The reality is that most new Franchisors spend so much time building successful systems for their franchisees that they neglect to build internal systems and processes for themselves.
A stable and systematized Franchisor is a better investment because their stability and growth have direct impacts on the success of their franchisees in the long term. Weak systems are the number one reason why many franchise brands struggle to get off the ground - some brands never do!
I am often asked how I get such strong and consistent results for the brands I work with. For most emerging Franchisors this kind of system development seems to be a real mystery. This is especially true for those brands under 100 units.
These questions come in may forms, but most often they resemble the following:
What is the best way to show candidates that you have sound systematization?
How do we evaluate that our candidate can follow a system?
What can we do to give our development team the tools they need to grow our brand?
My answer is always....
Develop a well designed sales process!
Recently, I was brought in to work with a brand that was struggling to develop anything that remotely resembled a sales pipeline. They were experiencing a sales cycle of around 8 or 9 months and this made it extremely difficult to keep filling the front of their funnel - they spent all of their time keeping their leads warm instead of closing the deal!
They couldn't figure out what triggered a decision, what caused a candidate to fall out, or even what brought them to the table in the first place.
In so many ways, this illustrates what happens when a franchise company doesn't have a defined sales process.
The first thing a strong franchise sales program does is give the brand an opportunity to track and understand conversion metrics. This is critical to tracking everything from closing metrics as well as conversion metrics at each stage of the sales process at large.
Once their program is in place, they can review this conversion data and produce rock solid key performance indicators which leads to highlighting the bottlenecks that might be slowing down their sales cycle.
I have seen sticking points caused by everything from cumbersome internal approval processes, overzealous protection of disclosure documents, and even lackluster follow up by poor performing sales teams.
Strong sales programs create a road map that allows the Franchisor to read the data patterns and improve the flow of their sales funnel by re-evaluating their SOP's, lead sources, and even the caliber of their sales team.
All too often, I have seen Franchisors and their sales teams go in for the kill every time they interact with a candidate. Not only will this pressure and alienate each of your candidates; this will also make it difficult to identify the buyers in the candidacy program.
The goal of each phase of the sales program can be summed up in these 3 steps:
- Educate the candidate on the value proposition of your brand
- Paint a picture of the ideal candidate you are meeting with to connect to your opportunity
- Explain the next steps to your candidacy program and set expectations
The most important thing these systems should be designed to do is to create an ever clearing image in the candidates own mind of them operating your franchise in a successful, fun, and fulfilling way.
Ultimately, franchising is as much of an emotional and lifestyle decision as it is a facts and business decision. Their success boils down to the strength of the opportunity and their ability to connect with the candidate.
The stronger sales program you have, the better you can measure and evaluate your brand and your team for further growth and success.
My goal is to help other Franchisors develop stronger, more successful opportunities because I believe that the more rockstar franchise opportunities there are, the more investors will favor the industry....and with that, we ALL win!
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