After five years of consistent growth, Kathleen Kuhn knew one of her franchisees was in trouble when his numbers started going down. Kuhn, CEO of HouseMaster, a home inspection services operator and franchisor, reached out to the franchisee hoping to find out what sparked the decline.
“We asked the franchisee, ‘how open are you to getting help and to changing how you operate?’†said Kuhn.
The franchisee didn’t want to throw in the towel, so the team at HouseMaster strategized an operations turnaround. “We reviewed the business, from phone handling to follow-up marketing, quality of service delivery, uniform inspections, even how the franchisee was spending his free time,†recalled Kuhn. “We found out he wasn’t doing some of the basics, for example his wife was handling the office phone and he did not have strong field marketing presence. We pulled him back and started from scratch. â€