Smartline Named Australia\'s Top Franchise Again

Written on the 29 November 2009

Smartline Personal Mortgage Advisers has again been named Australia’s top franchise. Topfranchise.com.au ranked Smartline number one in its latest top 10 list released today, following a comprehensive survey of franchisees from some of the best known franchise systems across the country.

Smartline’s ranking comes as it plans to roll out a growth strategy, with a focus on the recruitment of high quality franchisees, for the next 12 months. In addition to taking out the number one spot overall, Smartline was ranked number one in three of the five specific categories:

1. Support – the levels of support offered by the franchisor to the franchisees – Smartline ranked number one

2. Rewards – the financial and social rewards franchisees feel they receive from being part of the franchise – Smartline ranked number one

3. Refer – willingness to recommend a franchise to friends and colleagues – Smartline ranked number one

4. Passion – how passionate franchisees are about their customers, brand, product or service they offer – Smartline ranked number four

5. Lifestyle – whether franchisees are satisfied with the lifestyle their franchise affords them – Smartline ranked number three

Head of Intelligence at 10 THOUSAND FEET and topfranchise.com.au Ian Krawitz said key to Smartline’s achievement was their outstanding performance in placing number one in the areas of franchisee support, and financial and social rewards their franchisees receive.

“One of the elements that contributed to their ability to provide high quality support is the mentoring of their franchisees,” Mr Krawitz said. “Smartline outperformed the industry average in the area of mentoring by 24%. Exploring a bit deeper with Smartline’s management we found that a key contributor to their success in mentoring was that their field support staff undertook dedicated training programs to specifically enhance their coaching skills.

” Smartline Managing Director, Chris Acret, said Smartline’s focus had always been on helping its franchisees to build solid businesses. “We’ve always known that we wouldn’t be successful as a group unless our franchisees were successful – I think that’s a philosophy that has differentiated us from many others in the industry,” he said.

“We are a franchise group but I think we’ve broken the mould somewhat of the traditional franchise model which can appear as a bit restrictive to some people. “Our model gives our franchisees the best of all worlds. We have invested huge sums of money over the years in putting infrastructure in place – in consultation with our franchisees – which has allowed us to highly systemise the business. This provides considerable time savings for the franchisees and makes the business much more efficient, which allows them to focus on building relationships and servicing their clients.”

More than 170 franchise systems were given the opportunity for their franchisees to take part in the survey across Australia by research company 10 THOUSAND FEET. Each franchisee was asked to rank their business with a comparison of more than 35 questions about their franchise system.

Franchise systems in a range of industries were included in the survey. Smartline has more than 200 franchise owners throughout Australia, has assisted over 100,000 clients and has a loan portfolio exceeding $10 billion.

Mr Acret said the group was looking to grow its franchise numbers in 2010, with the goal of having a total of 300 high-quality franchisees within the next few years. “The most important role of management in a franchise group is to provide whatever support the franchisees need. We’ve worked very hard to create our team culture and have always promoted the importance of family and balance,” he said.

“Our franchisees control their own destiny but they never have to go it alone. They know they have people around them to support them, share ideas and who genuinely want them to succeed. “We believe this philosophy will be attractive to many looking at joining our group.”