The Post-COVID Restaurant Franchise Growth Checklist

It’s tempting to simply focus on the negative changes caused by COVID-19. After all, the coronavirus pandemic has caused economic turmoil in the past few months, including massive unemployment. Those who are still fortunate to have a job are often working from home while also balancing familial responsibilities. 

Franchise brands are also hurting from having to close their doors for indefinite amounts of time in accordance with local and state guidelines. 

That being said, this moment is also an opportune time for franchise brands to reflect on their business strategies and growth strategy for the post-COVID-19 landscape. In order to do this, franchise brands should undertake six major steps. The first is to evaluate their assets, including their values. From there, they must understand their sales data, study their Google Analytics, own and tell their stories, budget and deploy marketing and broker relations and, once all of these things are accomplished, set goals. 

The way Biggby Coffee CEO Bob Fish sees it, franchise brands really need to identify their core values. 

“You have to be able to absolutely, clearly articulate those,” Biggby said in a recent interview with 1851 publisher Nick Powills and franchise legal expert Charles Internicola of the Internicola Law* Firm. 

To that end, Biggby noted that the coffee brand evaluated their operating philosophy, cultural values and more. The sales process, he said, should be viewed as more of an “opt-in or opt-out process.” 

“The more well-defined you are in your values and your ability to communicate those, that’s how people make the decisions,” Biggby said. “They’re like ‘Yeah I can relate to those. I like those. I dig those guys and their values.’ That’s the thing that goes beyond simply the business model.”

Of the six steps, Biggby Coffee is mainly focused on owning and telling their story as part of its growth strategy. To that end, ever since the start of COVID-19, the brand has held live “Ask Me Anything” webinars on Wednesdays. This provides stakeholders and the general public with the chance to ask questions, including baristas, vendors and customers. 

Biggby noted that more prospective franchisees, in addition to earning money, also want to partner with a brand that has meaning to them, especially at a time like this. 

“It’s really about whether you can have pride in what you’re doing, pride in what you’re serving, pride in what you’re doing for the human condition,” Biggby said. He added that “As you look forward, these are going to be really, really important things.” 

In the same interview, Little Caesars Vice President of Franchise Development Brett Larrabee, echoed this philosophy. 

“Words matter,” Larrabee said. “And the way you talk to people matters and the way you think about your culture matters. If people are bought into the idea of the words that you use and the care that you take and the way you develop your brand and connect with your customers, the units will come, but you have to have a strategy to connect with people. At the end of the day, relationships are really all we have. All this stuff comes and goes, including our health. We really need to be relevant to the people that matter to our growth. If our franchisees are bought into the idea of what we do every day, they’re going to be more enthusiastic about growing the brand.” 

The positive thing about COVID-19, Biggby said, is that it gives brands the opportunity to embrace change. 

“COVID, to me, is an absolute invitation to sort of throw out what might be traditional and lean into the idea of change,” Biggby said. 

Larrabee also believes that COVID-19 has provided brands with some time to focus on areas for improvement. 

“COVID has given all of us a kind of free ticket to reimagine how we could do better,” Larrabee said. “How we could break from some of the traditional thinking and grow into an environment that is more meaningful, more profitable and richer for our franchisees and our employees.” 

Bottom line: COVID-19 has given franchise brands a tremendous opportunity to do some self-reflection and make sure they can articulate what they have to offer prospective franchisees in terms of value. Prospective franchisees certainly want to make money through franchising, but more and more they also want to align themselves with a brand that shares their values. By focusing on their values and owning their stories, franchise brands can improve their growth strategy and come out strong on the other side of COVID-19.