PROFILE OF AN ACTION HERO

You are an Action Hero if…

You are an outgoing, hard charging, risk-taking, task-oriented, efficient, disciplined, organized, results oriented and “take charge” character. You make quick, emotional, instinctual, or gut-based decisions rather than information-based or logic-based decisions. Attaining goals, assuming control, achieving results, accepting personal challenge, and creating efficiency drives them. You speak pointedly and directly, telling it like it is. You possess strong opinions and are often closed to any new facts and information that may contradict their formed opinions. Because Action Heroes do not need or seek much information to make their quick decisions, you have difficulty listening to details, preferring instead to listen to headlines, highlights or the bottom line. Therefore, Action Heroes are often perceived as poor listeners. Since you are such a strong personality, you can easily bowl over weaker personality types, creating conflict in the process. Since you may fear being taken advantage of, thus you may often question the personal motives, integrity and loyalty of others, creating issues around trust.

Your value in business:

• You are results-oriented and goal focused. You seldom lose sight of your goals or the big picture. You know what they are looking to accomplish and generally are keyed into how to get there. You seldom deviate from your stated objectives. You get others around you focused and organized also.
• You are strategic and tactical. You know to chunk problems and situations down to their simplest forms and create a plan of attack quickly. You effortlessly know how to simplify everything.
• You are visionary. You can see past the minutia of the day to day operations of a business and hold on to your original vision. You are excellent at stating your vision to others in simple terms so they get it also You always seem to have one eye on what is occurring and another eye on the bottom line. Others will follow you because of your commanding presence and clear and simple ideas of what is required to win.
• You are an efficiency expert. You know how to trim the fat and cut the waste. You are always identifying and pushing for the quickest, easiest, simplest, and most efficient way to produce results. You will quickly identify and spend time executing the activities which drive results. They know which buttons need to be pushed and when and can be counted on to push those buttons.
• You are responsible, self-directed, and self-managed. You do what they say you are going to do. As long as you know what the results need to look like at the end of the day, you have an uncanny ability to make things happen. Against all odds, you seem to invent ways to produce results and win.
• You are a natural-born leader. You have a forceful personality and occur to others as an authority figure. People naturally follow your lead.
• You get involved. You see it as their duty to look beyond what is occurring in your little franchise and contribute on a regional or national level. You desire to be heard and your opinions are generally worth listening to.
• You have strong operational focus. You know how to implement processes and systems which produce results.
• You possess excellent multi-tasking ability. You know how to juggle people and tasks without dropping any balls. You have a natural ability to keep multiple ideas front of mind without having to write things down.
• You create win-win solutions. You are very skilled at identifying what winning looks like for yourself and others and will work to create solutions where everyone gets what they want.
• You have great problem-solving ability. They don’t shrink from, avoid, or deny conflicts and challenges. You attack head on without reservation. You will be the first to identify where potential breakdowns are occurring or may occur in the future and are often ready with a solution.
• You are action-oriented and quick to implement. Once you decide what to do, you don’t let any grass grow under their feet. You are in perpetual motion. You get more done than most people in less time.
• You aren’t afraid to take risks. As such, yours is the most entrepreneurial behavior style. You aren’t afraid to spend time or money when necessary to create long-term gain.
• Strong decision maker. You move quickly and decisively and are not prone to second guess yourself or waffle in the face of making important decisions. Once you decide, it is full steam ahead.
• You have a common sense approach to business. You can easily frame any given situation and quickly formulate a plan of attack. You are brilliant at looking past symptoms and getting to the heart or source of the matter.
• You put forth a heroic effort and play to win. You expect and demand the same of others. No one working with you is allowed a free pass.

What will kill you if you aren’t careful!

• You have a tendency to resist external controls. You may not value being held accountable to follow a system. You resist following certain operational procedures if you deem them inefficient or cumbersome. You will be tempted to deviate from a franchise system, increasing your risk and decreasing the franchisor’s ability to offer you meaningful support. You don’t always respect boundaries.
• You form strong opinions and resist checking out perceptions against the facts. You may make poor decisions because of lack of information. You aren’t always open to receive information that is contrary to what you believe. Because you like to rally others to your point of view, you can be labeled by franchisor and other franchisees as a “rebel” or “trouble maker” and lose credibility with the franchisor. Because you stop listening once your mind is made up, it can be difficult for a franchisor to train and support you and point out problem areas in your business.
• You seek control of a situation or interaction. You struggle in following other leaders. You may butt heads with franchisor leadership and alienate yourself from the franchisor and other franchisees.
• You attempt to gain the upper hand in negotiations. You may be perceived as selfish and not a team player which would get in the way of others wanting to help you.
• You tell others what is on your mind without thought on how it might land on others. You can damage key franchisee-franchisor relationships if others aren’t comfortable with your directness or bluntness.
• You have a tendency to challenge, confront, and make others wrong, which again can diminish your franchisor’s ability to provide you with leadership.
• You possess a tendency to change systems, processes, and procedures you did not create or which you do not agree with. You run the risk of changing the franchise system before you ever learn the system, which could create costly mistakes and extend your learning curve. 
• You are a notoriously poor listener. This can get in the way of your training and development and create personality conflicts with a franchise support staff. 
• You are a strong leader and have a tendency to bowl over weaker personalities. Many franchise support and training professionals possess those weaker personalities, damaging key relationships. 
• Since you are more about achieving great results than building powerful relationships, you will at times risk damaging key relationships to get what you want. 
• You have a tendency to dominate and micro-manage others which may create employee turnover, halting forward momentum. 
• You have a tendency to delegate without effectively training others, setting employees up to fail. 
• You have a temper. Employees with weaker personality types may hide mistakes and information which indicate problems to avoid setting you off. You are so intolerant of mistakes, you may not give your employees the safe space necessary to make mistakes and learn their roles. 
• You like to be in control and make decisions with little feedback. You may not effectively harness the collective genius of your employees. 
• You take a “Ready-fire-aim” approach to business. You may impulsively act without thinking about all the ramifications of your actions. 
• You are a natural risk-taker which will help you. You may take foolish chances, which can hurt you. 
• You are impatient and want things now. You sometimes will force a result rather than let it naturally happen. You err on the side of aggressiveness. 
• You forget to give others positive affirmation for a job well done. You have a tendency to communicate to your employees only when you spot a problem, giving some the experience of being unappreciated, which will create turnover.