Lightbridge Academy’s Gigi Schweikert on Franchise Operations

In the more than 20 years since Lightbridge Academy* was founded, including seven as a franchise, the supplemental education brand has not closed a single unit. That 0-percent failure rate can be attributed to a number of factors. A consistent and growing need for tutoring services in markets across the world, a selective development strategy and a number of franchisee incentives designed to promote growth have helped Lightbridge owners mitigate or altogether avoid many of the more common risks associated with business ownership.

One other reason for Lightbridge Academy’s success is the Circle of Care, a sort of core philosophy for the brand. Where most businesses’ mission statements exist as a vaguely guiding light, Lightbridge’s Circle of Care “informs every detail of the franchise’s operations model.” That’s according to Gigi Schweikert, Lightbridge’s president and COO.

Schweikert says instilling that philosophy across Lightbridge’s entire franchise system is a key element of the brand’s operations strategy. We talked with Schweikert about that strategy and her experience in franchise operations. Here’s what she had to say.

What are some of the key operational concerns for any franchise brand?

Schweikert: The first concern is laying the foundation for a good relationship between the franchisor and franchisee. In operations, we always have concerns and issues, and unexpected things are always gonna happen. So it’s important to develop positive relationships and good structures for communicating with franchisees.

The other thing is consistency. Consistency is key to franchising. We want to create a consistency not just with the exterior of the building or the product or service, but also with the culture, which may be the most important and difficult thing to establish.

One of the things we do at Lightbridge to create cultural consistency is emphasizing our core values and making decisions so that our franchisee can use those core values as the test to make every decision.

What are some operational concerns that are unique to Lightbridge Academy?

Schweikert: I think that with any service-industry franchise, there are going to be unique concerns. Especially when you are dealing with children and parents, there is a lot of emotion involved. We really serve two customers: parents and children. Because the child customer cannot always be an advocate for him or herself, we have to have really strong communications with the other customer, the parent.

That means making sure we are actively listening to the customer, helping them problem-solve according to their needs, and again, for us at Lightbridge, always going back to what we call our Circle of Care, which means meeting the needs of everyone in our family, which includes both our customers and team members.

What does Lightbridge Academy’s operations team look like?

Schweikert: We have a COO — myself — and quite a few company centers. There’s a VP of operations for our company centers, a VP of operations for our franchise centers, and business coaches under the VPs for each center.

What should a COO look for when putting together an operations team?

Schweikert: Any franchisor should expect that operations are always going to be challenging. Because they're challenging, people who work in operations need to be the type of people who like to solve problems, who like to help people, who have a great deal of patience and are adept at helping people follow a model.

Are you focused more on the individual unit operations or on the operations of the system at large?

Schweikert: As an emerging franchisor, it’s essential that we focus on both the system and the individual units. We want to make sure that the entire system is healthy, but the health of the system is based on each unit. We have business coaches who are advocates for each store, and it’s really important that they are making sure each store gets everything it needs. So we stay focused on the individual needs of each unit to support the entire system.

If a franchise brand is struggling, where should it look first to improve its operations?

Schweikert: One way is to go back to basics. You need to look at what your core business is and make sure your operations are staying true to that core business.

You can also look to the quick fixes to deal with inconsistencies. Brands usually struggle because of inconsistency on some level. So look for those inconsistencies, and those may guide you to larger solutions.

Once you’ve defined some of the reasons the brand is struggling, you need to retrain and reset expectations for everyone in the system. It’s costly and a huge time investment, but the short-term challenge certainly pays off in the long run.

What do you wish you knew about franchise operations before you got into the industry?

Schweikert: A lot of things. What stands out the most is the importance of helping people understand the “why” behind every decision. In franchising, we are very focused on consistency. We want people to follow the model, and they are much more likely to follow the model if they know the reasons the model is designed the way it is and why it will make them more profitable.