Tips For Running a Franchise With Your Family

How to Successfully Operate a Family-Owned Franchise

Whether you co-own a franchise with your siblings or have hired your children to work part-time on the weekends, working alongside your family can be incredibly rewarding, but also very challenging.

It’s no secret that families have a unique working dynamic, which is why it’s so important to enter a franchise business relationship with care, careful thought, and consideration.

For those who are considering starting a franchise and running it with their family members, certain rules should be implemented to ensure the business relationship doesn’t turn sour and negatively affect your franchise.

With that being said, we have compiled some of our best tips for running a franchise while keeping your business and family intact. Keep reading to find out what they are.

What Are the Benefits of Running a Franchise With Family Members?

When done right, running a franchise with your family has so many amazing benefits. From getting to spend more time together to having a legacy you can pass down to the next generation, a franchise is an amazing thing to share with your family.

Below, we’ll dive deeper into some of these benefits.

It Teaches Your Kids About Responsibility and Work Ethic

When you own your own franchise, you have the ability to hire your children (once they are legally old enough) to work after school or on weekends. This is a great way to teach them the value of hard work and the importance of having a strong work ethic.

It Gives You More Time Together

When everyone in your family has their own jobs and lives outside of work, it can be difficult to make time to see each other. When you own a franchise with your family, you get to see them all the time. Plus, working together to achieve a common goal helps you develop a deeper bond with each other.

Built-In Bond With Your Co-Workers

Sometimes in the workplace, you end up working with people you don’t get along with or struggle to connect with. When working with your family, you already have a strong bond that will translate well into a positive, supportive working relationship.

How to Ensure Your Franchise is a Success While Working With Family

When you mix family with business, it can either be an amazing experience or end very badly for both the business and your relationships, depending on how you execute things. Below, we have provided some tips for maintaining a strong working relationship with your family while running a successful franchise.

Set Healthy Boundaries

When you work with your family, it’s easy to bring your work home with you and talk shop around the dinner table. To help ensure you keep your work and family life private, create firm boundaries. This can include not discussing the business outside of business hours, or only discussing business matters in a formal meeting that includes all family members involved in the business.

Put Everything In Writing

Verbal contracts can cause some serious problems as they are often difficult to enforce and can lead to a ‘he-said-she-said’ situation. Even though you may feel like you can trust your family to keep their word, it’s important to protect yourself and the business by putting every single contract or agreement in writing.

Make Sure Roles and Responsibilities are Clear and Formalized

Family businesses often foster causal working environments without clear roles and responsibilities. To avoid chaos and disputes, make sure everyone’s titles and responsibilities are clearly laid out and put into writing to avoid any confusion and prevent disputes.

This includes determining the following and putting them into writing:

Job descriptions
Operating procedures
Ownership shares
Compensation
Benefits
Any other matters related to family members’ involvement with the business

Make Sure Everyone Is Qualified For Their Roles

When it comes to family, the desire to please everyone is often quite strong. After all, no one wants their loved ones to feel left out or have their feelings hurt.
However, it’s important not to assign roles that people are not qualified for. At the end of the day, it will only be detrimental to the business and lead to unnecessary conflict.

Let’s say your sister has a degree in communications and spent most of her career working in public relations but now wants to manage the bookkeeping with your family-owned franchise. With little to no experience in finance or accounting, it may not be the best fit. With any family member, it’s important not to overlook their lack of qualifications just because they are your family.

Treat Everyone The Same

You may have a favourite sister or cousin, but at work, it’s absolutely critical that everyone is treated the same and with fairness and respect. When family members in leadership roles give other family members preferential treatment, it causes resentment and can lead to unnecessary fighting. Always make sure to keep your feelings separate from the business.

Prioritize Communication

Communication is key to any successful relationship, whether it be romantic, familial, or business. Anytime an issue arises within the business, make sure it is clearly communicated to all family members involved in the franchise.

Choose the Right Franchise

When entering into a business relationship with your family, it’s important to not only choose a franchise that everyone is passionate about but also choose a franchise that cares about its franchisors and wants to ensure they succeed.

Gorilla Bins is Ontario’s leading waste management franchisor. With several locations across the Greater Toronto Area, Gorilla Bins has tripled its revenue over the past five years and is continuing to grow.

Even if you have no experience in franchising or waste management, Gorilla Bins offers its franchisees lots of training and support to ensure your franchise is fully set up for success.