Growing a Franchise
New franchise buyer data suggests the path from awareness to ownership is less about ROI, more dependent on trust and increasingly influenced by brokers, validation and AI.
Franchise development teams spend enormous amounts of time trying to answer one question:
How do we get more qualified franchise buyers to inquire?
We build websites. We buy leads. We run paid media. We create content. We optimize for search. We develop drip campaigns. We attend conferences. We hire brokers. But sometimes the better question is not how do we generate more leads? It is, how do people actually decide to buy a franchise?
Join me at Coffee & Analytics at 9 a.m. CST on October 22 ([REGISTER HERE]), and learn the new franchise insights from Q3 on what the buyers reported.
We recently looked at responses from franchise owners about how they discovered their brands, what they researched, what they feared, what they wish they had known and what ultimately made them comfortable buying.
The answers challenge some of the assumptions franchise development teams make every day.
The single biggest source of buyers in the data was not paid advertising. It was not Google. It was not even the franchise brand itself. Thirty-five percent of respondents discovered their franchise through a franchise broker, coach or consultant.
Seems intense, but last year, that number was higher. 12% higher.
Now, organic search accounted for 21%. Paid advertising accounted for 18%.
Even more interesting was the speed.
Two-thirds of the fastest-moving buyers (people who submitted an inquiry within one month of first learning about franchising) entered through a broker or consultant instead of going to the brand. What is even more interesting, is they only looked at 2 brands (yet, felt a need to use a coach)
People researching independently were much more likely to spend six months, a year or longer before making an inquiry. That matters.
Franchisors often think about brokers as simply another lead source. The data suggests they may play a much larger role: they can create the category consideration itself. They are also highly dangerous, because buyers trust them and they push buyers, consistently, to the brands that pay the highest commissions.
A broker is not always helping someone choose between Franchise A and Franchise B.
Sometimes the broker is the person who first gets the buyer to consider franchising at all. And then, with established trust, pushes them to a brand that pays higher commissions.
Thus, commissions matter. But, broker deals are declining.
This may be one of the biggest opportunities in franchise development.
Several respondents were not actively searching for a franchise when they discovered the business they ultimately bought.
Some were not even considering franchising.
One respondent found TruBlue on BizBuySell and said they “didn’t know it was a franchise.”
Think about what that means for marketing.
You are not simply competing against other franchises. You are competing against a corporate career; starting an independent business; buying an existing business; doing nothing; waiting another year.
The franchise development website therefore cannot assume someone arrives already convinced that franchising is the answer.
It has to sell the destination before it sells the vehicle.
Why business ownership?
Why this category?
Why franchising?
Why now?
And then:
Why you?
The franchisor can say nearly anything about its opportunity. The buyer knows that. That is why validation continues to carry so much weight.
Thirty-eight percent of respondents said they spent the largest share of their research time speaking with current franchisees, visiting locations or conducting validation calls.
Your franchisees are not simply operators. They are part of your sales organization. And unlike a salesperson, they have credibility precisely because they are not supposed to be selling. That raises an important question for franchisors, what experience are candidates having when they call your owners?
Are franchisees prepared to talk about the business honestly?
Do they understand what differentiates the brand?
Can they explain the support system?
Can they describe the difficult parts as well as the good ones?
You can perfect every page of your franchise website, but eventually the candidate is going to ask somebody who already wrote the check.
Every respondent in this particular sample said they would buy their franchise again.
That alone is interesting. But the reason is even more useful. About 35% specifically mentioned corporate support or the corporate team as a reason they would make the same decision again. Support is one of the most overused words in franchising. Nearly every franchise website promises it.
The buyer assumes some portion of that is sales language. The real differentiation happens after the agreement is signed. When support actually shows up. When the phone gets answered, problems get solved and owners feel like somebody cares about the outcome, the promise becomes believable.
That becomes retention. And eventually it becomes validation.
Interestingly, many of the biggest regrets were not really about the franchise, rather, about running a business. Respondents mentioned:
This is an important distinction, as candidates spend months learning about the franchise system. They may spend considerably less time understanding the realities of owning the business.
There is an opportunity here for franchisors to become educators rather than salespeople.
Imagine giving candidates a realistic, “What Your First Year of Business Ownership Actually Costs” guide.
Not another Item 7 explanation.
A practical document explaining insurance, hiring, licenses, working capital, local marketing and the expenses operators often underestimate.
Transparency does not necessarily make an opportunity less attractive. Sometimes it makes the franchisor more credible.
SBA financing came up repeatedly as an area of frustration.
Approximately 6% of respondents described timelines that continued slipping, sometimes pushing an opening months past the original expectation.
For one respondent, the eventual opening occurred about three months later than originally planned.
There are many parts of SBA lending that the franchisor cannot control. Expectations are something the franchisor can control. If financing commonly takes longer than candidates anticipate, tell them. A realistic timeline may create less excitement during the sales process. It may create considerably more trust during the ownership process.
Some of the most sophisticated buyers asked questions that franchise development teams often would rather not answer.
How many units have closed?
How many agreements have been terminated?
What separates the best operators from average operators?
Are those national accounts actually available in my market?
Those are uncomfortable questions, yet reasonable ones. Sophisticated buyers understand that every franchise has unsuccessful operators. Avoiding the question does not eliminate the risk. It can simply make the buyer wonder what they are not being told.
The brand willing to explain failure, and more importantly, why failure happens, may actually create greater confidence.
Instead of saying, “Our franchisees are successful.” Marketing, tell and show:
What top performers do differently.
What struggling operators commonly get wrong.
What capital assumptions matter.
What behaviors correlate with success.
Transparency becomes part of the value proposition.
This data reinforces something franchise development teams should already be thinking about.
Most buyers are not 25-year-old entrepreneurs. Among respondents who provided an age range, 68% were between 35 and 54. Only about 10% were under 35. And approximately 29% described themselves as leaving corporate or military careers.
That means the emotional decision is significant.
They are not simply deciding whether they like the franchise. They may be deciding whether to give up their salary, title, benefits, predictable income, and career identity.
That is why one of the most important questions on a franchise development website should not simply be how much the buyer can make. It should showcase real stories of transition. Franchisees who have been there, done that.
Two AI-related trends appeared in the responses. Approximately 9% of respondents explicitly said they wanted a business they considered “AI-proof” or “recession-proof.” Another roughly 9% said they used tools such as ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity during their franchise research.
Those are two different trends with the same consequence.
First, people are increasingly asking which businesses remain valuable as technology changes.
That can benefit home services, trades and other businesses where physical delivery cannot easily be replaced by software. Second, buyers are no longer only Googling “Best franchises under $200,000.” They may be asking an AI what are the best home-service franchises for a former corporate executive who wants recurring revenue and doesn't want to manage a restaurant?
That changes franchise marketing.
Your brand needs to be understandable not only to Google but also to AI systems assembling answers from available information. That means clearer positioning, better structured information, more authoritative content and, ding, ding, ding, more third-party validation. And better answers to the questions buyers are actually asking.
This may be the most important finding. When respondents completed the statement:
“Owning my franchise has allowed me to…”The most common answers were about freedom, family, time, and legacy.
Only roughly 10% directly mentioned money. That does not mean economics do not matter.
Nobody wants to buy a business that cannot produce a return, but money may be the proof that the vehicle works, rather than the destination itself.
The destination is often:
“I control my time.”
“I built something for my family.”
“I left corporate America.”
“I created something that is mine.”
“I became the person I wanted to become.”
And that may be where franchise marketing frequently gets the story backward. We lead with investment.
Numbers can answer whether the business works or not, but it can’t answer why do I want to do this. Put all 10 findings together and a different franchise buyer journey begins to emerge.
It may be about freedom, family, and purpose. And the opportunity to build something of their own.
That creates a useful challenge for every franchise development team. Are we marketing what the franchise costs and what it does or are we explaining what owning it can ultimately make possible?
Because the brands that understand that distinction may have a much easier time moving someone from impression to inquiry, and most importantly inquiry to ownership.
Want to dig deeper into how franchise brands can shorten the distance between awareness and inquiry? Join Coffee & Analytics for this discussion on how different franchise buyer journeys have begun to emerge. [REGISTER HERE]
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About the Author
Nick Powills, CFE, founded No Limit Agency in 2008 and serves as Chief Brand Strategist for the Chicago-based firm. No Limit is a full-service communications agency that establishes and elevates brands by bridging Public Relations, Social Media, Marketing, Advertising, Digital, and a lot of creativity, to best strategize well-rounded and successful campaigns for 50+ global franchise brands. By presenting visionary ideas and building real relationships, No Limit is able to create effective media branding strategies to help companies grow. Nick currently leads a staff of writers, media strategists, designers, social media experts and digital producers in an office think-tank where brands are humanized for strong, compelling media stories. Prior to starting No Limit at the age of 27, Nick spent four years working at a franchise PR agency where he mastered the art of building rapport with media outlets and creating newsworthy pitches for earned media placements. He holds a Bachelor of Journalism from Drake University in Iowa.
