Is Your Franchise Coach Selling or Educating?

This is a transcript from Episode 46 of The Franchise Champion Show.

Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

Alan: One of the first questions I get from almost every person I talk to is: how do you get paid? And it's the right question to ask. I'm going to answer it honestly and completely, including the part most coaches in this industry won't tell you.

You'll hear different terms for this: franchise broker, franchise consultant, franchise coach. They all mean the same thing. I call myself a coach deliberately, because the way I work is less about brokering a transaction and more about educating and guiding a person through a decision. But if you've been searching around, those terms are all pointing toward the same thing.

How Coaches Actually Get Paid

If someone moves forward and buys a franchise, the franchisor pays a referral fee to the coach. The client pays nothing. The franchisor doesn't mark up their fee because a coach is involved, so the cost of buying a franchise is the same either way.

It's similar to buying real estate. When you buy a house with a buyer's agent, the buyer doesn't pay the agent, the seller pays the commission if the deal closes. Essentially, you're getting a free service at the expense of the franchisor, so there's no financial risk to engaging with a coach.

Why Referral Fees Aren't Equal

Here's where things get interesting. Franchise owners don't pay the same referral fee across the board. Some pay more, some pay less, and some run incentives and bonuses to push coaches toward promoting a particular brand. And that's totally natural for a franchisor to do, it makes perfect business sense for them, and it's not inherently wrong. The problem is what it does to certain brokers.

If someone is primarily motivated by commission, they're going to show the options that pay them the most, not the options that fit the candidate best. And those two things might overlap sometimes, but they also might not, and the candidate has no way of knowing which situation they're in.

Why I Delete Those Offers

I get those emails and texts too: incentive offers, bonus structures, promote this brand this quarter. But I delete them. Not because I'm a saint, but because recommending something that isn't a fit is just not something I'm wired to do. Fit is the only thing that should matter when you're choosing what to show someone.

Some people are putting their life savings on the line. You have to do what's right for them. Luckily, I don't need this to work out financially. I built my franchise over fourteen years and had a great exit. I chose franchise coaching as my retirement gig because I genuinely want to help people find the same kind of success. I don't pay attention to commissions until after my client moves forward, which is the right thing to do.

If you want to have this conversation with someone who's going to be straight with you about how this all works, that's exactly what my intro call is for. No pitch, no pressure. Just book a call at athletetoowner.com/ready.

Well, why don't I just work for free? I guess I could, but I do value my time. And I do work for free for my clients, it's just that the franchisors happen to pay me if there's a fit. Seems like the perfect job for me.

How Do You Know You're Working With a Good Coach?

So how do you know if you're working with a good coach? Unfortunately, you can't just ask them and expect an honest answer from everyone. It's more about trying to read the signals.

Have they owned a franchise and been successful in it? If not, how did they get into this? Someone who comes into coaching as a job and genuinely needs the income from it is structurally more susceptible to commission pressure. It's not a character judgment, it's just how incentives work.

Educating vs. Selling

When they show you brands, are they educating you or selling you? There's a real difference in how that feels. Education sounds like: here's what this model looks like day to day, here's where people typically struggle, here's what I've seen work. Selling sounds like minimizing your concerns, redirecting when you push back, and always circling back to enthusiasm for the brand. Are they telling you it's easy? Do they make it sound like a semi-absentee business won't take much time?

When you ask a hard question about a brand, does the answer actually address your question? Or does it feel like the response is designed to move you past the concern rather than through it? That's a close one to pay attention to. A coach working for you sits with you in your concern, and a coach working for the brand dissolves it as fast as possible.

Final Thoughts

The goal isn't to be paranoid, and it isn't to assume that every coach has bad intentions. There are lots of good coaches out there, and most people are doing the best they can from their current level of awareness and their current financial situation. But going in with eyes open, knowing the model, knowing the incentives that exist, knowing what signals to watch out for, that's how you make sure you end up working with someone whose motivation actually aligns with yours.

The best coaches want you to ask these questions. If you bring this up with a coach and they get defensive or dismissive, that's information. A coach who's confident in how they operate will walk you through it the same way I just did.

If you want to have this conversation with me directly, I'm happy to walk you through exactly how I work, what brands I show and why, and whether this is even the right path for you. There's no pitch, no obligation. You can book a call at athletetoowner.com/ready, and if you want to do some reading first, the Franchise Fit Playbook at athletetoowner.com/playbook is a good place to start.

I'm helping you become a Franchise Champion. See you next time.