Franchise sales can be seasonal, with some seasons like spring driving a lot of new interest. It is essential your franchise sales staff, franchise marketing materials, and your franchise sales process are aligned to deliver an accurate, consistent understanding of your franchise. If your franchise company does not have the necessary skills in-house to create marketing materials or a comprehensive sales process consider engaging a franchise consulting firm to assist with developing your materials, process, and providing training for your franchise sales staff.
Spring is a great time of year. Nice weather often leads to positive thoughts and as flowers bloom, so do the thoughts of franchise prospects. Coming from the winter thaw, getting outside, and giving a big yawn and stretch, franchise prospects prepare for the search of a new franchise business. So, the franchise portals, franchise trade shows, and web searches see large increases in traffic like the blooming of new flowers in spring.
With the extended daylight and renewed energy, franchise prospects dive into franchise materials searching for the best match for their entrepreneurial spirit. With all the renewed interest in franchises, franchisors need to take a hard look at their franchise collateral, (Franchise Sales Training | Hire an Outsourced Franchise Sales / Salesperson (upsidefranchiseconsulting.com), sales process and their lead generation systems. Franchise Lead Generation & Development | High Quality Franchise Sales Leads (upsidefranchiseconsulting.com)
Your franchise lead generation process has a bigger impact on your franchisee’s long-term success than many may think. After all, different lead generation sources attract unique sets of franchise buyers, and each franchisor has a specific set of criteria that matches their system and culture. By defining the exact type of individual you want to attract and then determining which lead sources are trafficked most by those types of individuals, you will lower your lead generation expense. More importantly you should find better-matched candidates that in the long run will fit your system and culture, and in turn be more prosperous franchisees.
Now that you are advertising in the right places it is paramount your franchise marketing materials are sending the right message and setting important expectations. By doing so, you not only attract and sell more units, but you do it the “right” way. The right way means setting clear expectations and making sure candidates understand all the costs, lifestyle, and relationship between the franchisor and franchisee, and the important steps necessary to run a successful franchise in your system. You should convey consistent messages with your printed materials, information on your website, photos, copy, in-person meetings, as well as phone conversations. All these items need to be regularly reviewed and updated to ensure they accurately representing your brand. If you are not skilled in creating these types of materials there are qualified franchise consultants who should be able to review your system and create the necessary materials to represent your brand.
When you are advertising correctly and have created accurate, engaging materials, it is important to make sure your franchise sales staff is representing the same important expectations. Ensure you have created a process that engages candidates and allows them to gather information while not inundating them with long phone calls and lengthy paperwork to read. Remember with the spring thaw prospects are looking at many different brands. While you feel it is only a few hours a week you are requiring, that same prospect is trying to carve out a few hours for many different brands as they perform their due diligence. So, you want to create an engaging, accurate, detailed process that is divided into digest-able chunks that a candidate can move through without feeling overwhelmed. There are a lot of moving parts in a quality franchise sales process, so if you are not comfortable creating one yourself there are qualified franchise consultants who are available to help you create a process that will benefit you and your franchise prospects.
While you’re cleaning behind your dresser and under your bed for those dust bunnies, don’t forget to dust off your franchise lead generation strategy, marketing materials, and sales process.
By: Doug Newman
