Summary: Today we were fortunate enough to have 'The Undercover Boss' Andrew Withers on our show Chips and Chatter. Andrew took his father ( Arthur Withers ) recipe for Southern Fried Chicken and launched an international Franchise. That operation now has 400+ international franchise restaurants and operates in over 70 countries worldwide. Now Andrew has turned his attention to the UK. With over 200 Southern Fried Chicken license holders its Andrews mission to bring those outlets up to the same standards and into his extremely successful franchise model. Do you Want to Double Your Sales, Or Not? This is the question he puts to the license holders here in the UK. Andrew's clearly got it right with UK operators switching to the new franchise agreement showing double the sales volume. He's also getting tough with license holders who are not conforming to the original license agreement. If you would like to watch Andrew's Undercover Boss show I include the link at the end of the post. I am also including a pretty comprehensive set of show notes below based on the content of the show. SFC Show Notes - [ ] The Condition of the brand SFC in the UK - [ ] Background of the Recipe and Arthur Withers - [ ] The Undercover Boss Follow Up - [ ] Emotional Involvement - [ ] 27 Hours of footage for a 1 hour show - [ ] 10 days of recording - [ ] No script - [ ] Setup of the situations - [ ] Reactions of the camera crew - [ ] International Success With 400+ restaurants - [ ] 60 Restaurants in Russia - [ ] Successfully introduced the Franchise - [ ] Guidelines - [ ] Standards - [ ] Manuals - [ ] Contracts - [ ] Systems - [ ] Operation Manuals - [ ] Changing from a license to a franchise agreement - [ ] The difference between a license agreement and a franchise agreement - [ ] When your brand gets big - [ ] The dangers of not franchising - [ ] To Protect the brand - [ ] Brand awareness - [ ] The Steps you need to take to protect your brand - [ ] Contract - [ ] Good training system - [ ] Bakup up with a good contract - [ ] What made you decide to go abroad - [ ] Reactive - [ ] Can you open in the Middle East - [ ] Demand drove other markets - [ ] Africa and Asia - [ ] Now its Where do we want to be? - [ ] Why the Undercover Boss didn't put across - [ ] UK was not a franchise - [ ] It was a license model - [ ] Manuals in Systems when we went abroad. - [ ] We had more control abroad than we did in the UK - [ ] When we got back the dilemma was to how do we do convert the license operations - [ ] Into the same successful model we had implemented abroad - [ ] When we converted stores in the UK they doubled sales - [ ] So now its a simple question - [ ] Do you want to double sales or not? - [ ] The Pain of writing up operations manuals - [ ] Employed ex-Macdonalds - [ ] Developed over time - [ ] As you see problems You write systems - [ ] One Manual turned into Nine - [ ] Everythig grew and now we are turing the manuals into video training. - [ ] We must make it easier for people to do the right thing - [ ] Manuals can be daunting - [ ] No-one reads the manuals well not everything anyway. - [ ] Barry Dickman how important branding is.. - [ ] Major brands taking over the high street - [ ] Branding - [ ] Economy of scale - [ ] Butchers/ Diy stores are in the past - [ ] 10 to 1 against to failing as an independent. - [ ] What to look for when your looking for a franchise - [ ] Look for business success - [ ] Pitfalls and negatives - [ ] Change of lifestyle - [ ] accepting changes - [ ] five years for a nestegg - [ ] Its down to the individual - [ ] Working off the back of a brand - [ ] Putting in the effort - [ ] 9 to 5 mentality.. Dont bother - [ ] You only get put what you put in. - [ ] What are the most important areas after taking on a franchise - [ ] The Success of the brand - [ ] Can i see an opportunity - [ ] Is their room for growth - [ ] What are your skillsets - [ ] Your not going to join a business and understand business
