The best franchisees come from within the business

by Catherine Woods - Tuesday, 22nd January 2008 - (1) comment

The founder of Mr Clutch Autocentres, Joseph Yussuf, prefers to source new franchise owners from inside the business rather than outside because they’re the ones in the know and they have a proven commitment to the company.

“We always treat staff like family,” he says. “Those that have a stake in the business care and nurture the business. We’re very selective with franchisees. Some are in it for the money but you want people who are in it for more than that.”

Mr Clutch operates through direct ownership and franchises. It currently has more than 40 centres across the UK, employs more than 300 staff and has an annual turnover of £18m. It’s been operating for 30 years.

Yussuf says allowing long-time employees to share in the ownership of the company also creates a good working culture. “I’ve still got members of staff that were with us in the beginning who now have their own franchise. People who retire want to come back for the Christmas party,” he says.

“If we retain people who were there in the early days, it shows that the employees can stay until the point of retirement. The fact that the business has been able to evolve to that is pretty good given that it’s been pretty tough during the past two decades

Picture source

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1 Comments

January 23, 2008 5:29pm
Brian Duckett Says:

Joe makes some great points about turning managers into franchisees - Tony and Guy started franchising their hairdressing salons as a way of retaining good staff, and many other businesses have found conversion franchising works to their advantage. There are financial advantages, such as moving the responsibility for rent and staff costs to the franchisee, but the biggest benefits come from the increased effort put in by someone who now owns their own business, but who operates under your name and maintains your brand standards. Time after time we have seen the same person operating the same outlet, with the same stock and the same staff, transform the operation almost overnight. Sales go up and costs go down as the motivation is now there to do all the things which they always knew would work, but as managers they were either not permitted or could not be bothered to suggest. Any business which currently operates a chain of managed outlets should take some experienced advice on how things might look if they converted some, or all, of their branches to franchised outlets. Brian Duckett, Howarth Franchising