Franchise Recruitment: Grant a Franchise, Don't Sell It

A conversation with Clive Smith, director of the franchise consultancy Franchise Focus. Interview by Tony Johnston, FranchiseAir.

Clive Smith has spent his working life on the franchisor’s side of the table: marketing and franchise director of Dyno-Rod through the 1990s, running the business through its acquisition by British Gas, then group franchise director of a home services group and managing director of a vending franchise. For the last ten years he has advised businesses on becoming franchisors at Franchise Focus, the consultancy he runs with his partner Simon Mills.

We asked him about franchise recruitment — how a franchisor finds the right people, and what goes wrong when they don’t. His answer keeps returning to one discipline: a franchise is granted, not sold.

From Dyno-Rod to consultancy

Tony: I’m Tony Johnston, I work for FranchiseAir.com — we do software — and I’m speaking today to Clive Smith, who works for Franchise Focus. Hello Clive.

Clive: Hello Tony.

Tony: We’ve met today for the first time, and we started talking about our own histories — but I stopped us and thought, why don’t we do that while we’re recording? So Clive, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you started in franchising.

Clive: Sure, thanks. It feels like I’ve served my time man and boy in franchising. I started out working in a franchise business back in the early 80s — a long time ago — in a marketing role, in a nice little service business. I spent two or three years there, left, went into the marketing services field — the agency world, that kind of stuff — but then found myself back working for an industrial services business that had been a client of mine. They invited me in to work for them, and it so happened they had formed a joint venture with a business called Dyno-Rod, to launch the Dyno-Rod service over in California. So they said: you’re our man, go over. I spent a couple of years working for Dyno-Rod, helping them start to build a network in California, which was great fun — good to work in a different country, and particularly America, which is obviously where franchising really has its origins.

Then Dyno-Rod said to me — all sorts of history there — come back to the UK and be our marketing and franchise director, which I did. That was in the early 90s; I spent about 14 years with them. I went through the period when the business was acquired by British Gas, and was running it at that time. Then I moved on to another home services business as group franchise director, spent a couple of years there, then went on and ran a vending business as the MD.

So — all the grey hairs started to appear, and I suddenly realised I’d built up a load of knowledge and experience, and maybe it was time to start sharing it. So for the last ten years, along with my partner Simon, we’ve been running Franchise Focus, a consultancy and advisory business that helps businesses to franchise. We work with them not just on the feasibility first, and helping them set up the systems and the back office to allow them to franchise — with virtually all our clients we stay on board and mentor them, help them recruit their franchisees, and then mentor them through the tricky process of working with franchisees, which is something they won’t have previously experienced. So we’ve got a broad mix of businesses: gyms, food, white collar, some home services.

Tony: How did you meet Simon? Tell us a little about him, since he’s not here.

Clive: Simon’s got a similar background — he spent most of his career in franchising, again in home services. We met at various events — British Franchise Association events — and had a passing knowledge of each other, but then our paths crossed at just the right time, when we both wanted to do something ourselves. It really was pure coincidence that we had a chat and all of a sudden realised we were on the same page. That’s how Franchise Focus came about.

The backdrop: franchisees are not entrepreneurs

Tony: So today, the topic is looking in detail at franchise recruitment — obviously something you have a lot of experience of. First question: let’s talk about early-stage recruitment, and the challenges you see — how it might differ from later-stage recruitment. We’re talking about a franchisor who’s perhaps got one franchisee, or even none. In those first few steps, what are the challenges in recruitment?

Clive: I’ll just take you a step back, because it’s important to set the scene. Everyone in franchising understands that what we’re about is replicating success. You’ve got a successful business, a reputation in a local marketplace, good systems, marketing methodologies — you’re probably good to go in terms of whether you could franchise your business. And in replicating success, it’s important to understand that that gives you leverage — that’s why people look to franchise. There are clearly lots and lots of people around who are looking to work for themselves.

But it’s important to understand, from a franchising point of view, that franchisees are not entrepreneurs — not classical ones — because if they were, they’d go and do something entirely themselves. This is where the win-win comes in. You’ve got success; you can demonstrate it; you can show somebody, and train somebody, to do what you’ve been doing. And here’s another party who says: I want to run my own business, but I want the reassurance of knowing it’s successful, it’s proven. They’re not precious enough to want to call it their own name — they’re happy to lease a brand name, lease the know-how, lease the IP. They don’t care about ownership. But they’re convinced they’ll have the success they want, running their own business, by partnering with a franchisor. So there’s your backdrop. Which brings us on to recruitment — that must make it easy, because there are all these people out there you can sell your franchise to.

Tony: That sounds great in theory…

Grant, don’t sell

Clive: Exactly, exactly. But this is one thing I always try to impress on the businesses I work with: you will not be in the business of selling franchises. If you have a mindset that says you’re going to sell a franchise, you’ve already put one arm behind your back in terms of whether you’re going to be a successful franchisor. What you have to do is get into a mindset that says you are granting the right to another individual to operate under your brand, operate your systems, use your know-how. There’s a fundamental difference between those two positions.

Tony: And if people do try to sell — what’s the outcome you generally see?

Clive: Not a guarantee, but there’s a much higher likelihood of a high churn rate in your franchise network — your franchisees may not be as successful as you want them to be, and as they would want to be. One of the things you do right from the early stages of setting up a franchise system is to be very precise about the type of candidate you want as your franchisee. The profile is so important — and so is continuing to use that profile as a benchmark when you, the franchisor, make the decision about whether you appoint somebody or not. You have to be laser-focused on that profile, and therefore very diligent about understanding every candidate who comes in and meets you.

Can a franchise be built on a bunch of people who’ve all said “yeah, I love your business, Mr Franchisor — I think I could really do this, you’ve shown me loads of great stuff, where do I sign?” And you think: great, I’ve made a sale. No — it probably won’t be great, if you haven’t fully understood whether that candidate has the commercial capability, the attitude, the personality, the industry to actually do what it is you want them to do.

What the wrong franchisee looks like

Tony: So if you get the wrong type of franchisee, what does that tend to look like for the franchisor?

Clive: You might luck out — the candidate still understands what’s required of them. But invariably, what happens is they start to drift. They don’t step up when you need them to step up; they make mistakes they shouldn’t be making. Your training and onboarding might overcome some of that, but if they don’t have the commercial attributes, if they don’t have the personality traits that are important to your business, they’re simply not going to build the business to the level you expected. They’re probably going to become frustrated, because they’re not achieving what they thought they would. They start to become resistant, and the whole thing becomes a challenge for both parties — you have a disconnect that’s a difficult thing to work with.

Whether you’re employing staff or appointing franchisees, you need to be diligent and thorough about whether the candidate is right for the role. But in a franchise I’d argue it’s even more important, because you’re getting into a five-year, maybe a ten-year — in some cases now a twenty-year — arrangement with these people. And it’s not so easy to shift them if it’s not going well. It can be a bit easier to deal with an employee.

Saying no

Tony: It’s obviously sometimes difficult, particularly early on, to say no — the potential franchisee might be offering, might have the money, and it’s really tempting. How do you handle that when you’re advising franchisors?

Clive: No one likes delivering bad news, but you have to do it — otherwise the integrity of your business is potentially in jeopardy, if you haven’t got the right people. When I’m working with my clients, we make it clear to every candidate how the process works. It isn’t just a one-meeting exercise: we have a very detailed application process, we use psychometric testing — not all clients like to do that, but we do do it. Getting under the skin, meeting them, is fine, and I think gut feel will always play an important role — do you have a connection with this person? — but you need to take a very objective view.

You’ve just got to be hard-nosed about it. It’s your business, it’s your brand. Why would you allow somebody who doesn’t really have the skill set or the attitude to do it as you want it done — why would you allow them access to something you’ve worked bloody hard to build up? That’s the scale of the situation.

And the challenge is that as a franchisor starting out, you’ve invested money in building your systems and you want your first franchisees — so it’s very tempting when someone says “I’ll have it, where do I send the cheque?” Your natural inclination is to say: great, I’ve sold a franchise. But beware — make sure you’re not getting into a situation that will actually be more costly in the long run.

Eyes and ears

Tony: Let’s look at another example. You’ve done the work, the franchisee looks great, everything is green light to go — and somehow it doesn’t work out. What are the warning signs when things aren’t going well with someone you thought would be a great franchisee, and what do you do about it?

Clive: The overall approach has to be firm but fair. Hopefully you’ve got a well-structured franchise agreement that’s well aligned with your operations manual. The manual sits there as an aide-memoire — people don’t read it every day, of course they don’t; it sits on a shelf, or in a folder on your laptop — but it’s got all the dos and don’ts and everything in between. Or it should have.

Your role as a franchisor is to have eyes and ears on what’s going on in the network. Your systems must be intrusive — they must give you the information you need to closely monitor what franchisees are doing. And every franchisee — I would always insist, irrespective of whether they’re getting a bank loan or not — should have a business plan: a clear plan of what they expect to achieve in year one, two, three, four and onwards, and the discipline of updating it annually. It’s your role as a franchisor to expect that to happen. I’ve had franchisor clients where I’ve asked, “have you pulled the financials on this particular franchisee?” — “well, no, I didn’t really like to ask.” No, no, no. It’s in the agreement, it’s very clear, it’s part of the reporting. Do not be afraid of enforcing what you’re entitled to — your brand and your system are at stake.

If you’ve got failing franchisees, that has a damaging effect on you and your business — and, more importantly, on the business of your other franchisees. They’ll be the first ones shouting: “look what’s happening with the guy in the next territory.” They will want to see action, because failing franchisees start to lose interest — the customer service starts to deteriorate, the suppliers don’t get paid; all the bad practices start to manifest themselves. So having systems and processes that give you eyes and ears, and disciplined reporting, is critical.

But at the end of the day it’s all about engagement. What you cannot do as a franchisor — and I’ve had this with some businesses who’ve been interested in franchising — is think it’s a route to semi-retirement. Franchising is absolutely not that. Franchising puts another task on your shoulders: now you’re going to be a franchisor, and there’s a lot to be done in making sure you connect in a positive way with your franchisees.

Growing past the first few

Tony: With the early-stage ones, if you get problems there, you’re going to have a drag on future recruitment — it’s a bad advert for the franchise. As the network grows — say you’re getting to five or ten units — do you see the challenges changing, or is it essentially the same thing made bigger?

Clive: I think it’s more the latter. As you grow, you start to finesse your plans, your franchisee profile; you get more knowledge, and that’s helpful in planning how the business develops. Look — the first few franchisees are critical. You made the point at the beginning, Tony: if the first three or four fail, it’s a big, big step back. You’ve got to be really, really focused on getting the right people in at the beginning — they’re going to be your pilot group. Once you’ve got those bedded in properly, their story becomes part of the narrative, and plays into how you recruit your next group of franchisees — they want to see that success.

As you move forward, the danger — and maybe this is a point about business in general — is complacency: thinking the same old systems work all the time. You’ve got to keep updating stuff. Whatever you show your potential franchisees during that discovery process has got to be up to date, and there’s got to be transparency. All the way through, you’ve got to be prepared to share information in a manner that allows your candidate to get fully informed of the good and maybe the not-so-good. We’re fortunate in this country that we self-regulate — we don’t have the sort of disclosure laws that exist in some other countries, parts of the States, Australia — so it makes it a slightly easier process. But I still think there’s a lot of merit in being as upfront and open with potential franchisees as you possibly can be, and that can be difficult sometimes — you might have a few skeletons in the cupboard. But that has to be the way a franchise operates: a platform of trust, transparency, openness.

And look — if you’ve got fifty franchisees and they’re all doing well, it’s a pretty easy franchise to grant. But the point is to stay focused on being just as precise about that decision whether you’re at the early stage or a fully mature franchise.

Resales — and a cautionary tale

Tony: Do you see the amount of effort put into recruitment change over time? You worked with the likes of Dyno-Rod — with however many hundred units. Does the head office effort on recruitment get less, or more — how does it change?

Clive: In the grand scheme of things, the amount of time you spend on recruitment reduces as a proportion of the total, because there’s more support going on. But it’s still fundamental. And of course, as you mature, you get into renewals, and you get into resales — existing franchisees moving on and wanting to sell their business — and that’s a more complex situation; now you’re into a different game. But the same principles apply, in my view.

I have an example — in fact it was a franchisee who approached me, a year or so ago. She was in the process of looking to buy a coffee franchise. It was a good brand. Now, I was working for her — but having met her, if I’d been the franchisor I’d have been thinking: I don’t know that you’ve got the commercial aptitude to be one of my franchisees. They wanted to sell her an existing store — a busy cafe. She had experience of working as a barista, knew about coffee and how a cafe ran, but had certainly never managed staff, and didn’t really understand financials. These are important things — warning signs.

What was also the case — and this is again something I’m not a great fan of — is that this particular franchise had created area franchisees, almost delegating one step down from head office. So she was actually negotiating with an area franchisee who was themselves quite new. And it became pretty apparent that the reason they wanted to appoint her was simply because she was prepared to do it. Like I was saying earlier — they were trying to sell her a franchise. If they’d been in any way more thorough about how they dealt with her, I don’t think she’d even have got through the first discovery meeting.

It disturbs me sometimes that there is still what I would call a level of malpractice going on — misleading the franchisee, certainly. She did buy the franchise, which I was surprised to learn — she’d just wanted some initial advice about what questions she should ask. And it’s not going that well: I spoke to her back in January and she said it wasn’t quite what she wanted. I felt uncomfortable about the way the whole thing had been executed, by what was quite a well-established, mature franchise brand.

How fast should a network grow?

Tony: I’m heading towards my final question, Clive. A lot of franchisors are thinking: how long is this all going to take — when am I going to be at a hundred units? What do you see in terms of good practice on timescale — what sort of speed do you expect of a good franchise network’s growth?

Clive: I don’t think there’s one answer to that, Tony. It really does depend on the nature of the business. With a low-value, man-and-a-van-type business — four or five thousand pounds — you could probably sell a couple a month, once you get yourself properly organised. Whereas premises-based franchises are obviously governed by the availability of suitable premises, and because they’re much higher investment, it can take quite a while to find the right people, who are properly funded, and allow them to find the premises.

So when clients ask me “how quickly could I…?”, I always say: set realistic expectations. It depends on a number of factors — including how well the franchisor is able to resource it. If they’ve got a large team in place already, if they’re a large existing business — an example I had recently: a large business in the medical equipment field, a manufacturer, wanted to franchise off their servicing arm. They’ve got a lot of resource, so the targets we’re putting forward for them already allow for the fact that they’ve got personnel and facilities available to put real money into their recruitment activity. Theirs is going to look a lot different from a business just starting out in franchising with very limited resources — just an MD and a couple of support staff. So it really will vary, depending on the nature and size of the business.

Tony: That’s interesting. Well, Clive, I think we’ve looked in detail at recruitment — thank you for your time; that was excellent advice. Just to remind us once again for the end of the recording: you’re at Franchise Focus, and the web address is franchisefocus.co.uk?

Clive: That’s it — franchisefocus.co.uk.

Tony: And if anyone is interested in working with you, I’m sure you’d welcome a conversation.

Clive: Absolutely — we’re always happy to have an exploratory chat.

Tony: Excellent. Thank you very much, Clive — and good luck for the future.

Clive: Thank you.

Recorded over Microsoft Teams on 4 August 2026. Transcript lightly edited for clarity.

Clive Smith is a director of Franchise Focus, a UK franchise consultancy he has run with his partner Simon Mills for the last ten years. He was marketing and franchise director of Dyno-Rod through the 1990s — including its acquisition by British Gas, where he ran the business — and has been group franchise director of a home services group and managing director of a vending franchise.

Related reading: why franchise networks stall as they grow · a franchisee’s first 90 days · real-time data for franchise decisions