Franchise Sales Starts With Brand Health Check

Over the last few months, I have provided you with insights pulled straight from the franchisee’s mouth. We have been listening, intently, trying to discover secret gems to help lift the development efforts of our clients. 

Challenge one: Not all brands are created equally. 

Among the most challenging parts of our job is building the equation specifically for a brand. I have often thought about building a scoring model to help in building the predictability in the funnel. While listening to why candidates buy, these would be my categories:

1. Investment
2. Market Availability
3. Potential Profit
4. Depth of Leadership Team
5. Depth of True Support
6. Number of Competitors (direct)
7. Scaling Franchisees
8. Buzz Factor
9. Pace of Scale
10. Trajectory 

So, let’s say a perfect score was a 10 on each portion. If Brand X had a 90 and Brand Y had a 60, which brand will have better results from our actions? Yet both brands would have the same expectations. This is where we have to step up the game in score improvement (consulting) to create more lift.

Challenge Two: Patience is not a virtue in franchising. I want my leads and I want them now.
 

Sometimes, despite our team hitting on all cylinders, it isn’t enough. 

So, this month, I took the two challenges and put together what my future plan is to try to decrease the gap in high performance versus disappointing performance:

1. Increase SEO: I have always said SEO is blowing smoke, BECAUSE of two things. The algorithm and the money I have spent. Last month, we spent a massive amount on SEO to gain more organic lift for the 1851 content for our clients. It is working, BUT, only because of the variations in our investment – meaning, it isn’t simply confided to one supplier – rather a whole bunch. Additionally, our team and our clients spend a ton of investment in content development. We need to increase the eyeballs through organic and paid efforts.
2. Create a Steady Drumbeat: Press, content, digital. We MUST showcase buzz to build the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)
3. The Why You/Why Now becomes essential. The marketplace is more competitive. Brands not only compete against all brands to attract the attention of those looking to invest in a franchise, BUT ALSO, compete against he franchise consultants/brokers who are taking the time to educate the franchise buyer about what franchising is.

With all of that said, here are some quick grab stats that we are watching very closely. In Q1, 1851 data:

• The average reader read nearly 3 pages of content.
• The average time on site increased from 1:35 in Q4 2023 to 1:49 in Q1 2024.
• Bounce rate went down 3%. Part of this is because we have revised our advertising strategy to be tighter and not focused on a click, rather a valuable click.

Did you book your Q1 update? Are your indicators giving you the right navigation to 2024 success? What fears do you have?

We are focused on impact and impacting the candidates positively.