The key to effective franchising centres around a common message and driving that message home, said Doug Bugie, chief executive of Antal International Network and iWorklife, addressing delegates at Recruiter's second Annual Forum.

The American, who has 22 years experience in franchising, having worked in 25 countries and founded Humana now known as MRI Worldwide, treated delegates to a deconstruction of just what a great franchise should look like.

For Bugie everyone needs to be pulling in the same direction. It's not just a question of good induction, but good delivery and the ability to track all operations and question them.

Bugie went on to extoll the virtues of an effective unique selling point (USP). It is imperative that everyone knows it, but more than this, the Antal CEO maintains that all franchisees should share their knowledge and should be encouraged to work together.

In addressing the franchisee's concerns, Bugie claims that they want to know your vision, history and how it's executed and when is the right time to get out when they've done well.

The former chief executive of Norman Broadbent also remarked that demographically franchisees were ordinary people who were often new to the recruitment industry and came from all walks of life. These were the people that, for Bugie, really enliven the industry. In his experience, he commented that franchisees were not all that different from country to country so long as you tap into the will to succeed.

Bugie challenged delegates with the question: "How can you get ordinary people to do extraordinary things? For the members of this audience — extraordinary people to actually live up to their potential and do incredible things. That's what franchising is all about."

He added: "You have your own USP, you need to bottle it, make sure everyone's talking about it whether they be in the UK or wherever they may be."