In an age where we are constantly bombarded by adverts asking us to buy, buy, buy, there is a fine balance between overloading your franchise prospects with too much information during the recruitment process and not providing enough. If you bombard them every day with sales messages from the day they enquire with you, you’re likely to put them off pretty quickly or end up in the junk folder!
The recruitment process is based around building trust between you and your prospects until they are ready to make a decision and pick up the phone to you. Your communication with prospects should reflect this. Let prospects know what the benefits of your franchise opportunity are to them rather than telling them what you do and for what price. Your communications should operate in line with your recruitment process to help push prospects further through the process. Structure your communications around your recruitment process and you’re likely to see more franchisees coming through.
A successful recruitment process consists of lead generation, lead management and conversion. Different types of information through different channels are required at each of these stages. Yet, you must ensure that the messages you send out are consistent and provide a clear understanding of your franchise opportunity. This will draw prospects to you naturally.
Researching your target audience before undertaking any franchisee recruitment campaign will greatly increase your chances of attracting more leads. Understanding which media channels your target audience prefer to receive information through and which social activities they engage in will ensure that you allocate your resources as effectively as possible and don’t overload your prospects with too much information.
Lead Generation
Lead generation is the first step in building long-term relationships with your prospects. To achieve successful lead generation, you need to be proactive and present your company as an attractive opportunity. You can’t just sit back and hope they’ll come to you.
Lead Management
Lead management is the process of following up your leads. For prospects, this is the stage where they consider whether your franchise is an interesting opportunity or not.
Some prospects prefer to be in the driver’s seat of procuring more information about your franchise and others might want you to provide the information directly. This will often depend on their sense of urgency so you need to establish the communication channels that permit both. However, prospects are only interested for a short period of time and online-only communication channels are often slow with long response times and little consistency so it is important to bear in mind that prospects will be considering other opportunities.
At this stage, it is important to provide prospects with all the necessary information about what joining your franchise will entail. Successful lead management will lead to higher lead conversion so it is important that you get it right at this stage.
Lead conversion
Lead conversion involves transforming a lead into a franchisee. In order to achieve this, you need to provide information about anticipated timescales and support to effectively outline the course of action. This will ensure that prospects view you as a franchisor that is professional and well organised.
In order to provide the right information at the right time, you not only need to research characteristics of your perfect franchisee but also their behaviour. No prospect is exactly like another but you can identify common themes that will resonate across your target audience. It is important to bear in mind that prospects have different information needs in each stage of the recruitment process. We recommend that you create a bespoke plan outlining which information needs are to be addressed via which channels, as well as when they are to be addressed in your recruitment process.
Think you might be overloading your prospects with information? We can help you perfect your recruitment process and communications. Contact us on info@coconutcreatives.co.uk or call 01725 511 673.
As you may already know, our Founding Director Sarah Carlile, is taking a short step away from Coconut Creatives to have her second baby. From April onwards, Sarah will be putting her feet up and waiting for baby to arrive in early May. However, the Coconuts are sure she won’t be disappearing completely as Sarah has never been known to fully sit back and relax! Paul Clegg will be stepping up as Managing Director and taking the reins at Coconut Creatives.
As the former Franchise Recruitment Manager at Mac Tools, Paul has a great understanding and knowledge of the franchise industry and really knows what makes franchisees and franchisors tick. Having joined the team last summer, Paul has embraced the Coconut Creatives ethos and takes care of the client management and keeping the team motivated and organised!
Paul will be aided in his duties by two more Directors, Adam Knight and Adam Lovelock, as well as the usual Coconut team made up of Rebecca, Helen, Tania, Amy and Rachel who help to take care of the client work and keep the Coconut Creatives cogs turning!
“I’m happy to be leaving the day to day management and running of Coconut Creatives in Paul’s hands. I will be taking a short space of time away from the business but I will still be working away behind the scenes! The Coconuts know that they can call on me anytime. With the business in Paul’s capable hands, our clients both present and future can be assured that there will be no disruption from the Coconut service in my absence. The team are excited about the changes being made and we’re stronger than ever. Every member of our team has something different to bring to Coconut Creatives and Paul will be keeping them all in order and making sure we continue to provide our outstanding service,” explains Sarah.
It’s business as usual at Coconut Creatives and they will be continuing to work hard to make sure that each and every client receives the very best service and continues to recruit those all-important franchisees.
“It’s been an exciting couple of months at Coconut Creatives and I’m really looking forward to managing the team on a daily basis. They’re great to work with and have adapted really well to the change of directorship! They accepted me straight away as part of the team and are always receptive and responsive to new ideas. It’s great to see the way Coconut is evolving whilst still maintaining the core services and values. I hope to keep these as well as bringing my own ideas to the table,” adds Paul Clegg.
The first Coconut Qualified Professional Franchise (QFP) workshops of the year have got off to a roaring success. Our first QFP workshops of the year ‘Speed up Your Network Growth’ and ‘How to Motivate your Franchisees’ provided franchisors, both large and small, with skills and knowledge to take away and implement within their businesses straight away.
“Every time we hold a workshop, it’s great to see so many people in the room who are engaged and taking in the advice that we’re giving. We work hard to make sure the workshops run smoothly and that the content is interesting and valuable to everyone there. There was such great feedback at this workshop from the franchisors who attended and we’re so pleased that our content also helps even more people become qualified in the franchise arena,” explains Paul Clegg, Managing Director at Coconut Creatives.
Since 2010 we’ve had over 200 franchise brands from the franchise industry benefiting from our practical workshop programme to fine tune their franchise recruitment and marketing performance. Our workshops have grown year on year and we’re so proud that they’re now accredited by the bfa. Franchisors take away such valuable information and we provide relevant examples and case studies.
Here’s what a few of our attendees had to say:
“Great day with plenty of hints and tips to take back and start implementing. I loved the guest speaker and it was invaluable to share ideas with sector colleagues,” Karen Atkinson, Cafe2U.
“Fabulous, one of the best and most relevant courses I’ve attended for this stage of our franchise development,” Lisa Curteis, Rosemary Bookkeeping.
“It has been the most inspiring, relevant workshop and I’ve been left with so much that will help me to make improvements – something from every part of the day. The workshop content delivered above and beyond my expectations,” Amanda Wigzell, Little Squigglers.
“I have been wowed into a new world of marketing my business in a clear way and in manageable chunks,” Clare Carrick, Back in Motion.
“This course gave me the tools and the confidence to take my business further and feel ‘I can do this!’,” Rosie Mead, Musica.
Coconut Creatives would like to congratulate Wagging Tails for being shortlisted in the 2016 Franchise Marketing Awards. They were up for Best Franchisee Marketing Support this year and part of their success and growth of the support on offer to their franchisees has included the Coconut Creatives Market Your Franchise Programme.
The Franchise Marketing Awards are one of the biggest accolades in the franchise industry. The awards recognise those franchisors who offer innovative and effective marketing support to their franchisees to help them become as successful as possible.
Wagging Tails have been using Market Your Franchise for just over 12 months and they’ve seen great results for their franchise network. Through using Market Your Franchise, Wagging Tails have helped the turnover across their business network increase by over 75% in the last year.
Market Your Franchise is designed specifically for franchisees, to guide them through marketing their businesses in their local areas through a series of online training modules that can be undertaken at the franchisees own pace. Franchisees have access to a wealth of resources and materials including customisable templates, planning tools, best-practice models and market-leading knowledge.
“Being shortlisted for their award is testament to the hard work and effort that Wagging Tails put in to their franchise network. They’re constantly looking for ways to help support their network and make sure that each and every franchisee is as successful as possible. We were delighted when Wagging Tails decided to sign up to Market Your Franchise and it has proven to be very successful for them,” explains Sarah Carlile, Founding Director of Coconut Creatives.
To help increase turnover in your business network, please contact Helen on helen@coconutcreatives.co.uk or click here to find out more about the Coconut Creatives Market Your Franchise Programme.
The New Year is one of the most important times of year to focus on franchise recruitment. Use this time to take stock of where you are now and where you’d like to be this time next year!
To help you on your way to a super successful 2016, watch our video to see our team’s top tips for the year ahead…
Coconut Creatives were recently guest speakers at the Smith & Henderson 2015 Best Franchise Conference. Our Founding Director, Sarah Carlile, explained all about the 5 ½ marketing mistakes made by franchisors and even had a little guide to give away as a bonus!
We were delighted to be asked to speak at the event and hope that everyone who attended enjoyed finding out more about the mistakes made by franchisors and how you can avoid making the same mistakes!
The Best Franchise Conference is designed to offer advice and guidance to franchisors looking to recruit more quality franchisees and improve network performance. The guest speakers come from all sectors across the franchise industry and each and every one of them has valuable advice to give.
Other guest speakers included:
Dave Williams, RBS
Jo Stone & Tracy Townend, Puddleducks
David Paulson, TaxAssist Accountants
Matt Davies & Rod Levington, Business Doctors
Graeme Payne, Victoria Hobbs & Shelly Nadler, Bird & Bird
Chris Roberts, Franchise Finance
Carl Reader, Social Media Exchange
Martin Jones, Home Instead Care
The key note speaker was Neil Clough, a finalist on The Apprentice in 2013. Since The Apprentice, Neil has gone on to build his own highly successful sales training and recruitment business. Neil gave an inspiring talk and inspired our franchisors to go home and push their networks forwards.
The Best Franchise Awards also took place during the conference. These awards recognise the very best franchisors in the industry based on feedback from thousands of franchisees. Being recognised in these awards helps differentiate franchises from the competition and build trust with prospective franchisees.
Winners included:
Best Franchise (less than 25k investment) – diddi dance
Best Franchise (£25k-£75k investment) – EweMove
Best Franchise (75k plus investment!) – TaxAssist Accountants
Please contact us
to get a free copy of our 5 ½ marketing mistakes guide. We can help you avoid them!
