For much of my career, I never realised how important purpose has been. It can take a lot of introspection to understand what encourages us to jump out of bed and pursue the work we do.
Within franchising, every franchisor needs to understand what their purpose is, but it’s also important for every franchisee. I prefer to refer to franchisees as ‘franchise partners’ because to build a successful franchise you need to have a partnership approach. That approach needs to include an alignment with purpose.
So at the outset you have to identify: what is the franchisor’s purpose? What is the franchise partner’s purpose? And do they align?
This principle of purpose misalignment is easily overlooked in the world of franchising, and yet it’s the foundation of long-term success. To build solid long-term relationships you need a solid foundation. So many franchisors I speak to don’t realise how important this is or think it’s an exercise in corporate-speak. It also needs to be something which is inspirational so that everyone involved, feels that they are part of something that goes way beyond any personal aspirations they may have to provide for their own family or lifestyle.
In my opinion, Purpose comes even before vision, mission, and values. It is the foundation and cornerstone because when you get that right, then you have the potential to create a long-term, successful, joyful, and profitable partnership.
What’s the Relationship between purpose and vision?
A few years back I discovered Simon Sinek’s work. He talks eloquently about purpose and how everything starts with ‘WHY’ before we even talk about ‘how’ and ‘what’ of what we do. Purpose goes right to the heart of where our gut decisions are made. Talking about purpose goes right to the part of our limbic brain which has no capacity for language.
I’ve often seen the power of purpose working with hundreds of franchise partners over the years. Imagine you’re at the point of having a new franchise partner join the business, and you ask the question: “What was it that made your decision to join?” In the vast majority of cases, the answer will be gut feeling. The person in front of you will say it just felt right.
Thinking about my whole career, which spans 40 years of my business life, the importance of gut feeling always holds true. After this ‘feeling’ you do more research into facts and figures. But the facts and the figures are not what drives human behaviour. For me, purpose is the foundation, as every key decision we make must be checked to ensure that it is aligned with our purpose.
There’s a lot of talk in franchising about motivating franchise partners. But actually, it’s way more important to have franchise partners and a franchise who are inspired by what they are doing. Inspiration is the engine for doing great things.
Purpose underpins inspiration by explaining WHY we do what we do. Being able to articulate your WHY (as Sinek calls it) is powerful and should be done before we get to the HOW and WHAT steps in the franchising journey.
In franchising, my personal WHY has always been to make a purposeful difference to the lives of others. That statement goes to the heart of who I am. In franchising there’s huge potential to impact other people’s lives, including the lives of the Franchise Partners who may well have put everything on the line themselves. As with any sector, there’s the good, the bad and the ugly. But I’ve worked with many franchisors who want to make a difference to other people’s lives, who don’t want to sell a franchise, but who want to award the franchise to the right individual.
The success you can create on the back of that is transformational. Equally, I had the pleasure of working for a franchisor who was absolutely NOT purpose driven. In fact, they didn’t care one iota for the franchisees that were part of their organisation!
It would be easy to say that the franchisor in question had completely lost their WHY. But I would go further and say that their WHY and their purpose was not aligned with mine, which I only discovered when I got in. Despite that, I stayed and helped to turn the business around. But the disconnect was unbelievable.
A purpose-driven relationship where there is alignment is in the main, a joyful relationship, even when there are challenges to be overcome. It’s one where in the long term, everybody works together towards the same purpose driven goal.
The Full Impact of Purpose
Purpose impacts every decision that you make every single day. If you use purpose as your decision-making lens, you will generally make good decisions. But if you get purpose wrong, relationships will sour.
Franchising at its core is about a relationship. People often refer to it as being like a marriage, but it’s a relationship between two parties for at least five years, if not more. For a lot of franchisors and franchise partners, that relationship can extend for 15 or 20 years. So, you have to feel aligned and confident in the people that you are working with.
The ‘Care’ Aspect of the Franchise Relationship
My first career was in nursing. I had seen my Dad and brother suffer from ill health, so I wanted to make a purposeful difference to the lives of other people.
If you think about anybody in the world of nursing, or in the healthcare sector more generally, everybody wants to make a purposeful difference to the lives of other people. Which is why healthcare workers can pull together in extremely difficult circumstances. I believe the same idea of core purpose needs to be applied to the franchising sector.
From time to time, we all find ourselves in a job or business arrangement that doesn’t align with your purpose. When this happens, your own motivation is diminished beyond comprehension. You get up every day and feel like this is not what you were put on this earth to do.
Yes, you may get a paycheck at the end of the month, and that’s OK. But we should be focusing on the difference we can make to other people’s lives, both as franchisors, and franchise partners. I get inspired seeing what other people achieve, particularly when they achieve their hopes and dreams as a result of taking the leap of faith to invest in a Franchise.
Can you Choose Purpose, Or Do You Uncover It?
I subscribe to what Simon Sinek talks about in terms of not just starting with WHY, but finding your WHY…
Sinek argues that our sense of purpose is typically formed early in our lives by our early to mid-teens. Certainly for me, that’s the case. The questions around what we should pursue in life tend to be forged early on. Still, everybody’s story is different. Everybody’s story is unique, but it’s the culmination of things that have happened in those formative years.
Gut feelings are felt in the limbic brain, which has no capacity for language. It’s often difficult therefore to find and articulate your purpose. Usually, you need somebody to support you through that journey to uncover the deeply rooted narrative patterns that drive your beliefs and behaviours.
In my experience, the vast majority of people don’t know what their purpose is. On Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, this may be self-actualisation, or possibly transcendence. But articulating your purpose is important and impactful work, particularly in franchising where the franchisor and franchise partner relationship is one you don’t want to get wrong. When it does go wrong, the consequences can be catastrophic!
In part 2 of this article, we’ll examine in detail the potential impacts.
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The Franchology® purpose statement is ‘transforming franchising together’. I honestly believe that Franchisors who are driven by purpose, have an amazing opportunity to make Franchising the number one growth strategy globally!
If you feel inspired to be part of that exciting journey, I would love to hear from you, so please get in touch here to arrange a no-obligation coffee and a chat.
