The Hiring Mistakes Most New Franchise Owners Make — and How to Avoid Every One of Them

Most people preparing to hire their first employee focus on the job description. The wage. The interview questions.

Very few think about the habits, systems, and leadership approach that will actually determine whether that person — and every person after them — performs.

These are the five lessons that only come from getting it wrong first. And what to do differently when you’re building your Little Boomers Basketball franchise coaching team.

It’s based on a recent Courtside Conversations episode by Little Boomers Basketball founder, Emile Koorey.

Watch the Full Episode:

What Most New Franchise Owners Focus On

They write a great job ad.

They offer a competitive wage.

They do a solid interview.

That’s a reasonable start. But it skips the factors that often matter more — the systems, standards, and leadership habits that quietly determine whether a coaching team performs, or slowly falls apart.

Here are the five lessons every franchise owner needs to get right.

Lesson One: Every Employee Has an Expiry Date

No employee stays forever.

Some stay six months. Some stay six years. But they all eventually move on.

The business owners who get blindsided are the ones who built everything around one standout person. When that person walks, they often take their clients — and your revenue — with them.

Consider the classic salon example. One hairdresser becomes the reason clients keep coming back. She leaves to start her own business. Every client follows.

If your business relies on superstar talent, you’re one resignation away from a serious problem.

What works: build systems your team can follow — not just a team that can follow you. When someone leaves, a new person steps in, follows the process, and the quality stays consistent.

That’s exactly how the Little Boomers Basketball program is designed. The system is the product. Coaches deliver it — and the experience stays strong regardless of who’s on the court.

Lesson Two: Don’t Fall for the Gift of the Gab

Interviews are performances.

Candidates prepare. They talk up their track record. They sell themselves. And sometimes, they’re genuinely great.

But sometimes, it’s all talk.

Research shows that interview performance is a poor predictor of on-the-job performance. Yet most hiring decisions are made almost entirely on it.

What works: once someone is inside your business, they have a real track record. Use that.

If they’re not responding to your team, missing deadlines, or ignoring key relationships — that’s the data. It tells you far more than a polished 45-minute conversation ever will.

Hire carefully. But manage on evidence, not impressions.

Lesson Three: Define What Success Looks Like — Before Day One

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

Think about a basketball scoreboard. You look up and know instantly whether you’re winning or losing. There’s no ambiguity. No guesswork. Just data.

Every person in your team needs the same clarity.

What does a good week look like for them? What numbers do they own? Are they winning right now — or not?

Without a scorecard, performance becomes a gut-feel conversation. And gut feel introduces bias, conflict, and missed problems every time.

What works: give every team member 3 to 5 key metrics they own from their first week. Within five minutes, you should be able to see whether they’re performing.

If you want a framework for this, the book Traction by Gino Wickman has a full chapter on how to build one.

Set up the scorecard before you hire. Not after something goes wrong.

Lesson Four: Your Job Is to Coach — Not to Be Their Best Friend

Building a strong team and being friends with your team are not the same thing.

New franchise owners often want to be liked. They get close to their coaches, form friendships, and invest personally in those relationships.

Then it comes time for a tough conversation.

They can’t have it.

The friendship makes it almost impossible to hold the standard — and the business pays for it.

High performers notice when low performers are let slide. When that happens, your best people start looking elsewhere. You lose the team you most need to keep.

What works: run three simple plays.

Praise people when they’re meeting or exceeding the standard. Reinforce the standard consistently — keep talking about it. Correct people when they fall below it.

That’s the whole job. No drama. No performance management spirals. Just clear, consistent leadership applied every week.

Lesson Five: Your Team Will Rise to the Standards You Set

Low standards produce low performance.

It’s not complicated. And it’s not the team’s fault.

If the bar is vague, inconsistently held, or never talked about, people settle at whatever level feels acceptable. That level is almost always lower than what you want.

What works: define what excellence looks like in the role. Write it down. Embed it into your onboarding so every new coach understands the standard from day one.

Then do three things, every week: reinforce the standard, praise people who are meeting it, and correct people who aren’t.

Having those correction conversations is part of the job. The franchise owners who build the best teams are the ones who learn to have them early, clearly, and without waiting until things are already broken.

For more on this, 5 Hard Lessons About Scaling a Franchise (From 16 to 3,000 Enrolments) and Why Most New Franchises Fail (And How to Avoid It) are both worth a read before you book a call.

Little Boomers Basketball covers topics like this every week on the YouTube channel — because building a high-performing team is one of the most important things a franchise owner learns to do.

What This Means If You’re Considering a Little Boomers Basketball Franchise

A franchise gives you a system.

Little Boomers Basketball has spent years refining one across 23+ locations — with an average of 154 enrolled members per territory and grand openings regularly hitting 48 to 80 enrolments in a single day.

But no system compensates for a franchise owner who doesn’t know how to lead a team.

The good news? You don’t need to have managed people before. Most franchisees hadn’t. The hiring frameworks, scorecards, and onboarding tools are already built. The leadership approach is taught from day one.

You’re not figuring this out alone.

Common Mistakes People Make

• Assuming a great interview means a great employee
• Building the whole operation around one standout staff member
• Managing by gut feel instead of tracking clear metrics
• Trying to be friends with the team instead of coaching them
• Not defining what success looks like before someone’s first day
• Avoiding tough conversations until the relationship is already damaged
• Waiting until someone underperforms to figure out what good looks like
• Letting low performers slide because the conversation feels uncomfortable

Key Takeaways

• Every employee has an expiry date — build systems, not a reliance on superstars
• Track record inside your business beats interview performance every time
• Give every team member a scorecard with 3 to 5 metrics they own
• Your job as an owner is to coach — not to be liked
• High performers leave when low performers are let slide
• Write down your standards before the first hire — not after something goes wrong
• Small, consistent leadership habits beat dramatic performance management every time
• Build these foundations before launch — not when you’re already stretched

FAQ: Common Questions People Ask

Do I need experience managing people before I buy a franchise?

No. Most Little Boomers Basketball franchisees had never managed a team before they joined.

Hiring resources, onboarding tools, and team management frameworks are all part of what you get. You’re trained on how to lead a coaching team — it’s built into the process.

What if I find the people side of business hard?

Most new franchise owners do at first. What helps is having a clear structure — scorecards, defined standards, and a simple coaching approach — rather than relying on feel.

That’s what the franchise system provides. You learn it as you go, with support.

How much support does Little Boomers Basketball give around hiring and team management?

Franchisees get direct support from head office, including hiring guides, onboarding frameworks, and ongoing coaching on team leadership.

The goal is to have everything in place before your first hire — not after something goes wrong.

Can this work if my partner and I have never run a business or managed staff?

Yes. That’s the most common profile across the network. Couples with professional careers, no prior business ownership, and no experience managing people.

They learn the systems, apply them, and build a team that performs. The franchise is designed for exactly this starting point.

What if I’m worried about having tough conversations with staff?

That concern is worth taking seriously — because those conversations are part of the job. The franchise provides a framework for having them clearly and early.

The owners who build the best teams are usually the ones who learned to do this well in their first year.

Keen to Learn More?

If you want to understand how a Little Boomers Basketball franchise is structured — the business model, the time commitment, and what the first year realistically looks like — the franchise overview page is a good place to start.

There’s also a full library of honest, practical content on the YouTube channel — covering everything from financial performance to what to look for in a franchisor before you commit to anything.

If this resonated — if you found yourself thinking about your own approach to leadership, your readiness to manage people, or what kind of business owner you want to be — that’s worth paying attention to.

The people who do best in this network are usually the ones who come into the Discovery Call already thinking carefully about these things.

The call is free, there’s no pressure, and it’s just a conversation to find out if this fits your life.