Success Academy provides a single source for Authority Brands franchise owners for training and development. For the Authority Brands franchise owners, especially those in the trades business—One Hour Heating & Air Conditioning, Benjamin Franklin Plumbing, and Mister Sparky Electric—training is vital to their success.
"There are many reasons that training is good for any business owner," says Lance Sinclair, VP of Operations for One Hour Heating & Air Conditioning, Benjamin Franklin Plumbing, and Mister Sparky Electric. "Continuous training for franchise owners is a strategic move for retention, improved revenue, and bottom-line profitability."
The Success Academy team believes all business owners should participate in ongoing learning and training for the following reasons:
- Retention. Research has shown that there is a significant impact of training on team members' retention. The research provides empirical evidence that supports the cause of training and its effect on retention. The research has proved that training can influence a decision to stay for a longer period.
- Callbacks. A callback can cost a business a lot in hidden costs. In most cases, one callback will take four regular service calls to break even. Proper training can reduce callbacks significantly and improve a company's bottom line.
- Career. Training can provide a career path for most team members, especially when combined with a ranking system based on knowledge and skill, such as Technician 1, Technician 2, Technician 3, etc.
- Income. The more you learn, the more you make. One of the advantages of training and earnings is that the more skills you develop in the trades, the more you can make. Training has a direct link to a team member's earnings.
- In-demand. According to a recent survey (Grovo, n.d.), training and development are the #1 benefit millennials seek when evaluating prospective employers. They place a great value on in-house training, anything that will advance their careers – and quickly. Millennials recognize that professional development is the pathway to success.
Success Academy's Six Tier Approach:
Historically, Success Academy offered consistent, in-person training, which was put on hold through the COVID-19 pandemic. That didn't stop the team from ensuring they have a wide variety of offerings for franchises.
In fact, Success Academy has completely restructured what they offer franchise owners.
"We recognized that we all learn differently, and each position has a different requirement and preference for education," says Joel Berken, Success Academy Manager of Online Learning.
Success Academy's new six-tier approach gives franchise owners ways to participate in training that works best for them and their staff while also increasing engagement in training.
The six tiers of Success Academy are:
1) Self-Paced Online Learning:
In 2020, Success Academy launched a new Learning Management System (LMS), which houses more than 150 online courses on branded procedures, soft skills, selling, position-specific pathways, and more. Franchise Owners and their employees can access these courses from anywhere and at any time, even from their phone or iPad.
Many of the classes included in the new LMS were previously taught in an in-person classroom setting. The online versions of these courses are not just recorded webinars but instead highly interactive lessons with videos and branched scenarios.
"Our learners weren't just sitting and listening, but interacting throughout the course," Joel says. "This was a major facelift to our content and created a better user experience that attracted our learners to come back for more learning!"
2) Webinars:
Success Academy's offering of webinars really grew during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, they offered 21 webinars compared to 2019's seven. Success Academy also saw a 349% increase in participation from the previous year.
"If people couldn't make it to our trainings, then we were bringing it to them," Joel says.
Many classes that would typically be taught in person were converted to webinar-based training, including the regular new franchise owner trainings. To encourage engagement in these webinars, the Success Academy team utilized break-out rooms and time after class for individuals to reach out and take a deeper dive into some of the finer points of the course, so they could better implement the material learned in the field.
3) Instructor-Led Training:
While in-person training has been on hold recently, Success Academy will bring it back when the time is right. Through the in-person training, franchise owners will travel to the headquarters office in Phoenix, AZ, or to other franchise locations to participate.
In-person training allows franchise owners to interact with each other, team build, and grow.
4) Workshops:
Through Success Academy Workshops, franchise owners have the opportunity to hear from an outside speaker on varying topics. Success Academy works hard to bring franchise owners the best speakers in our trades.
Workshops can last anywhere between one and three days, and the goal of bringing in these speakers is always the same: to help grow franchise locations' bottom line.
5) Success Academy Plus:
When a franchise owner has a specific area of the business they need specialized or customized training on, they can come to Success Academy for that help creating and building that training program.
Franchise locations use this when they have specific Key Performance Indicators that are missing the mark. Sometimes, they may feel that their voice is no longer being heard by their employees and need a new voice to reiterate the importance of following the Franchise System.
6) Technical Training Partners:
In addition to all of the great programs Success Academy offers franchise owners in-house, they also partner with other entities to bring franchise owners technical training programs. This ensures that they have current technical knowledge vital to their trade and success in their job.
This includes a partnership with Interplay Virtual Training. In this training offering, technicians are immersed in a virtual reality where they're wearing a headset and holding controllers in their hands. The team members participating get a life-like and hands-on experience for troubleshooting and diagnosing faulty systems.
This new six-tier approach has already been seeing great results and participation. Throughout 2020, Success Academy had 4,260 active students complete more than 32,846 courses, hundreds of live webinar-based training attendees, and 626 students took advantage and enrolled in technical training.
"Success Academy provides more training opportunities than any other trade group, membership group, or association," Lance says. "Over the years, we have seen that franchise owners who utilize the programs offered by Success Academy perform in the top percentage of our franchise owners."
Click here to learn more about Success Academy.
