Many franchisors have recruitment problems.
So, franchisors are willing to believe any plausible story, without looking at the science of choice.
Here is one such fable:
Look for common characteristics in your 10-20% top performing franchisees & target your lead generation initiatives at candidates that have those common characteristics.
This sounds plausible, but in practice it is very hard to achieve.
It is hard to achieve because it is very hard to find those "common characteristics". If every winner of the Dayton 500 was red, you wouldn't think that red cars were fast. But, for many franchisors using personality test or variants that is the type of "common characteristic" that they are searching for.
When we did the research that culminated in our FranchiZe Profile, we found that showed that attitudinal issues and situational judgement are far more important in predicting success of franchisees in a retail/QSR environment than personality testings or variants of it.
This research was conducted using franchisees that had been operational for at least two years. Here is how we arrived at these conclusions:
1) Our researchers asked franchisors what they thought was important for success -including characteristics and attitudes.
We based the list of characteristics given us by the franchisors because when developing any kind of instrument, you have to listen to the subject matter experts.
From this, our researchers developed a list of 600 questions possible that might have a bearing on performance.
2) We then had several hundred franchisees that had been operating for at least 2 years complete the questionnaire.
3) Our researchers then gathered performance data from the franchisor. That's performance important to the franchisor, not us.
When analyzing the results, we were left with a set of 132 questions that showed strong relationships to performance as defined by the franchisor.
Performance items like:
1) Actual sales in dollars,
2) Percentage increase in sales one year over the next, and
3) Relationship to head office. Important for ongoing support and how difficult the franchisee would be to deal with.
Here's the top 7 items that showed a strong relationship to performance. In no particular order they are:
1) How the franchisee deals with employees in terms of respect and trust, listening to their concerns and overall management style.
2) Whether the franchisee has a positive attitude. Among other sub-categories, this includes optimism and a belief that they, rather than the economic cycle or the franchisor, has the strongest influence on their success.
People that believe that the economy has more influence are also the ones that tend to blame the franchisor for their success or failure.
3) Whether the franchisee has a work ethic or a "retirement ethic". Among other sub-categories, it includes whether the franchisee believes in the importance of hard work and effort in achieving success.
4) Their comfort level with local store marketing and working on the "front lines" rather than spending their time in their office.
5) How the franchisee interacts with customers and their attitudes towards customer service.
6) How much of an introvert or extrovert the franchisee is. In a retail environment tend to get stressed out when having to deal with too many people, either employees or customers, without having time away from them to "re-charge their batteries".
7) Comfort or discomfort in working in a system that allows them to make their own decisions.
So you see, personality (Introvert vs. Extrovert) does play a role in performance, but 6 of the 7 characteristics that have any measurable bearing on actual performance are attitudinal and situational behavior.
We were also able to develop both a Sales Potential Score and an Overall Prediction Score.
For most franchises in a B2B environment, the beliefs, attitudes and behaviors important for success will be different.
Prospecting and handling objections are just 2 of the factors that are important to success in a B2B environment. And the only way to find out whether franchisee has what it takes in these areas is to ask them a series of situational judgement questions.
You simply can't identify them using tools based on DISC or similar models.
