We’ve Found the Best People in Business and They All Share These 4 Traits

After 30 years in franchising, the question I’m asked most often is this: how do you find the right people to partner with your business?

The easy answer? We take our time with strategic marketing initiatives to attract people who suit our kind of business. Then we follow an extensive process designed to weed out weaker candidates from the strong ones. Once we’ve made a final decision and signed the papers, voila: new franchise partner.

Unfortunately, it’s not an exact science and it never will be. Sometimes, no matter how careful we are, we still make mistakes. Over the years, we’ve made some epic hires and some equally catastrophic ones. But we’ve discovered four key attributes that truly point to success. If a candidate possesses all of them, we can almost guarantee they’ll be a perfect fit. We call them the “4 Hs.”

Our company has always been built on happy, energetic people. This is an absolute must for every employee, from franchise partners to frontline employees to corporate staff. We learned early on that happy people make a happy workplace. They also make your customers happy which creates a happy, healthy business.

I’m an eternal optimist who always sees the best in situations, no matter how tough it gets. I firmly believe that’s played a pivotal role in the success of our businesses. People who look at the bright side and fight their way through challenges are our kind of people.

No, we’re not looking for folks who are constantly hitting the drive-thru. But we do want people with an insatiable appetite for success and professional service. The strongest franchise partners in our system are the ones who know what they want and won’t take no for an answer. So what if starting a business is risky; they’re ready to dive in headfirst.

It’s easy to tell the wishy-washy candidates apart from the hungry ones. They’re often risk-averse and take a long time to make decisions throughout the process. In most cases, they drop out before we have a chance to tell them no.

This one is obvious. Someone who gives up when the going gets tough won’t last long in our system. We want the go-getters, the problem-solvers who put their nose to the grindstone and do whatever it takes to persevere.

We often interview candidates who expect to buy a franchise and then sit back and watch it grow. But we are and always will be an owner-operator kind of business. We expect every person we bring on board to be prepared and willing to work on the frontlines, hauling junk or cleaning gutters until they’ve grown enough to step back. For us, it’s about working in the business, not just on it.

Hands-on people aren’t just willing to get their hands dirty (although that’s incredibly important in our line of work). They’re also tactical leaders who lead by example and are present in their businesses.

Hands-off people, on the other hand, risk losing touch with their businesses and teams. They’re less invested emotionally which makes their people less invested, too. As a result, everything suffers — from culture to service to finances. We’ve unwittingly brought this type of person into our system on more than one occasion. Their franchises almost always become fragmented; conflict brews and quality control plummets because there’s no leader to take ownership of the business.

Our hands-on franchise partners are always available to support their teams. They race to conflict, embrace challenges and encourage their people to do the same.

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Finding the right franchise partners has always been our biggest challenge. No matter how much due diligence we do, it’s impossible to predict exactly how someone will perform in real-life scenarios. We’ve done our best to perfect our systems and processes, and we stay committed to our “It’s All About People” philosophy. If we continue to pursue and partner with happy, hungry, hardworking and hands-on people, we’ll be able to take on the world.