Business News

Sue Moore has succeeded in helping franchise founders increase engagement across their brands many times. She has developed communication & engagement methods that work across all franchise sectors.

Over more than three decades working in franchising, Sue has sat across the table from countless mature franchise brands — the kind that have been through the growth phase, worked out the kinks, and settled into running a mature network. And time and again, two frustrations come up more than any others.

"There are so many emails and calls — they just don't read the operating manual!"

This is the complaint Sue hears most often from head office teams, and her response is always the same: if the operating manual isn't being used, that's rarely down to the franchisees.

Sue's view is straightforward. If an operating manual is stale, out of date, not searchable, and never referenced in meetings, training, conferences or franchisee onboarding, it simply won't get used — it might as well not exist. The result is predictable: a flood of reactive calls and emails, a long and growing list of FAQs, and head office staff stuck permanently in firefighting mode instead of doing the work that actually grows the network.

The good news, Sue points out, is that this doesn't have to be the reality anymore. Building clear, current, genuinely useful SOPs isn't a mystery — it just takes the right approach and, often, the right help. For brands that don't have the time or the know-how to overhaul their documentation, Sue has trusted contacts who specialise in exactly this, and she's always glad to make the introduction.

The second recurring theme is the disproportionate amount of energy a small number of vocal franchisees can absorb, usually through email.

Sue's advice here is simple and, in her experience, remarkably effective: pick up the phone. Better still, invite the franchisee into head office and talk it through face to face. She's occasionally seen real aggression come through in an email — but has very rarely seen that same tone surface once someone is actually in the room. Her approach is to listen first, be pragmatic, and be honest about what can and can't be done — and then to actually follow through on what can.

Sue's conclusion, after 30-plus years of watching this play out across brand after brand, is one worth remembering: a great system that's documented badly will frustrate everyone who has to use it. And poor communication, more than almost anything else, is what quietly kills trust within a franchise network.