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Development Tips to Help Your Brand Succeed
No Limit expert offers ways to ensure a winning strategy.
After coming up with the concept, creating a Franchise Disclosure Document and getting your Operations Manual in order, it’s now time to find the franchisees to expand your brand. Before you begin, it’s important to come up with development strategy that will help your brand succeed. That includes having the right systems and processes in place.
Here are five things you need to know to create a sound development strategy:
Positioning and Messaging
You need to be able to answer, “Why this franchise?” And you need to nail it. According to Sean Fitzgerald, Chief Development Strategist for No Limit Agency, being able to clearly explain the brand’s positioning and messaging is key.
“Where most brands fail is that they are selling the same things everyone else has,” said Fitzgerald. “Everyone has a proven process, training, support and operations manuals, it’s the definition of a franchise. You need to talk about why this is a great franchise opportunity.”
Whether it’s consumer positioning or the economy, a brand needs to have a strong message of why this business is a great business to buy and why now. This is important to include in the awarding process and to get the right type of franchisee to sign on the dotted line.
Sales Team
“Where franchisors make a mistake, they think any sales person can sell a franchise,” said Fitzgerald. “Franchise development is much harder than people realize and it is more of a recruiting process than a sales process. Selling franchises versus awarding franchises can lead to bringing in the wrong types of owners into a system. Bad operators will bring down system averages and negatively impact validation, making it extremely difficult to grow.”
An experienced franchise sales person can sell and find the right perspectives.
Awarding Process/Recruiting Process
Make sure your brand has a well-defined step-by-step process for the awarding and recruiting process. It will help your brand, and keep the franchisees focused during their due diligence.
“A detailed awarding process will help the candidate and your development team stay organized,” said Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald recommends breaking the awarding process into smaller more manageable steps for the potential franchisee. That helps build confidence in the candidate and in your franchise system. You don’t want to overwhelm them with too much data and information at once. It could portray that your business model is complex.
CRM and Metrics
“The best way to manage and measure your awarding process is by utilizing a CRM like FranConnect,” said Fitzgerald. “You can set up all the stages of the processes and have the ability to review the metrics to determine the effectiveness of your team.”
Leads to applications ratios will help you determine the quality of leads you are getting. If the leads aren’t good you’re spinning your tires. If you’re not getting applications you have to look at lead sources. Applications to sales ratios will show you effectiveness of sales team and process. Lead to sales ratios help to determine your overall efforts compared to the industry. Right now the industry average lead to sale is 1 to 2 percent.
Your Website
“Many times your website is someone’s first impressions of your brand and opportunity,” said Fitzgerald. “Make sure you have a visually pleasing website with enough information to get potential franchisees engaged in your process.”
After coming up with the concept, creating a Franchise Disclosure Document and getting your Operations Manual in order, it’s now time to find the franchisees to expand your brand. Before you begin, it’s important to come up with development strategy that will help your brand succeed. That includes having the right systems and processes in place.
Here are five things you need to know to create a sound development strategy:
Positioning and Messaging
You need to be able to answer, “Why this franchise?” And you need to nail it. According to Sean Fitzgerald, Chief Development Strategist for No Limit Agency, being able to clearly explain the brand’s positioning and messaging is key.
“Where most brands fail is that they are selling the same things everyone else has,” said Fitzgerald. “Everyone has a proven process, training, support and operations manuals, it’s the definition of a franchise. You need to talk about why this is a great franchise opportunity.”
Whether it’s consumer positioning or the economy, a brand needs to have a strong message of why this business is a great business to buy and why now. This is important to include in the awarding process and to get the right type of franchisee to sign on the dotted line.
Sales Team
“Where franchisors make a mistake, they think any sales person can sell a franchise,” said Fitzgerald. “Franchise development is much harder than people realize and it is more of a recruiting process than a sales process. Selling franchises versus awarding franchises can lead to bringing in the wrong types of owners into a system. Bad operators will bring down system averages and negatively impact validation, making it extremely difficult to grow.”
An experienced franchise sales person can sell and find the right perspectives.
Awarding Process/Recruiting Process
Make sure your brand has a well-defined step-by-step process for the awarding and recruiting process. It will help your brand, and keep the franchisees focused during their due diligence.
“A detailed awarding process will help the candidate and your development team stay organized,” said Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald recommends breaking the awarding process into smaller more manageable steps for the potential franchisee. That helps build confidence in the candidate and in your franchise system. You don’t want to overwhelm them with too much data and information at once. It could portray that your business model is complex.
CRM and Metrics
“The best way to manage and measure your awarding process is by utilizing a CRM like FranConnect,” said Fitzgerald. “You can set up all the stages of the processes and have the ability to review the metrics to determine the effectiveness of your team.”
Leads to applications ratios will help you determine the quality of leads you are getting. If the leads aren’t good you’re spinning your tires. If you’re not getting applications you have to look at lead sources. Applications to sales ratios will show you effectiveness of sales team and process. Lead to sales ratios help to determine your overall efforts compared to the industry. Right now the industry average lead to sale is 1 to 2 percent.
Your Website
“Many times your website is someone’s first impressions of your brand and opportunity,” said Fitzgerald. “Make sure you have a visually pleasing website with enough information to get potential franchisees engaged in your process.”
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About the Author
Nick Powills
FollowNick 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.
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