Last Saturday we held our annual Franchise Meeting at the Hilton Metropole NEC in Birmingham. Despite the huge amount of work that goes into both the preparation and follow up to the meeting, it's a day I really look forward to each year.
On the Friday afternoon we drove to Birmingham, after packing the car with everything the franchisees had ordered from us, so they could benefit from not having to pay postage. Thankfully, my major panic this year that everything wouldn't fit into the car, was unfounded! Once we've arrived, the car is unloaded and the room set up, the excitement of seeing everyone again begins.
I speak to my franchisees at least once a month, email them regularly and see most of them during the year; however, meeting up with everyone together is great. I consider my franchisees as extended family - I know about their lives outside of Musical Minis and they know about mine. Franchisees often come with husbands and children - it's really lovely to see how the children have grown over the year and for Musical Minis to be as much part of their lives as it is for my own children.
A few franchisees stayed in the hotel on the Friday night and we met them for coffee. As we pack so much in on the day of the meeting it was really great to have time to spend with these franchisees just chatting about life in general.
The annual Franchise Meeting provides an opportunity for us to all work together to achieve the most across our franchise network. Unfortnately, this year we had a few franchisees not being able to attend on the day due to illness. As usual franchisees were provided with statistical and analytical information - each franchisee is given 10 different graphs showing their own franchise as compared to the franchise as a whole in relation to members, income etc. This year we were all delighted that there has been a steady increase in the number of children attending and the amount of income generated by Musical Minis as a whole. There has been a noticeable increase in the amount of both classes and contract work being run, across the franchise network.
Franchisees know it's their meeting and we cover aspects of the business they wish us to - this year due to popular demand, we concentrated on marketing and in particular social media (we had an outside speaker for this). The only flaw in our plan was that we had assumed the Hilton would have WIFI in it's meeting rooms - we were wrong!
As usual, the meeting seemed to be over so quickly. It takes the whole day but so much is discussed that time passes really fast. Franchisees manage to relax, catch up with and meet new franchisees over coffee and lunch breaks.The ideas and views which are shared, result in everyone leaving feeling positive about the future. Off the back of this, franchisees are encouraged to set themselves objectives for the year ahead and to share these with me so that I can support them in achieving them. They can decide whether to expand their activities or just to keep going as before - a key aspect of being a Musical Minis franchisee is that we allow each franchisee to set their own targets and don't force any upon them.
It's now over a week since the Franchise Meeting and I still have a bit of sorting out to do. The minutes have all been written and circulated. Franchisees have been reminded of the things they need to follow up on and we are aware of what we need to do. In fact, this year we've been super efficient and have already made quite an impact on the items we needed to follow up on.
I find the annual meetings inspiring and from the feedback received, it seems that the franchisees do too. I feel very lucky to have a lovely team of franchisees who I really do like; both to work with and as people. It makes it all so worthwhile.