Tuesday Talk: How Performance Groups Benefit Franchise Owners

Listen to the full discussion on our YouTube channel.

One of the first things you learn when you join Right at Home as a new franchise owner is that your fellow franchisees are among your biggest advocates, your loudest cheerleaders, and your most valuable support resources. It really is one of the things that sets the Right at Home network apart. Once you join the family, you’ll quickly find that other owners are excited to share their knowledge and experience.

This is, perhaps, nowhere more evident than it is in our Performance Groups.

But what exactly are Performance Groups? What does it take to become a part of one? And what makes the Performance Group such a valuable part of the franchise owner’s journey? To find out, VP of Franchise Development Jen Chaney caught up with Senior Business Performance Coach Daniel Bourne on a recent Tuesday Talk.

Getting Involved

As a Performance Coach, Dan’s job is to “help owners build big, great, profitable businesses.” In addition to working closely with individual franchise owners across our national network, Dan provides guidance and direction to five of the network's 15 Performance Groups. As Dan explains, “our groups are composed of roughly eight to 10 members from all over the country. What you're getting by being in a performance group is access to all of that.”

That access comes with a value that is difficult to put into words. That’s because that value is steeped in years of experience and insight. One of the key features of the Performance Group, Dan explains, is that it creates the opportunity for connection-building between newer owners and more tenured franchisees.

“So instead of just hearing from corporate,” says Dan, “They're getting people with up to 20 years of experience in this business, and they help solve the problems that they've already come across.”

That’s why we like to say that we don’t just sell territories. We surround new owners with structured support. We put franchise owners in a position to strengthen one another, to hold one another accountable to goals, and to ultimately drive better business results.

Gaining Access To Years of Experience

So how exactly can Performance Groups help to drive better business results? For one thing, Dan says, being a part of a Performance Group means that you’ll get a chance to work directly with deeply seasoned franchisee owners. You can’t put a price tag on that kind of wisdom.

But if you did have to put a price tag on it, Dan points out that “those that are in a Performance Group tend to do roughly 15% more hours per week and do about 20% more revenue per week. So you're going to have a bigger, better business.”

As Dan explains, one of the core value propositions of the performance group is that you get “access to the other owners and their brains and the mistakes that they've made, so you don't have to make them.”

“They can also help if you come in with a bright idea,” says Dan. “You have potentially nine other people that can help you take that idea to the next level because they may have tried something similar, and found parts of what you're presenting that worked and parts that didn't.”

This can mean less trial and error in areas like caregiver recruitment, staff management, referral sourcing, and more. The result is a shorter learning curve and often a more direct route to profitability and business growth.

Making Performance Groups Work For You

So what does a franchise owner have to do to become a part of a Performance Group? The two basic requirements, says Dan, are “one year in business and completion of our third-party financial training program called Profit Mastery.”

Dan describes Profit Mastery as a self-paced program that you can start while you're still within our Right Start Program. Or you can start it after you graduate from a Right Start program.”

This means that you can begin preparing for participation in a Performance Group just as soon as you join the Right at Home network. But there is one other very important consideration, Dan explains. The reason for the first two requirements is that you’ll need to establish a business that can function smoothly even in your temporary absence.

That’s because there are some real responsibilities that come with Performance Group membership. As Dan tells us, “our group meets four times a year, or once a quarter. Two of those quarters are actually in person, typically for a day-and-a-half to two days. So you have to be able to be away from your business for meetings, plus a travel day on either end.”

You need to know that you’ve built a team that can handle the day-to-day affairs of your business while you’re out of pocket.

Staying Accountable to Your Group

If your business is ready for it, though, the benefits are incredible. Your Performance Group meeting time is dedicated to sharing strategies, solving problems, and benchmarking your franchise’s performance. You should also be prepared to open up and share your books with your fellow franchisees. This part is vital because every single Performance Group member is expected to share goals and update other members on their progress toward achieving these goals.

“Every meeting, whether it's virtual or in-person, members are assigning out their own action items and commitments for the next meeting,” says Dan. He also notes that these commitments carry a lot of weight with your fellow Performance Group members.

“The accountability piece is huge with the Performance Groups,” says Dan. “And if you're not holding your end of the bargain, you may be asked to leave, because everybody's investing their time, their money, and their effort into each other.”

Taking Action

Accountability means more than just pledging to advance your goals. It means taking real action on the commitments you’ve made. And you can expect that your fellow Performance Group members are going to hold you to these goals. Sometimes, that may even mean having some tough conversations. Dan shares the story of one franchise owner who benefited immensely from one of these tough conversations.

“One owner kept bringing up the same staff member,” Dan recalls, “and finally, somebody in the group just said, ‘Look, the last three meetings, you've had the same problem. We've given you potential solutions that you have not acted on. Don't come back to the next meeting unless you've acted on it.’”

That may sound pretty harsh, but it was exactly what this franchise owner needed to hear. As Dan told us, “Sure enough, they wanted to make sure they came back, so they did what they needed to do with that situation. And they came back and thanked the group for that tough conversation.”

Building Lasting Bonds and a Lasting Business

This creates an environment where franchise owners can be honest with one another. Sometimes, it takes that type of candor to help somebody break out of a negative cycle in order to actually implement improvements. Not only that, but it takes somebody who really cares to tell you the hard truths.

Perhaps this is why Performance Group members often form lasting bonds that go well beyond business. As Dan says, “I've got a couple of members that have become lifelong friends. They're from opposite ends of the country, and they go on family vacations together now. They would never have met each other if it weren't for the Performance Group.”

Ultimately, that bond is also built on shared goals. In a Performance Group, franchise owners look out for one another. We provide insight, support, and advocacy for one another. Because ultimately, says Dan, with a Performance Group, “You’re getting a group of people that are looking at your business from an actual profitability health standpoint – making sure you're not just growing for growth, but that you're also stable in your growth, so you can have a long-lasting business as well.”