If you’re a restaurant franchisor, here’s something worth sitting with: no phase of the franchisee relationship carries more weight than the onboarding and launch phase.
Discovery Day is where you build trust
Onboarding is where that trust either gets proven right or starts falling apart. Think about it: your new franchisee just made one of the biggest financial and personal bets of their life. What happens in those first few months decides whether they feel ready and supported, or completely underwater.
Here’s the mindset shift every franchisor needs to make, especially early on: you’re now running two businesses, not one. So if you’re selling ice cream, you’re still selling ice cream, but now you’re also in the business of helping other people sell ice cream, and that’s two different strategies. The franchisors who treat onboarding like an afterthought, just a box to check before the “real” business continues, are usually the ones watching their early franchisees flounder.