We all love movies like "Glengarry Glen Ross".
Well, I do.
To hear and watch Alec Baldwin doing the ABC of Always Be Closing and a lot of foul language speech is awesome theater.
Before we say yeah baby Always Be Closing, let's take a closer look at the movie plot.
Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris and of course Alec Baldwin were a great cast. And compelling characters all of them. Right?
Well these guys were scammers, confidence men, the guys that would sell your mom swamp land in Florida and ocean front property in Arizona all in the same day.
They were liars and cheats.
If you have a franchise sales vice president like "Blake" (Alec Baldwin) fire him now.
He's a threat to your franchise company. You don't want him selling any of your franchises, managing any of your people or in charge of franchise sales compliance.
You don't want "Blake" sweeping the parking lot for cigarette butts.
And if you have any "Blake" franchise brokers or franchise sales outsourcers get rid of them too. They are a greater threat because you can't watch how they sell outside your control (of course keep your honest brokers).
You see in Glengarry Glen Ross they were selling undeveloped land to people who could nary afford to make any investment let alone one as speculative as raw land. It was unsuitable and dishonest to entice these people into buying no matter how pretty the sales pitch and process.
You see there's a big difference between Al Pacino or Jack Lemmon selling a piece of property, closing the deal and moving on to the next mark and you selling a franchise to your new franchisee. Don't get me wrong, what Al's and Jack's characters did was reprehensible.
In Glengarry Glen Ross after the deal was done, Mitch & Murray were done. They had the buyer's money and that was it. On to the next...
When you sell a new franchise you're not Mitch or Murray and you know you're not done. Not by a long shot.
You and your brand spanking new franchisee have just begun a 10, 15 or 20 year business life together.
If Al or Jack sold them the franchise Glengarry style you will likely begin with problems at the start. Your new franchisee will likely not have enough capital to get financed or the operational expertise needed to make the franchise successful. This will not end well.
We can all agree great franchise sales is about recruiting both talent and capital. You want both.
To get what your franchise company wants you need an honest & effective franchise sales process and salespeople you and your candidates can count on.
Franchisees will remember how you sold them.
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