Why Franchising Doesn't Have To Be Tough to Win At: Mainland's Coffee & Analytics November Discussion

Franchising could be the toughest thing in the world to win at — and quite often, my conversations with franchisors begin with a point of frustration:

“We are not hitting our development goals.” 

“If we could only get more people to our discovery day, we know they would close.”

“The quality of leads is not as strong as we want them to be."

“We are not getting the leads that we need.”

I believe those four buckets are the most important ones to look at to try to figure out a pathway to winning at franchise development. We will certainly get into those in this month’s analytics & data note, but first, your business model. 

What I would love for each of you to do is start with your business. Forget about the bad. Focus only on the good. Ask yourself these questions:

What are you famous for? You need to have a clear picture of fame for your brand. This will help tremendously in determining yours. For instance, at Mainland*, ours is twofold: Consultancy & Technology (1851). 

Can your franchisees make money – or rather, how will they make money? This is essential to you winning, as you need to paint a picture for your candidates on how they can achieve their financial goals. Salary replacement or wealth building should both be in the equation of your storytelling.

Who are your brand heroes? These are your ultimate brand ambassadors — both validators (who rave about your business) and those internally who make candidates feel confident.

Now, back to the buckets. 

Bucket 1, Leads: What is your budget? How are you deploying it? How are you measuring it? What does your funnel look like? Do you have a Website gap? Are you maximizing your four-wall marketing? Do you have strong drip content?

Bucket 2, Quality: Are you putting restrictions in place to chase deals versus leads? Are you encouraging responsiveness – versus selling? Are you giving your candidates a blueprint to purchase?

Bucket 3, Discovery: Are people coming to you? This is a big life decision, so, if they are not – I would imagine they are not the right candidate. Are you going to them? Are you seeing them in their personal element?'

Bucket 4, Development Goals: I have spoken with several highly successful zors recently, who are having record sales, yet are not hitting their “numbers”. These numbers were pulled from the sky. Remember, you can impact business value by getting units opened. That drives cash to the business. Thus, you should have a business impact discussion (as a team) to understand the value of the deal, which, in turn, will drive some decisions when you go back to Bucket 1 with a proper budget to fill the funnel.

Two quick insights from our profile surveys this month:

Out of 44 profiled zees, only 4 were under the age of 40. Are you tightening your marketing to be focused on a strict age group?

The main concerns that these zees had to get over were ROI and support. Do you have a story for each?

While franchising will always be full of challenges, asking yourself the right questions and looking at the right data can help make success much easier to achieve. 

Watch the discussion here on YouTube.