I ran across an interesting situation last week that could have been handled several ways.

It seems there were two individuals that had applied for a franchise. The franchisor's initial evaluation was positive. The candidates' background was positive. They had several years of experience successfully running a non-competing business.

I wonder what has happened to the concept of serving customers. These days, dealing with "service" employees can be an exercise in frustration. Yes, we've all been inconvenienced by poor service. But how does it impact your business when your employees fail to give less than stellar service?

The economic climate is certainly challenging in North America these days. With the huge drop in housing prices in some areas of the U.S. and the reluctance of banks to give out loans, it's virtually impossible to achieve the same growth rate in franchises awarded as this time last year.

Since 1988 Dynamic Performance Systems has been helping franchisors select the best franchisees. And by focusing on performance, we've developed a series of selection tools designed to predict how well an individual will do in a specific environment.

Yes, you've heard of other selection instruments. You may even have used some of them. If you have, then you know that when choosing any selection instrument the one critical question to ask is:

Does it work? Can this tool really predict the

Franchisors and Business Brokers

First, let’s understand what really happened. Companies pushed Congress to change the rules so they could lend 100’s of thousands of dollars to people who could not qualify for a $5,000 Visa Card. The mortgages only made sense at extremely low interest rates…which would then increase a year or two or three later. These lenders did not care that the borrowers would default, because the property values were increasing, and they would take them back.

With the slowing of the real estate market, and the ensuing decrease in property values, down came the house of cards.

Now they expect us to clean up their mess.

Are your franchisees or corporate restaurant managers struggling with high serve staff turnover?

Do they complain that they're always hiring serve staff and yet can't seem to find people that:

1. Are friendly to everyone including other staff members?
2. Anticipate customer needs?
3. Stay calm even with the “customer from hell”?
4. Learn quickly?
5. Are conscientious in their daily chores and side jobs?
6. Understand that their job is to ensure that the guest has had an
7. enjoyable visit and has left with a positive impression of your
8. restaurant.

Are they spending more than they'd like in training serve staff?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you'll appreciate
knowing about our new Serv-Staff Assessor profile. It's an inexpensive, easy to use profile which addresses all of these concerns and more.

I read an article in the latest QSRWeb magazine (you can read it here) that once again proves to me how little so many people that sell profiling tools really know. At least I hope it's that they're ignorant and not that they're trying to deceive.

It seems a company has come up with a "new" franchisee profiling and screening tool. One that supposedly uncovers the attitudes and values of a prospective franchisee.

There's no problem with that, right? Where I take exception is the methodology used to arrive at a benchmark score. Simply put, their method makes no sense. They state that to validate the benchmark, they give the profile to "several of the more successful existing franchisees of the business."

My wife just got back from a weekend shopping trip to Buffalo NY and reports that the Galleria Mall's parking lot was stuffed with Canadian shoppers. She estimates that about 80% of the cars had Ontario license plates. It took her 40 minutes to find a parking space.

Once she finally got in the mall, she reports that, in the food court, both the Charley's Grilled Subs and Auntie Anne's Hand Rolled Soft Pretzels franchisees were having a great day. Big line-ups at both of these locations and at many other food court shops as well.

Seems that most of the shops in all the malls she visited had great traffic.

Effective today, we're no longer going to be publishing the "Dynamic News" e-newsletter. Instead, I'll be using this blog to keep in touch. This way, I'll be able to share information with you "as-it-happens".

For the past month, we've noticed a slowdown in the numbers of franchises being sold in the United States. Canadian franchisors haven't seen the slowdown. Could this be another result of the sub-prime mortgage meltdown in the U.S.?

With fewer and fewer candidates in the pool, I see three options available to franchisors:

1) Accept every candidate that comes through the door with access to enough assets to "open up shop".

2) Find ways to lower the cost of entry into the franchise.

3) Make sure that the franchisees that are accepted are going to work out.