Multi-Unit Strategies - You Can't Do It All Yourself

The need to grow from hands-on management to influential leadership is a challenge every franchisee must overcome on their way to becoming a successful multi-unit operator. Though the journey is different with no one-size-fits-all approach, there are well-trodden paths to making the transition from day-to-day management to strategic leadership. Successful multi-unit operators understand that the path to great leadership never ends.

We recently interviewed a number of operators who shared their secrets to making the transition from managing to leading. Here's some of what they had to say.

Don Robinson, managing owner of 20 Penn Station East Coast Subs

If you allow the daily problems and fires to consume your day or week you've already lost, says Don Robinson, managing owner of 20 Penn Station East Coast Subs in the Louisville area. Robinson learned the hard way--around store number 10, he says--that he no longer could "outwork" the problems or daily issues that inevitably arise.

"Looking back, I realized I wasn't very efficient in my approach," he says. "For us to grow, I had to refocus my leadership style to work through people and empower our general managers to take the reins at the store level; to develop solid leaders and allow them to make decisions and learn from their mistakes. It took me a while to understand this is the best approach, and we are a better company today for it."

These days, the veteran franchisee considers it his job to develop and prepare his GMs and operations directors to anticipate potential fires and head them off before they happen.