Coffee and Analytics: How to Level-Up Your Franchisee Recruiting Strategy

In franchising, we are pretty black and white.

How many leads did I get this month against how much I spent? Versus: Leads take 6.4 months to mature.

What is my cost per lead? Versus: What is the value of my deal and enterprise impact for the business?

What percentage of leads turn into quality conversations? Versus: Spending more on fewer people.

The reason we get into this place is because of franchise sales pressures, preventing a different way of thinking and approach to growing right and growing big.

I have often celebrated Slim Chickens' approach to franchise sales in my discussions. I vividly remember sitting in a room with the founders and asking them how many units they wanted in the next year. Their response was simple and eloquent and impactful.

“We just want 25 franchisees who will open five units each," they said. "We don’t care how long it takes to get there.”

Flash-forward and the brand is huge, best-in-class, and still growing. 

What is the secret to that response? Gray area and culture.

But, it’s also in the approach taken to drive the right buyers: Validators (primarily) who want to grow and scale. 

How do you make that evolution to recruiting better scaling franchisees? How you qualify, how you project your culture (real culture) and how you approach franchise development (not sales).

This month, I decided to look at 2024’s responses to a question in an 1851 survey completed by new or expanding franchisees: “What is one piece of information you wish the franchisor gave you in the buying process?”

The responses provide insight into what you need to provide in that sales process, specifically when nurturing leads:

• TRANSPARENCY IN COSTS: “The amount of money that is needed — especially living in California. It is exponentially higher than most states for startup businesses. I wish they had been upfront.” 
• BRAG ABOUT TRUE BUSINESS IMPACT: "I think they are giving me more than expected."
• TRANSPARENCY IN ROI: “Takes a long time to make money. The training process is great but long, so you need to save up money.”
• TRANSPARENCY IN ROI (STRUCTURE OF ITEM 19): “Certain things they can and can’t disclose. Perfect world would be to see everyone’s financial data, but they can’t do that. They do give the average and other data points.”
• TRUTH IN THAT BUSINESS IS TOUGH: “Just that it’s harder than I thought — some surprises in terms of licenses and insurances.”
• TRUTH THAT BUSINESS IS TOUGH (2): You’re under the impression that the franchisor is going to solve your problems, and I learned that it does come in a box for me, but I have to figure out a lot of stuff on my own. They were clear on that but it took me a while to understand it."
• TRUTH THAT BUSINESS IS TOUGH: “A thorough understanding of the administrative steps before paperwork was signed.”
• TRUTH IN TIMING: “The actual timeline — that is hard to pin down, but would have been nice to know. Always feeling like we are running behind; we are not, but I am worried about that.”
• TRANSPARENCY IN COSTS: “A better breakdown of costs — had to figure it out piece by piece.”
• TRANSPARENCY IN BUSINESS CHECKLIST: “ Information about the outside companies you need to work with (payroll and media people, etc) and how long everything takes.”

If I break those statements into themes, they would be:

1. Costs/ROI
2. What it takes to be a business owner
3. Timeline to open

Pretty simple. So, now the actionable to dos:

1. Build content for each umbrella leveraging franchisees as the source. What I learned about buying a franchise: Costs.
2. Put each into your drip campaign content as educational resources.
3. Send a package of all three stories to all cold leads. If this is what current franchisees are saying/thinking, chances are that stalled out candidates are thinking it too.
4. Build this into your website content.
5. Build this into discovery day.