People

In order to excel in your work, in your life, or as a leader, you need to commit to continuous learning. Many leaders know this, but many more are missing the opportunities for powerful learning that could really help them get ahead on their goals.
Leaders are encouraged to learn "on the job." The problem is that many of us don't. Either because we're too busy, we forget, we don't know what we need to learn, or we don't have the resources we think we need, we end up learning by chance or command. Neither one is very powerful.
Learning by chance means you take opportunities to learn whenever they show up, but you don't necessarily go looking for more. A conference brochure arrives; it seems interesting; you go. A friend recommends a book; it looks good; you read it...

Generally speaking, people like to compete. They like to test themselves and be challenged. Most important, people like to win. Being rewarded for it? That's icing on the cake. It doesn't matter where they're from, what language they speak, or what job they do - people like to succeed and be acknowledged for it. Because I consider myself a coach, and I believe in positive energy and positive reinforcement, I believe that incentives are the single greatest tool I have for motivating my workforce...;and they can be for you, too.
Incentives work - whether the person receiving them is the manager of a retail business, an executive at a large corporation, or an entry-level employee making minimum wage. And incentives don't have to be pure cash, although I have yet to find a team member who would ever turn it down...

When great front-line hourly employees quit, most managers take it personally--and with good reason. For more than 20 years, employee exit interview research has been telling us that the #1 reason the best people leave is because they feel they are being poorly managed. In other words, these folks joined the company and then quit the manager.
Just imagine how frustrated you would have to be with your job to decide to go elsewhere. That's how dissatisfied all the outstanding people who have left your organization have felt. If your people truly are your greatest assets, then the way your managers and supervisors manage those assets is the crucial key to your organization's success.
Whether you're recruiting field and area managers or hourly employees, there are five specific things everyone wants from their job, no matter what their position...

Franchisors recognize the best performers in their system each year with a Franchisee of the Year award. We spoke with four recent winners--different-sized, in different industries, and in different parts of the country.

Common denominators among these winners include excelling in the following areas: 1) financial (sales/revenue volume, profitability), 2) adherence to system and operational standards, 3) client/customer satisfaction, 4) HR (employee training, customer service), 5) contributions to and participation in the system (mentoring and leading), and 6) community involvement and service. And one important trait they all share is their passion--for their business, their brand, and their people.


Alan and Harriet Bleiweiss
Signs Now

"Re-peat" Winners
It's two years in a row now for Alan and Harriet Bleiweiss, owners of the Signs Now center in Hollywood, Fla...

Sam Covelli says he grew up in the restaurant business working in his father's McDonald's. Under his father's leadership, Covelli Enterprises eventually grew to 26 locations, one of the largest McDonald's franchisees in the country. But after the senior Covelli handed over the company reins to his son, you could say that Covelli Enterprises grew up with Sam Covelli.
Under his leadership, the company's McDonald's holdings grew to 43 restaurants, keeping Covelli Enterprises among McDonald's top franchisees, and an award-winning one at that. Covelli sold off those restaurants and shifted the family business into Panera Bread--and how.
Today, Covelli Enterprises owns a 198 Panera Bread locations, with 20 under construction, making it Panera's single largest franchisee and the fifth-largest restaurant franchisee in the country...

This April will mark the third year in a row that Al Coelho has run the 26-mile Boston Marathon. That's a significant achievement. But it's only a part of what Coelho will do that day.

The Providence, RI, ColorTyme franchisee will once again partner with a patient at Children's Hospital Boston to raise money and awareness for the hospital. This year it will be Nathaniel Giannandrea, a patient since he was just nine days old.

Nathaniel's mom, Lia, learned that her son had cystic fibrosis when he was seven days old. Now two and a half years old, Nathaniel is no stranger to the hospital, as it has played an enormous role in his care, says Lia.

"Children's has always been fantastic to us," says Giannandrea...

Sam Covelli says he grew up in the restaurant business working in his father's McDonald's. Under his father's leadership, Covelli Enterprises eventually grew to 26 locations, one of the largest McDonald's franchisees in the country. But after the senior Covelli handed over the company reins to his son, you could say that Covelli Enterprises grew up with Sam Covelli.
Under his leadership, the company's McDonald's holdings grew to 43 restaurants, keeping Covelli Enterprises among McDonald's top franchisees, and an award-winning one at that. Covelli sold off those restaurants and shifted the family business into Panera Bread--and how.
Today, Covelli Enterprises owns a 198 Panera Bread locations, with 20 under construction, making it Panera's single largest franchisee and the fifth-largest restaurant franchisee in the country...

Ray Harrigill believes in diversification. His Sunray Companies has restaurants (Bumpers Drive-In), tanning salons (Palm Beach Tan), fitness centers (Koko FitClub), and hotel properties (Hampton Inn), to name a few. That's because of lessons he's learned along the way.
Harrigill got his start in the restaurant business working in a multi-unit, multi-concept company. When he set out on his own, restaurants were his first choice but he couldn't open new units quickly enough to satisfy his goals. He began opening Blockbuster Video stores in 1999, quickly ramping up to four. But even then it was clear to Harrigill that the Blockbuster model wasn't "a long-term business play." So he began diversifying further.
"I invested some money in comprehensive rehab facilities, which I lost a fortune in, and almost simultaneously got into the tanning business...

"Sometimes interesting things happen in a bad economy," says Dawn Lafreeda, CEO and president of Den-Tex Central Inc. in San Antonio. While the economy continued to hammer the restaurant industry, Lafreeda opened 10 Denny's restaurants in 2010 and 14 in 2011. That brings her total to a whopping 70 in six states (Texas, Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Arkansas, and Oklahoma).
"That's a lot of growth," admits Lafreeda, who began her Denny's career as a 16-year-old in Orange County, Calif., and bought her first restaurant when she was 23. "But we like to do whatever makes sense, and this made sense for us. In 2012, we're going to focus on fine-tuning our operations, getting acclimated to all our new acquisitions. We're not going to be as aggressive as we have the last couple of years...

I can't say enough about the importance of empowered employees in helping a business survive and grow, even in the worst of economic situations. When you empower your employees to make decisions quickly to take care of your customers, the results will be amazing: increased customer loyalty, increased sales, decreased employee turnover, and word-of-mouth advertising that is less expensive and more credible than anything you could buy.
Most executives agree that employees, particularly frontline employees who deal directly with customers on a daily basis, should be empowered to do whatever it takes to solve customers' problems, often they are merely giving lip service to that concept.
Most employers--and employees--actually fear empowerment...

Ray Harrigill believes in diversification. His Sunray Companies has restaurants (Bumpers Drive-In), tanning salons (Palm Beach Tan), fitness centers (Koko FitClub), and hotel properties (Hampton Inn), to name a few. That's because of lessons he's learned along the way.
Harrigill got his start in the restaurant business working in a multi-unit, multi-concept company. When he set out on his own, restaurants were his first choice but he couldn't open new units quickly enough to satisfy his goals. He began opening Blockbuster Video stores in 1999, quickly ramping up to four. But even then it was clear to Harrigill that the Blockbuster model wasn't "a long-term business play." So he began diversifying further.
"I invested some money in comprehensive rehab facilities, which I lost a fortune in, and almost simultaneously got into the tanning business...

Tom DiMarco knows his numbers--and they're getting bigger every year.
When he was recruited 27 years ago as controller for Salo Inc., a franchisee of Interim HealthCare, the company had only four locations. As Salo has grown, so has DiMarco's career. Seven years ago he was tapped to become the president of the organization, and today the fast-growing business has 45 Interim HealthCare locations in 5 states.
Salo, based in Columbus, Ohio, offers full- and part-time work to 8,300 employees, up from 6,600 people just a few years ago. The company is still growing steadily--along with a healthcare industry that continues to expand even as the economy languishes--and has become the largest provider of home healthcare Medicaid services in Ohio, providing everything from pediatric to geriatric and skilled nursing services...

How You Can Motivate Your Employees To Be More Productive
Now, more than ever, organizations are looking for ways to motivate their employees to be more productive. The volatility of the economy is forcing organizations in every industry to look for ways to do more with less. The question is: What will motivate your employees?
Most managers would instantly respond, "Money." They couldn't be more wrong. While we all want to be paid a decent wage for our work, money will not motivate us to improve our performance or productivity. What will? Recognition.
The need for recognition and praise is right up there with the need for food, water, and shelter. We all want to feel valued, to be recognized for our contributions. Far too many executives, however, put more emphasis on monetary rewards than they do on recognition, costing their companies more financially and doing nothing to motivate their employees...

The best part of my job is being invited to speak to associations and corporations all over the world about the best ways to find, hire, and retain great hourly employees and their managers. I never fail to learn a lot from the folks in attendance, and these occasions are often the start of great long-term working relationships.
About six months ago, I got to chatting with a multi-unit owner attending his company's annual expo and we decided to explore whether we might work together to improve his hiring results. When I did the requisite needs analysis, we found that the areas with less-than-satisfactory results had the same root cause as those of most of my clients over the past 25-plus years: the system was written to meet the needs of HR professionals rather than those of the hiring managers in the field...

When Sunita Sagar was a teenager working as a part-time cashier at a Jack in the Box in California, she dreamed of the day she would become a doctor. The dream stayed alive as she worked her way through the University of California, San Francisco, simultaneously rising through the fast food world to assistant manager and part-time manager.
After earning a B.A. in science and working in hospitals for a few years, she realized that the last thing she wanted to be was a doctor. About then, it became apparent that her future already had been part of her life since she'd taken that first job at Jack in the Box.
"My husband and I wanted to go back into the restaurant business," says Sagar. Only this time, she wanted in as an owner-operator, where she could put everything she had learned firsthand to use growing a multi-unit franchise organization...

What changed last month in sales, costs, market share, and customer satisfaction? Data answers those questions for you. Data gives you history. But there is a higher level of business intelligence that answers questions such as: Why is this happening? or What will happen next?
Insight--and foresight--spring from using data, statistical analysis, and predictive modeling to understand why things are happening and what will happen if current trends continue. Let me share three powerful discoveries made by different franchise concepts that improved their future.

#1: Ain't no one happy if Momma ain't!
Franchisees who operated portrait studios wanted to know which customer segment was the most profitable and most likely to be loyal...

When Michael Ansley was a teenager helping his father, a painter, with work at KFC and Wendy's restaurants in Springfield, Ohio, he soaked up both his father's entrepreneurial spirit and a basic knowledge of the food and franchising business.
After earning degrees in business administration and marketing at the University of Dayton, the intense young man worked as a sales manager for a large company, calling on Builder's Square, Home Quarters, and other stores across Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. Although he finished number-one in merchandising in the country, Ansley decided he didn't want to work for a big corporation. "I wanted to do my own thing," he says.
In 1996, he and his former college roommate asked their fathers for loans to buy their own Buffalo Wild Wings (then called BW3) unit near Ann Arbor, Mich...

Many people who call themselves leaders are only posing. They're wearing the label or accepting the title without putting their skin in the game. I invite you to approach the act of leadership as you'd approach an extreme sport: learn to love the fear and exhilaration that comes with the territory. And that takes a personal commitment.

As Terry Pearce writes: "Many people think they want to be matadors, only to find themselves in the ring with 2,000 pounds of bull bearing down on them, and then discover that what they really wanted was to wear tight pants and hear the crowd roar."

If you choose to leap into the ring, do so because of your love of the challenge and adventure. Love is what makes the fear of the "sport" worthwhile...

Robert Branca, Jr., and his family of Dunkin' Donuts multi-unit franchisees offer the kind of advertisement for franchise success that money can't buy.
Case in point: Branca and his close family own 60 Dunkin' Donuts in New England. His extended family, including in-laws, their siblings, spouses, children, and cousins, own more than 700 Dunkin' Donuts in all and dominate the brand in New York and New England.
"We're all multi-unit franchisees," says Branca, who is married to the former Lisa Batista and was the family lawyer for years before he joined the family business. He learned about franchising and Dunkin' Donuts from the best: his father-in-law John Batista, a Dunkin' pioneer who came to the U.S. from the Azores and today owns the first-ever franchised Dunkin' Donuts store...

Practicing The Platinum Rule--treating others the way they want to be treated by adapting to their behavioral style--can quickly make you a more sensitive, effective leader. Indeed, this rule can have a positive effect on every aspect of managing and leading. With each of the four behavioral types, there's a different way to communicate with them, delegate tasks to them, compliment them, correct them, motivate them, and counsel them. The Director style tends to be direct and guarded; the Socializer style tends to be direct and open; the Relater style tends to be indirect and open; and the Thinker style tends to be indirect and guarded. You can be more effective with all employees, regardless of their behavioral style.
Your power to influence employees springs from two sources: