Setting the right objectives is the first step to creating a successful franchise recruitment marketing strategy, says Paul Clegg, Director at Coconut Creatives.
The first step when devising a marketing strategy is to identify your objectives. These need to pinpoint where the business is now, what you would like to achieve and within what time frame. Be clear and direct in your aims about what you’d like to achieve for the year ahead.
I recommend using SMART objectives as part of your marketing strategy, these are specific, measurable, realistic and timely giving you specific goals which have a much greater chance of being completed or achieved than more general goals. It is important to consider the following six questions when setting your objectives.
Who is involved?
What do I want to accomplish?
Where – identify a location
When – establish a time frame
Why – specific reasons or purpose for a particular goal
By answering each of these questions, you make sure that your objectives are more specific and anyone who reads them will know exactly what it is that you are trying to achieve. Your objectives for recruitment determine everything. They determine how much money you should be spending, what routes to market you have available to you and how many leads you need to meet those objectives.
‘I want to increase the number of franchisees in my network’ is an example of a non-smart objective. It doesn’t state how many franchisees you are aiming to recruit, a time frame or a benchmark. An example of a SMART objective would be ‘I want to increase the number of franchisees from 25 to 35 in the next 12 months’ because it states where the business is now and in what time frame you want to achieve the goal. This objective is clear and will ensure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to your franchise recruitment marketing plan.
Identifying whether or not you can achieve this goal is just as important as setting it. According to the latest NatWest/bfa survey, the average ratio from prospect enquiry to fully operational franchisee is one in approx 86 for larger systems (20+ franchisees) and one in 77 for smaller franchises (<20 franchisees). Looking at larger systems, that’s one new franchisee for every 86 leads that you generate. This can help you to look at your objectives and work backwards from there.
The SMART objective provided above aims to recruit 10 new franchisees over the course of 12 months so that means you would need to generate a minimum of 860 leads (if using NatWest/bfa survey stats) in order to achieve this objective. Whether this is achievable or not depends on your resources and budget.
Look for Part 2 on how to turn your objectives into an integrated marketing plan
Want to know more about franchise recruitment in 2020? Contact us today to book a strategy meeting so that we can talk through your goals and help you achieve them!
Buying a franchise is an intense decision-making process so it is important that as a franchisor you understand this process to help you convert as many leads as possible says Sarah Carlile, Founder of Coconut Creatives.
It takes an individual, on average, around three to six months to decide whether or not to buy a particular franchise. The decision-making process is long and is not based on prospects having read just one magazine article, attended one exhibition or visited your website for a quick browse.
Prospective franchisees embark on a journey that will probably involve a combination of all those things and more so it is important to understand their journey so that you can provide the right communication at the right time. This way, you can ensure that you stay ahead of the competition by successfully converting some of your leads into franchisees.
What is involved in the decision-making process?
It is often useful to regard your prospects as consumers who are looking to buy a product, in this case they are looking to buy your franchise. Doing this will make it easier to analyse your prospects’ decision-making process.
According to the Business Directory, the consumer decision-making process can be defined as the process by which consumers:
Identify their needs
Collect information
Evaluate alternatives
Make the purchase decision.
Each of these sections of the process will be different depending on your target audience. The decision-making process can be influenced by psychological, economic and environmental factors, such as culture, group and social values as well as how the individual feels at the time. To understand the factors affecting your target audience, I recommend that you research your existing franchisees and their decision-making processes, allowing you to find out which communications affected their decisions.
A franchise is at the high-involvement end of the consumer decision-making process because a large amount of money is being invested and the individual commits to a minimum five year relationship with the franchisor so it is important to them to make sure they’re making the right decision. Investing in a franchise involves taking a leap of faith and trusting that what they have seen and what they have been told by the franchisor will actually work for them.
In many cases it is not just the decision of the individual but it also involves the opinions of their support network which usually consists of their close friends and family.
There is a lot for your potential franchisee to consider and so the stage they are at in the process when you receive their initial enquiry will determine how long they take to make a decision to join your network, what type of questions they ask you and, indeed if, they decide to rule you out and move on. Throughout this process the individual will be seeking counsel with their family and friends and taking on board other people’s opinions. Buying a franchise is a more emotional decision than taking a job as an employee as the individual is investing a large amount of money. They need to trust you to help them build their business, so building rapport from day one is vital in helping them towards making their final decision. It is also important to set the ground rules of operating your franchise at the outset, so that you and your franchisees know what is expected of the other in order to achieve success.
Want to out more about understanding the journey of prospective franchisees? Contact us, we’re happy to share our expertise!
Many franchisors jump in and allocate their franchise recruitment budget without taking the time to really understand their ideal franchisee profile, causing long-term problems.
Whether you have a brand new franchise opportunity or a 100-strong network, taking the time out of your everyday workload to research and compile an accurate profile of what your perfect franchisees are like and how they behave during the recruitment process is an invaluable exercise.
This will save you many problems in the future, as it will not only give you an insight into where your budget will be best allocated to generate franchise prospects for the best return on investment but also ensures that you attract the right messages and, therefore, successfully grow your network.
Build at least 3 perfect profiles for your franchise brand
There is never one perfect franchisee profile for each franchise brand so whilst a franchisor might think they know what they are looking for in a franchisee, these are likely to be general ideas rather than built on strong research and proof.
If you already have a network of franchisees, I recommend selecting your top 10 performing franchisees and undertake some research to find out a bit more about them; their skills, age, expectations, background, personal interests, media consumption and their journey to purchasing your franchise.
If you don’t have any franchisees yet or if you think you don’t have enough to obtain an educated set of results, you can extend your research to some of your hottest prospects who have been through a substantial amount of your recruitment process.
Based on your findings, you will be able to create at least three profiles of your perfect franchisees. These profiles do not have to be set in stone and some elements from profile three could be merged with elements of profile two (and so on) but getting them down on paper will give your franchise recruitment marketing strategy a focus.
What to do when you know who you are looking for
The profiles you create can help you with finding places to advertise and with what messages, to make your franchise attractive to people you already know could have great success with your company and who share traits or interests with your top performing franchisees.
If you uncover some similar traits then act on them within your recruitment process. Here are a few examples:
Tailor your Discovery Days– if you have lots of franchisees who play golf then host a discovery day at a golf club in a region you wish to recruit. If your franchisees have to have great networking skills and need confidence in presenting your product or service, design specific tasks during the day to discover whether or not they possess these skills.
Integrate case studies– prepare a bank of case studies of current franchisees so you have at least one that each of your perfect prospective franchisees can relate to.
The time you take in getting the basics right will pay dividends. Taking a couple of days to assess your perfect franchisee profiles every six months will end up saving you and your franchise recruitment team several hours each week in dealing with unsuitable candidates.
If you want to find out more about finding your ideal franchisees, contact us.
This month, Sarah Carlile, Founding Director of Coconut Creatives, highlights a few tips for finding your ideal franchisees to grow your network.
A basic understanding of franchising
Firstly, your prospective franchisees should have some knowledge of the franchise industry already otherwise you are wasting valuable time explaining the ins and outs of a franchised business to ‘wannabe’ business owners rather than explaining the benefits of your specific franchise offering.
Identifying prospects who are well informed is the first step in determining whether or not it is worth spending valuable time and resources pursuing them.
I find there are two ways to ensure that you almost always attract a well-informed prospect:
Concentrate your franchise advertising towards on/offline channels which are targeted specifically at franchise searchers
Ensure that your advertising messages in other media channels clearly explain what a franchise is.
Driving Force
Once you have determined the level of knowledge that your prospects have about the franchise industry, it is important to identify the driving force behind their decision to buy a franchise. There are many reasons why someone may want to buy a franchise but I have found that there tends to be one overriding reason; they are dissatisfied with their current situation. All prospective franchisees are looking for some kind of fulfilment, whether it’s a change in career, daily routine, family life, relocation or simply the desire to be their own boss and run their own business.
Make sure that one of your key qualifying questions in the first conversation you have with your prospects reveals the reason they want to be part of your franchise network. Once franchisors find out they are dealing with someone who is dissatisfied, their approach towards them changes, along with their chances of converting them.
What can you offer?
I have seen many examples of good and bad franchise information packs or prospectuses but the general rule is to keep it short and simple. Ideally you want a prospect to be led from one trust-building contact to another, so try not to provide every intimate detail about your franchise in the post, over one telephone call or via email. To truly convince a prospect to part with their hard-earned capital, you need them to want more information and you want them to experience it first-hand. A face-to-face meeting at your pilot franchise is the best way to achieve this.
Do YOU want them?
Meeting face-to-face with a prospect is also a good chance for you to identify whether or not the prospects you meet are people you want on your franchise team. While it may seem a struggle to get the first few franchisees signed up, valuable lessons can be learnt from those franchisors who no longer pursue every single lead and instead take the time to evaluate whether or not a particular individual is suited to their franchise. These franchisors operate a selection process and only chase up those prospects who they feel really fits the bill. Be in control of your franchise recruitment process and you will grow a successful franchise network.
If you want to find out more about how you can attract profitable franchisees, contact us.
Discovery days can really increase your lead conversion rates because they allow prospective franchisees to get a flavour of your business before they commit and give you a great opportunity to meet a group of serious prospects face-to-face, explains Helen Thresh, Client Account Manager at Coconut Creatives.
Organising a discovery day
You should always make sure that your discovery days are well planned and organised with no more than 10 serious franchise prospects attending. Here are four questions (and the answers!) we get asked by many franchisors in relation to discovery day organisation:
Who should be involved?
Get key people from your business and recruitment team involved. Prospective franchisees want to put names to faces and it will also make your team appear more approachable, which can be a key factor in the decision-making process and franchisees often buy into the support of a proven business concept. It is a good idea to get successful franchisees involved, giving you the opportunity to create a template franchise which you could showcase as part of your discovery day.
Should I have a dedicated space for the discovery day available?
If you don’t have a suitable conference or meeting room with adequate refreshment facilities available then it might be worthwhile booking a hotel or meeting room nearby. Ideally this should be within a short walk of your head office or the template franchise that you plan to show later on.
What time should I start the discovery day?
It is advisable to start your discovery day in the late morning/early afternoon to give people time to get to you. Starting your discovery day in the afternoon means that it needs to be well structured to ensure everybody gets the most out of the day. It is also important to be mindful that some people may have travelled quite a distance to get to you so make sure that you don’t finish too late.
Should I have my discovery day at the weekend or during the week?
Although having your discovery day on a weekday can be inconvenient because most people attending will need to book a day off work, this shows their level of interest in the franchise and will help you separate the wheat from the chaff. Holding your discovery day on a weekday also allows you to showcase your office or the template franchise during actual working hours, which increases the credibility by highlighting that your business works.
Marketing your discovery days
Make sure you market your discovery day through as many channels as you can so that you get the most out of it. By advertising your discovery day, you are also giving prospects an additional reason to get in contact with you. Make sure you advertise a few months in advance to give prospects time to book.
During the day
Organise a “behind the scenes” tour, allow your prospects to speak to members of staff and look around within a supervised group. Encourage them to ask questions so they can find out as much as possible about your business, helping them to make the right franchise choice. Some franchisors insist on attendees signing a confidentiality agreement on arrival. This depends on your business model but it is something you might wish to consider. You should also have the franchise agreement ready and printed in case a prospect would like to have a look at it.
Post discovery day
Follow up on the individuals who have attended and select those you think would make good franchisees to progress to the next stage in your recruitment process. At the end of the day it’s not only about the prospects liking you but also about you liking the prospects. You can also utilise your successful discovery day within your press releases and on your website.
For further advice on how to organise successful Discovery Days, please contact us, we’d love to help you! Or join us on our ‘How to build an effective discovery day programme’ workshop! Click here to see when the next one is coming up on our events calendar.
In the world of marketing, we’re constantly told that content is King. Although content is extremely important, context is essential when it comes to social media. Adam Knight, Head of Technology & Systems at Coconut Creatives explains more about the effective use of social media for marketing your business. Watch our video here.
Want to know more about the use of social media for your business? Our next workshop ‘Practical Social Media Skills’ on 4th November. On the day, you will learn about social media tools you can learn to use, hone and brand up. Book your place on our workshop here.
