Claire, the Nathan Profiler produces a “Final Check Assessor Guide”. This guide contains the previously mentioned attributes along with a series of associated prompts, questions and tips for assessing them on each attribute during the interview. The prompts are used to remind the interviewers what they want to know about the candidate.

The questions are carefully worded to elicit specific information relevant to a set of behavioural indicators. In some cases additional questions are marked with a “red flag”, as the candidate has highlighted a potential weakness in the Self Assessment Report.

Following the interview, the Senior Managers combine their interview notes and add them to the profiler which again produces a final report with scores for the candidate. At this stage a final decision is made as to whether or not Telcoinabox will accept their application, and the prospective franchisee is then contacted with the good or bad news.

The successful candidate is provisionally approved in the system while legal documents are signed and franchise fee paid. The franchisee commences the online pre-induction training, which they need to complete with an 80% pass rate before attending the 5-day intensive program in the Sydney Operations Office. The trainee becomes a fully fledged franchisee on satisfactory completion of all induction training.

The new process has been followed for the last few months and the feedback from those involved, including the new franchisees, has been positive. We have introduced the Nathan Profiler to ensure that we are getting high qualify franchisees that have potential for growth but also to ensure that this business opportunity is right for the candidate. This scientific approach not only equips us to make good selection decisions, but keeps the process consistent and professional.

Author: Claire Smith
Email: claire@telcoinabox.com