Latest News from Franchising

Symptoms vs Problems

Wed, 12 May 2010 17:22:19 EDT

Quite often we speak with franchising executives about the challenges they’re facing. During these conversations, one subject that is commonly broached is the challenge surrounding franchise sales/development. Many times what the organization’s leadership is explaining to us are symptoms of a problem, but they’re looking for a solution that only treats this symptom. The [...]

Are Emotionally Engaged Buyers Really What You Want?

Thu, 13 May 2010 13:10:00 EDT

Is creating an emotional bond or emotional engagement really what you’re after when working with prospective candidates who are interested in your franchise? If your job function is in franchise sales you’ll probably say “Yes”. If you’re a CEO you're likely thinking “No?”. The nature of the franchisor-franchisee relationship is complex and must begin with a proper alignment of expectations if you want to achieve long-term viability.

Designing a Process for Awarding Franchises – Part 2: Management

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 20:11:00 EDT

In my previous post, titled “Designing a Process for Awarding Franchises – Part 1: Leadership”, I looked at the notion of how designing a process of awarding franchises has to start with prioritizing around the characteristics that your franchisees should have. Without fist hashing out this issue, it will be largely unproductive to tactically begin putting together a process that can be managed. For example, creating a system for “selling” franchises to individuals with no prior business ownership nor franchising experience is much different than creating a system of segmenting, targeting, and positioning your franchise to individuals and/or organizations who fit certain characteristics that you have pre-defined. Both of these philosophies will have different implications as to how you design your sales organization, generate leads, create opportunity staging, and develop appropriate metrics. Before you expend a lot of time, energy, and financial resources on becoming efficient make sure you are aligned for long-term success.

How-To: Create Leads from Twitter Conversations

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 14:34:00 EDT

Many franchisors utilize Twitter to communicate their products and services to would-be customers. But how do you know if your social media efforts are paying off? Can you pull up a real-time report to see just how many new leads you’ve created over the past week? If you find an interesting conversation taking place about [...]

Fundamentals: Franchise Lead Generation with Google Adwords

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:28:45 EST

As a follow up to yesterday’s post about effectively managing lead-flow, I’ve posted another video showing what I’ve found to be very useful and effective tools for lead generation. You might want to consider incorporating Google Adwords campaigns into your repertoire for franchise lead generation. The ability to target micro-channels and create highly [...]

Designing a Process for Awarding Franchises – Part 1: Leadership

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:23:34 EST

Designing a process for effectively awarding franchises can be challenging. There is both a management and a leadership component to doing it. You may recall the image that Stephen Covey paints in “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” whereby a group of Workers are fighting their way through the jungle, wielding machetes [...]

What is a 360-degree view, anyway?

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:33:07 EST

Like most companies in most industries, franchisors have plenty of moving parts and pieces in their business. For instance, there are potential franchise candidates to evaluate, real estate to analyze, franchisees to train, and franchisees to support; not to mention all of the franchise contracts, leases, and disclosure requirements to keep tabs on. Many franchisors tout " proven systems" as a main selling point or advantage to becoming a franchisee, however a quick look under the hood would reveal that many franchisors don't have their own internal processes sorted out.

The Five Most Important Aspects of IT for Franchisors

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:57:00 EST

Information Technology within franchise systems would appear to be a scarcity, judging by the lack of conversation on the topic. In this post, I've laid out 5 of the most important aspects that franchisors will require from their technology vendors.

Fundamentals: Are You Effectively Managing Lead-Flow?

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:11:37 EST

In the spirit of posting helpful information that has real-world applicability, I’ve put together a short video demo of effectively managing lead flow. This clip deals with managing incoming or reactive lead flow, as opposed to proactive lead generation. Sophisticated franchise companies will have multiple lead generation campaigns in place, at all times, and in various [...]