The personality assessment held by a franchisor is aiming to profile franchisee candidates in order to determine whether a candidate is suitable or best fit for the franchise. The premise: The best-fit franchisee candidates will likely to succeed. In other words, the franchise units managed by the suitable franchisees will have lower risk of failure.
As I mentioned in Franchise Note’s previous articles, the ability to “blend” within a franchise system is the key success factor for the franchisee, as well as for the franchisor.
What make an ideal franchisee?
I came across to Entrepreneur.com’s article published three years ago about a profile of an ideal franchisee. The article list personal traits that make an ideal franchisee:
- Higher-than-average dominance
- High energy and drive
- Focused on results
- Logical
- Tough, but fair
- Somewhat sociable
- Risk-taker
- Ambitious
- Assertive
- Collaborative
I never took a personality assessment, but looking to the above traits, I knew I can be a good franchisee. The question is, which franchise?
How is your personality affecting your chance in franchising?
In my opinion, personality assessments are meant to guide, not to determine. Having the best fit personality won’t make you a better and/or a successful franchisee. There are many other issues affecting your success in franchising, such as location, resources and force majeure. However, your personal traits do affect your management style, thus affecting your (and your franchisor’s) bottom line.
Please consider the following analysis:
Considering the traits above, your lack of “Higher-than-average dominance,” but OK in other traits would not work well with franchises needing your close leadership, such as real estate brokerage franchise and tax consulting franchise. You might fit best in a franchise that requires less dominance of the owner, such as mini mart franchise and vending franchise.
Another analysis to give you some idea: Your lack of aggressiveness in “risk-taking” but OK in other traits would best-suit you with an established franchise, but probably not with a newly-established franchise, that requires a certain degree of risk-taking and more entrepreneurial qualities.
How to be the one franchisors are looking for
Being a franchisee candidate, in a sense, is similar as being a job opening candidate. You need to be the one who your franchisor is looking for.
Of course, there will be a spark in our mind to flunk a personality test to get our way in acquiring our dream franchise. However, doing so might just harm you eventually – You might not be able to make your franchise unit thrive. I think it is better for you and I to be honest, so that we can join a franchise that help us achieve the cash flow we want (and the royalty our franchisor want) and minimise the risk of stumbles later on.
The best way you and I should do is to take a personality assessment ourselves to see whether we are suitable for franchising or not. It’s not cheap (in hundreds of dollar), but it is a reasonable investment that can save you from a disastrous $100,000 franchise unit.
Ivan Widjaya
Personality suited for franchising
Image by tourist_on_earth.
