One in five franchises are operated by husband-and-wife franchisee teams, according to estimates, but in some industries it is far higher than that. Are these relationships a recipe for success or disaster? We explain how your franchisee selection process can make all the difference, and share tips for not only making these relationships work, but building a stronger franchise.

 

When Karen Dovey of Exceed Maintenance said that they won’t sell franchises to prospective franchisees who don’t bring their wives along with them to introductory meetings, it really struck a chord with me. She was speaking at a Franchise Association breakfast meeting and her words reinforced my long-held belief that husband-and-wife teams – or to be more politically correct, life partner teams – are the backbone of the franchise industry.

That applies to franchisors as much as franchisees, as we could see from David and Karen Dovey themselves. They’ve been operating Exceed now for sixteen years. Only David is shown on the Franchise Team page on their website, but it was Karen who delivered the presentation. When asked later if he wanted to add anything, David simply congratulated Karen. Clearly, theirs is a business relationship that works!

However, in my experience, for every one that works there are two or three which aren’t successful – or at least, aren’t as successful as they could be. Hence David and Karen’s insistence on getting to know both partners before any decision is made to take on a new franchisee. Even if the life partner isn’t planning to work in the business, it is important for the franchisor that she – in Exceed’s case, all the franchisees are male – is supportive of both the franchisee and the franchise concept, and understands that it takes blood, sweat and tears to establish a new business. I’ve come across franchisees’ life partners who openly resent the time and effort their partners put into their own businesses.

You could argue that all you need to do when selecting life partners as franchisees is to treat them the same as if two unattached people are intending to become partners in the franchise business – that is, evaluate each of them separately. But there’s far more to it than that. There are greater stresses on life-business partners. They may feel that because their business partner lives there too, their home is not the haven away from the business that it is for most businesspeople. They may find it more difficult to remove emotion from their business decisions because of their emotional attachment to each other. And if the business partnership isn’t working out, they will certainly find it even more difficult than than unattached partners to move on.

 

No matter how rigorous your selection process, every business partnership has its hiccups sometimes, and this is particularly true of life partners where the pressures of running their business can impact on their home and family life, and vice versa. What advice can you pass on to your franchisees? We sought out tips from successful life-business partners on how they make it work.

HouseMaster was the first home inspection franchise in the United States and Kathleen Austin Kuhn and her husband Mike have been Housemaster franchisees for eighteen years. She estimates that almost 30 percent of HouseMaster’s 375 franchises are operated by husband-and-wife teams.

“Some couples really need some regular time apart, workingseparately, during the weekdays,” she observed in PR Newswire. However, she and Mike aren’t one of those couples. “My husband knows when things are hectic at work because we work together. He understands whento pitch in more at home or with the kids.”

Good old Mike, eh? Kathleen’s other tips include: