Turning new franchise partners into successful business owners is second nature to the team at Pack & Send. It starts with an excellent grounding in the basics of the freight, logistics and parcel industry.

Brand new franchise partners gain the operational knowledge to set up and start running their own centre explains Kate Fellowes, learning and development manager at Pack & Send.

Business owners can continue to access opportunities for extra education as they build their franchise. Kate and her team ensure training bridges any performance gaps.

“While most franchisees bring business experience many lack shipping logistics expertise. So we focus on operations and business growth,” says Kate.

The initial training covers operations, selling and prospecting, customer service, maximising sales, and how to approach new businesses.

The introductory Face-to-Face training takes two weeks, spread over three weeks, including visits to a carrier and a warehouse, and there’s a mandatory eLearning element too. This is followed by an instore training component with an experienced franchise partner.

Pack & Send franchisee success starts with great training

A new franchise partner spends a week with a high performing centre, gaining valuable knowledge from the resident franchisee.

“I let people learn as they need,” says Kate. “In general people want to get hands-on. It’s important franchise partners are competent with technology and learn how to use databases before adding in the complexity of talking to customers at the same time.”

Rehearsing sales techniques and using the technology is one of the best ways to learn, she says.

Kate provides a full suite of learning resources from handouts to eLearning courses.

“I encourage new franchisees in training to use all the tools as if I weren’t there. This can be a complex business and franchise partners need to know where to source the right information – sending something to Fiji for the first time, for instance.

“We are teaching franchise partners how to use the tools in this industry. Our customer service is all about problem-solving, so we help set up franchise partners to be experts in a training environment where there is no live customer pressure.

“A new franchisee can propose a solution and it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work. We learn from our mistakes. It is a safe space to learn and make errors,” Kate says.

eLearning is a crucial element of the educational opportunities

Kate has developed an eLearning system, backed up by the worldwide team at Pack & Send’s parent company MBE. The on-demand learning is boosted with ongoing webinar and virtual sales programs open to anyone in the franchise partner’s team.

“A large part of start-up is the financial side. How do you deal with suppliers and manage invoices? We have a finance team member dedicated to supporting franchise partners,” says Kate.

She is cognisant of the limits of intensive training.

“We always find after formal induction franchisees’ brains are full so longer classroom training isn’t appropriate. There’s always the temptation to add more, so you need to know when it’s time to stop. There comes a point where everyone wants to put their learning into practice.”

In 2024, she is launching a series of ongoing training webinars across Australia and New Zealand. The topics include exporting to a particular country, how to import, how to do sea freight, how to use CRM.

Pack & Send harnesses its team’s technical expertise to provide premium support. For instance, the finance department runs education sessions, while marketing focuses on effective design and implementation of local area marketing.

“We have a whole range timetabled for the year. New franchise partners are automatically enrolled in programs so we can build on their knowledge. We wait till they have implemented what they learn,” says Kate.

As ambitious franchise partners take steps into buying a second and third franchise, the educational demands change.

“We have a lot of multi centres. Franchise partners want more territories and it’s our job to help them to put in place a strong corporate structure. 

“MBE has well established programs we can draw from with may of their franchise partners successfully running multiple service centres for many years.””

Pack & Send priorities business needs in training

Business priorities are the foundation of the training calendar, Kate points out.

A current focus is boosting franchise partners’ knowledge of, and confidence in, export solutions.

“The biggest focus for us is B2B selling at all levels, and that involves new skills, from customer service to sales advisors.”

Learning and development, and network support, work closely together to ensure franchisees who need extra education can access it.

“We’ve all got the same targets. Learning and development is 100 per cent business focused. Managers help employees to develop, and I’m part of the business helping to improve their business results,” says Kate.

Peer to peer learning and support are also key. For example, our Store Connect solution might see a Sydney-based franchisee organising a Melbourne convention. They can send materials to the closest centre, and the local franchisee handles the last mile delivery.

“The power of that is huge,” says Kate. “There is so much interaction between Pack & Send franchisees helping each other to do business.”