Build a communication system. Our communication system involves intra-company communication, communication between our entire staff and communication between our franchisees. My goal is to have clear communication to our franchisees and to our staff.
What you do have to do is get through the hard points of building a system like this. It is very meeting intensive, very communication intensive. Most importantly, you can’t hide, which is the thing that I love. You can’t hide on our staff with this kind of system in place.
The second thing I would say is that if you don’t have a system like this and want to grow beyond a small company in terms of number of employees and footprint, you have to build a system like this. Even though I didn’t use any one system outright, this is a system most companies have in place. You need a multifaceted communication system.
Then, you have to be diligent in running it and you have to be diligent in designing goals. You have to have goals that are measurable, that they’re not so high they demotivate but not so low that they’re too easy to achieve. It can be something as simply stated as putting your endgame in a time frame and defining steps to get there and reach it. You then have to get great people to buy in to the system.
I’ve coached many small business owners who want to grow into the franchise world, designing and helping them initiate their systems. That’s really not the hard part. The hard part is that it has to be a part of any growing company today.
Set goals and standards. One of the things I always say to my staff when we meet as a group is that all the work you do has to be purposeful in reaching the goals we designed as a company. If it’s not, it’s just working hard for no reason.
It’s hard to tell the difference if you don’t have designed goals and constant checking of the information flow. You cannot do without it as far as company morale goes. Half of our purpose with regard to big group functions is for the purpose of morale and recognition. You want each employee to be as effective as possible, so without a system in which everyone knows what is going on and everyone has a hand in designing goals, they can’t be as effective as possible.
Another big thing is that issues don’t brew. You get them out in the open. We have an open philosophy in this company that we like conflict, as long as everyone is open to the same result. It’s like a family — you can fight, but you know you’re not going anywhere. That’s why we ask everyone if they have brewing concerns. We ask them in a confidential environment. It’s constantly giving the opportunity and demonstrating the accountability to speak up, because it’s much easier to run a company when everyone cares as much as you do.
How to reach: My Gym Enterprises, (800) 469-4967 or www.my-gym.com