Nov 24, 2015 | Blogs, News
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.
Nov 20, 2015 | Coconut in the Media, Coconut News, News
Here at Coconut Creatives, we’re well versed in hosting and attending franchise events. That’s why we’re helping the BBIC (Barnsley Business and Innovation Centre) to host two pilot franchising events next year. We’re looking for franchisors who would like to get involved in the Yorkshire Franchise Seminars.
These seminars are offering the chance for franchisors who are looking to recruit franchisees in the Yorkshire are to get in front of an audience of prospective franchisees. The seminars will be providing prospects with information on how to get involved in franchising.
Each franchise brand will be given 3-5 minutes to present themselves and their brand to the audience with an opportunity to network with prospective franchisees throughout the event.
These pilot seminars are free to be involved with and are a great way to get to know prospects in the Yorkshire area. If you’ve got any prospects in the area, why not invite them to come along? Meeting you in an informal, no obligation environment might help their decision-making process!
We’re only looking for 6-8 franchise brands to get involved so don’t miss your chance to support and benefit from two great events!
Contact rebecca@coconutcreatives.co.uk if you’d like to get involved.
Oct 19, 2015 | Coconut in the Media, News
November is the time when most people start winding down for the Christmas break and start getting into the holiday spirit. Not at Coconut Creatives! Throughout November, we’re busier than ever with hosting our own events and supporting our clients at their annual events and conferences. Don’t miss your last chances to meet us this year at the below events. We’d love to see you and you know we’re never too busy to stop and talk about all your franchise recruitment marketing needs!
Industry Events
4th November: Our Coconut Workshop ‘Practical Social media skills’
We still have places available so please contact us if you would like to come along!
4th November: The Franchise Supplier showcase
Come and meet us there to find out how we can help you with your franchise recruitment marketing needs.
12th November: EWIF North Regional Meeting
EWIF has 3 regional meetings in November! The South region is meeting on the 3rd November and both the North and South-West regions are meeting on the 12th November. Details on the meetings can be found here. We’ll be attending the North meeting, hope to see you there!
27th November: Smith & Henderson Conference
Our Founder, Sarah Carlile, will be delivering her talk on ‘The 5 ½ Marketing Mistakes Made by Franchisors. Don’t miss the event, book your place now and chat to Sarah and the team at the event.
Client Events
We’re also supporting our clients at the following events. We like to make sure our clients’ events run smoothly so we often go along to offer our support and advice on the day as well as providing their franchisees with a little extra marketing support!
- 24th Nov: HR Dept annual conference
- 27th Nov: Auditel annual conference
- 27th Nov: Rosemary Bookkeeping annual conference
Oct 8, 2015 | Coconut in the Media, Coconut News, News
As you may know, we attended the National Franchise Exhibition at the Birmingham N.E.C at the 
beginning of this month. We even exhibited for the very first time!
The show was a great success for us with three speaking slots, lots of meetings and a busy stand. We’re looking forward to making contact and working with everyone we met at the show over the weekend. It’s been an exciting time at Coconut Creatives with our new, revamped team and we’re offering even more services than ever before. We’re excited to be back in the office and working our magic for our clients. We look forward to taking on even more clients soon.
We were invited to speak on one of our expert topics, Social Media on the first day of the show and we were so pleased with the results. During our Social Media seminar, our hashtag #ishouldcoco was seen by over 7,500 people!
If you missed us at the show, or if you did attend and want to find out more, why not come along to our Social Media Skills workshop on 4th November to learn more!
….and don’t forget to #ishouldcoco!!
Sep 30, 2015 | Clients in the Media, News
One of Coconut Creatives’ clients, New Horizons, recently held their International conference in 
Orlando, Florida. The conference was a huge success with over 400 centre personnel, exhibitors and corporate staff from around the world converging to learn, share ideas and best practices, and maximise opportunities.
The conference consisted of a variety of Breakout Sessions, General Sessions, networking opportunities and much more. Attendees were provided with strategies, tools and resources to be used upon their return to their training centres.
New Horizons is the world’s largest independent IT training company. They provide a wide range of computer training and complementary programmes for many small, medium and large organisations as well as individuals improving their careers. Franchisees operate their own dedicated learning centres and quickly become the single source of IT training for their customers.
The International conference is just one of the many means of support that New Horizons offer to their franchise network. It gives franchisees the opportunity to meet together and improve their businesses by sharing ideas and advice with each other and by hearing from the experts at Head Office. Not only that but top performing franchisees are awarded and recognised for their achievements over the last 12 months. The “Excellence in Training” awards also recognise the top Applications and Technical Instructors in New Horizons’ worldwide network.
“Our International conference is a success every year. It’s great to see the franchisees meeting together and sharing their ideas. As such a vast network, we do not often get the chance to meet face-to-face so our conference gives franchisees a means of touching base with their support networks. They glean so much from the day and go home and implement everything they have learnt once they return to their businesses,” explains Scott McDaniel, International Development Director.
Founded in 1982, New Horizons have over 30 years’ experience in the IT and training industry. The New Horizons franchise network boasts over 300 centres in 70 countries worldwide (and counting!) each supported by a team of experts in all essential business disciplines. New Horizons are Microsoft’s largest training provider, delivering more than 33% of all authorised Microsoft training worldwide and our franchisees enjoy the benefits of global supplier partnerships with Cisco, VMware and CompTIA to name but a few.
If you’d like to take advantage of being part of this global brand, you can find out more about the New Horizons franchise by visiting www.newhorizonsfranchise.co.uk
This press release has created wide spread coverage on franchise related websites and social media. It will also be included in upcoming print publications. To find out how Coconut Creatives can help you generate great PR why not contact us
Sep 12, 2015 | Clients in the Media, News
Mail Boxes Etc., a client of Coconut Creatives, Edinburgh has just celebrated their 10,000th antique 
shipment. The item was collected, packed and shipped safely to a very happy buyer in America. Mail Boxes Etc. Edinburgh were recommended to the buyer by the auctioneer for their safe and efficient service. The item was even shipped for free in celebration of the store reaching their 10,000th auction item.
Mail Boxes Etc. Edinburgh specialises in shipping art, collectibles and antiques all over the world. The store demonstrates just one of the many ways that Mail Boxes Etc. franchisees can diversify their businesses and benefit from more than just one revenue stream.
Mail Boxes Etc. is one of the world’s largest non-food retail franchises with over 1,500 stores in five continents including over 155 in the UK and Ireland. They are the only high-street chain that offers consumers and local companies a truly comprehensive range of business services. Mail Boxes Etc.’s high street one-stop-shop concept offers a mix of logistics, postal, print and copy services to help meet people’s everyday needs.
The store’s partners Mike Smith, David Hastings, Dag Docherty and John-Eirik Docherty spotted an opportunity to carve a niche for themselves 15 years ago and decided to focus on shipping services for art, antiques and expensive whiskies – a trend that has continued!
“Many Mail Boxes Etc. franchisees partner with the auction houses in their territories to provide additional revenue streams to their businesses. Being associated with Mail Boxes Etc. can often make our franchisees the shippers of choice for many auction houses,” explains Michael Hawkins, Sales and Marketing Director at Mail Boxes Etc.
Mail Boxes Etc. Edinburgh operates three stores around the city. The business is thriving and other recent shipments have included a First Edition of Darwin’s The Origin of Species, a painting by Dali, sketches by Picasso and 70 bottles of whisky with a value of around £52,000.
“I’m absolutely delighted that we’ve reached this point and really proud of the fact that people trust us and our services to move their items of high value. We first realised there was market for us to specialise in shipping art, collectibles and antiques when we noticed there were plenty of online couriers but none that specialised in the safe packaging of the item. Our aim was to be the one-stop-shop, offering packaging and shipping services plus our transit insurance cover which is second to none!” Mike Smith, Mail Boxes Etc Edinburgh franchisee.
MBE Edinburgh works with all the major auction houses, from Bonhams to Lyon and Turnbull, Shapes Auctioneers and Thomson Riddick as well as a wide range of art galleries, including Anthony Woodd, The Open Eye Gallery and Urbane Art Gallery, to name just a few. For the past 10 years, MBE Edinburgh has been working with the AIE Edinburgh Art Fair and looks forward to continuing that relationship at this November’s fair. These specialists are happy to be able to recommend their customers a reliable, knowledgeable shipping service which includes everything from a collection of the item to safe, secure packaging and a range of shipping options from leading providers like UPS, TNT, DHL, FedEx and ParcelForce Worldwide.
You can find out more about the Mail Boxes Etc. franchise by calling 01608 649230 or visit mbe.co.uk/franchise
This press release has created wide spread coverage on franchise related websites and social media. It will also be included in upcoming print publications. To find out how Coconut Creatives can help you generate great PR why not contact us.
