District Managers, your Ticket to Freedom!
Nov 26, 2024
The key to unit profitability is having a well-trained Unit Manager. Those men and women are responsible for managing the unit day in and day out, and if they know how to manage the store, they will be able to control the expenses, inspire the team, and provide excellent customer service and experience using the brand systems.
Combined, these actions will bring the revenue you expect from the franchise you invested in.
But as a franchisee, you're not only looking for revenue and financial freedom… You're also looking for time freedom, and one unit will not be enough to accomplish that. To achieve time and financial freedom, you need to grow into a multi-unit enterprise.
But beware. Even if you have multiple units, you still won’t have time freedom if you are the one who’s overseeing the operations of those stores.
- Time freedom will come once you are big enough to hire or promote a District Manager in your organization. Having that multi-unit leader is where the time freedom will truly come from.
But again, this will only happen if they are well trained on the job, role, critical responsibilities, and routines that they must execute every day. Only then will you be able to fully delegate operations to those men and women, which then will bring you that desired freedom.
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The truth about District Managers
Multi-Unit Franchisees must be aware that the District Manager role is completely different from that of a Unit Manager.
Think about it! While a Unit Manager's activities are 80% dictated by the operations of the brand you selected. Every day, they come into the store, open the unit, welcome the team members, and set everything up to start operating.
Throughout the day, they take care of the customers, place product orders, do schedules, do inventory, and look at equipment maintenance, among other key activities of their role. And before the end of the day, they lead the team into cleaning and closing to finally, go home.
- However, when it comes to the District Manager, 100% of what they do is determined by them, from where they are gonna go and what they’ll do when they get there to how long they will do it, how they will do a follow-up, and what they are going to do next.
That’s why, to be effective, these Multi-Unit Leaders must be very organized and have strong planning skills. But they must also be flexible to deviate from their planning if necessary, especially to face the emergencies or urgencies that may occur.
And, if that happens, they must be able to quickly solve those problems and return to what they had planned so that the important things that were postponed are actually taken care of.
Achieving your time freedom
Understanding what is the role of these leaders and what it means to do well on the job is the first step for you to achieve the freedom that you want. Only then will you truly be able to delegate critical business responsibilities to them with the confidence and certainty that what matters is being taken care of and that the numbers are moving toward achieving profitability.
That is how you achieve your time freedom as a franchisee because, at that point, you can decide if you now will focus on continued growth, maybe invest in another franchise brand, or simply, go on vacation!
But if you want to have true time and financial freedom, first, you need to have great Unit Managers and excellent District Managers. And, these leaders must be properly trained to support themselves and manage the units, and the business, profitably.
If you'd like to learn more about how the American Franchise Academy can help you train your Unit Managers to be as profitable as possible or how to train your District Managers on their roles, responsibilities, and winning routines, explore our elite development programs below:
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