Franchisor Articles

Las Vegas was the backdrop for the 2009 Multi-Unit Franchising Conference, held in mid-April at the fabulous Bellagio hotel, where multi-unit high rollers were searching for sure bets at the "Playing 2 Win" themed-event, sponsored by Franchise Update Media Group.

Many franchisors are taking advantage of this economic slowdown to examine and improve their sales process. Rather than discussing tweaking and fine-tuning, I'd like to look at three fundamental selling skills essential to franchise sales success. You'll recruit new franchisees much faster if you train (and re-train) your sales staff in these three key selling skills.

With the downturn in the economy, good old-fashioned customer service can be a major differentiator for businesses trying to keep their existing customers and attract new ones.

Earlier this year at the IFA Expo, we interviewed nearly 100 prospective franchisees as they came into the hall -- and again as they left. We were looking for what attracts prospective franchisees to a particular brand.

Restaurants and retail businesses have been devastated since the start of the current recession, negatively affecting corporate franchisors and their licensed franchisees. Revenues have declined as customers have tightened their belts and restricted discretionary spending while joblessness has risen. Not surprisingly, bankruptcies in the retail and hospitality industries have increased - and evidence indicates that they will continue to do so.

Pizza Fusion, a growing chain of organic pizza restaurants, was born from three passions shared by co-founders Vaughan Lazar and Michael Gordon: food, healthy eating, and the environment.

It is no secret that many CEOs are challenged by how to best motivate and get results from their franchise development departments. Over the many years I've been involved in franchising, I have seen the powerful role CEOs can play to support their franchise development teams.

What if there were a way to hire great, energetic franchisees who not only were excited about the brand, but also already knew it inside and out? Your next great franchise operators might be sitting right beside you at your next internal meeting.

Franchise development teams are trying to defy the seemingly insurmountable odds of today's economy by creatively ramping up their sales efforts. Tactics such as discounted franchise fees, reduced royalties, buy-back guarantees, and other incentives have been pouring onto the franchise marketplace in recent months. The innovative techniques seem to be getting results.

Unfortunately for many business owners, the economic forecast looks gloomy for this year and perhaps next. At Clix, we have taken an active approach toward understanding the state of the economy and planning our development for the next 12 to 36 months.

One of the great things about being an editor at [i]Franchise UPDATE[/i] is the constant stream of press releases we receive. (Okay, I admit, it also can resemble a state of siege). The mailbox always includes some great suggestions on how to improve your business, as well as success stories of franchises continuing to grow, despite the economy. Here are a few items to stimulate your thinking, from top to bottom line.

Let's play Jeopardy. The answer: "Document!" The question: "What is the most effective way to minimize risk in the franchise sales process?" To be honest, my answer is a form of shorthand, but it succinctly makes my point.

Despite all the buzz about "rich media," the simple text ad is still one of the most effective ways of bringing prospective franchisees to your website, according to a report from market research firm iPerceptions. The study is especially intriguing, given its substantial number of participants: 14,000 people were surveyed about their ad preferences after they visited leading media websites.

Franchise Update Media Group (FUMG), the leading industry resource for franchise development, today announced that attendance for the 8th Annual Multi-Unit Franchising Conference is on track to set a new attendance record. The conference is April 15-17, 2009 at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas.

Reading newspapers, listening to the radio, or watching TV today is like drinking from a fire hydrant. Here are some recent headlines:

As with anything valuable, lead supply is sometimes short. Yet lead demand, the lifeblood of the sales force, keeps demanding. The tectonic shifts in our financial, business, and cultural bases naturally have affected franchise lead flow, an effect that shows up differently for each franchisor. Many, however, are experiencing some sort of shortfall in the quality and/or quantity of leads, and today, more than ever, customary lead generation methods are being challenged.

Franchise Update Media Group (FUMG), the leading industry resource for franchise development, today announced the launch of its latest educational forum, the Franchise CEO Network, with host Linda Burzynski. The first webinar is Thursday, March 26, and begins at 11:30 a.m. EST.

Working to restart the economy's engine of job creation, President Obama announced Monday that the Treasury Department would invest as much as $15 billion to boost lending to credit-hungry small businesses.

"How has the capital market for franchise financing changed in the last 3 to 6 months, and what are you doing differently in franchise sales in the next 3 to 6 months?"

Franchise Update Media Group (FUMG), the leading industry resource for franchise development, and digital marketing leader Oneupweb today announced a unique pairing of resources. Oneupweb will deliver comprehensive digital marketing services to Franchising.com, including enhanced search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing. The companies have joined forces to develop industry-leading white papers and studies, and Oneupweb will also deliver important online marketing resources, including webinars and white papers to the franchise community through Franchise Update Media Group.

Does it affect all aspects of franchising? Does it affect all industry categories? How can operations and franchise development work in harmony to have the franchise system thrive (yes, thrive) in a tough economic climate? Let's take a seven-step approach to "Tuning Up Your Franchise System" in an uncertain economy.

You'd think selling franchises in one of the worst economies since the Great Depression would daunt even the hardiest franchisor. But many franchisors, both well-established and new to the scene, keep on plugging when the economy goes south. Some even consider this a great time to grow.

Many franchisors have reached their limit on expanding into suburbia, but the imperative to grow remains strong. In response, an increasing number are training their sights on America's cities.The move to the suburbs has been a decades-long trend in the United States, and franchisors have followed suit. But more than half of the U.S. population live in the country's top 25 metropolitan areas, and nearly 80 percent live in the top 100 metro areas.Cities are complex, crowded places, running the gamut from blighted ghettos to luxury high-rises. Suburban commuters flood into them by the millions each day to work and shop, creating a vibrant marketplace. And the under-served inner cities are hungry for retail goods and services, jobs, and entrepreneurial opportunity, making them fertile ground for franchisors who take the time to learn, understand, and develop relationships with the people who live there.The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC), founded in 1994 by Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter, studies inner cities with a focus on economic development. According to ICIC, "[T]he inner city retail market offers significant profit potential for retail companies now operating in the highly competitive, over-saturated suburban markets." According to an ICIC study, the country's inner cities contain:

David Ambinder spent more than 25 years on Wall Street, most recently as a senior vice president of global support services for Lehman Brothers. When he got a pink slip last summer - just months before the investment bank filed for bankruptcy - he turned his attention to more humble endeavors: fixing up people's homes.

Franchising depends on access to borrowed capital for new units, updating existing units, working capital, and the transfer of units between owners. Where is that capital going to come from?

John Smythe says he was a typical 21-year-old when he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1965. "I was just kind of rolling through life and not really giving it that much thought," says the 62-year-old veteran today. The Army was a good experience for him, and where he learned the skills and philosophies he's using today as a CMIT Solutions franchisee in Everett, Wash.

The Office Visit is arguably the most important step in the franchise sales qualification process. The Office Visit goes by many names: Discovery Day, Information Day, Audition Day, Support Center Visit Day and on and on. Regardless of what you name it, it is the day for the management team and the franchise candidate to "get to know" each other beyond phone and email and decide if this is a good match for both parties.

Standard operating procedure, or SOP, is a term widely understood by those who have served in the armed forces. SOP refers to a step-by-step method for how a mission or function will be carried out. Veterans understand the importance of implementing and following SOP for a task to be executed and the mission completed successfully. This systematic approach sounds very similar to the franchising model, and is why more and more veterans are finding successful post-military careers in the world of franchising.

On the Friday morning after Congress voted down the first, "unsweetened" $700 billion bailout package--and with credit frozen and the lending climate getting icier by the hour--franchise sales executives at Franchise Update's Leadership & Development Conference put their heads together in a Friday morning "mindshare" session to brainstorm answers to some tough questions on what they're doing to make sales.

The secret is out of the box. The mystery shopping has ended and the results have been revealed. Each year, for more than a decade now, Franchise UPDATE has conducted a mystery shopping survey of franchisors to assess their lead generation and recruiting efforts. Two methods--telephone and online--are "shopped" and objectively recorded. Each franchise organization registered for this year's annual Franchise Leadership & Development Conference by a specific cutoff date--nearly 150 of this year's attendees--was evaluated, and its data included in the study.