What's New in Modern Site Selection?

The biggest feature I hear from franchise owners about mapping is: something they can use quickly, get decisions fast and have it be on the cloud for collaboration with team members and ultimately to the franchisee.

The main benefit of all that is to allow the franchisee a means to make decisions faster to buy into what the franchisor is selling.

The main "pain point" from franchisor's, depends on what your using mapping for.

Many franchisor's have told me, "Franchise territories are the most important thing to our company". The feature for territory mapping has to handle decades of old territories mixed with new ones and edits. It can be incredibly time consuming for a retailer to manage all this.

Franchisee's also have a need related to this topic. They want a starter package from mapping suppliers. Not an expensive one and one they definitely don't want to buy a full subscription too. They need minor demographics, simple site management and one or two territories. Low friction to usage is again a highly desired feature...meaning "non-technical users".

Uploading a list is still important. Usually locations of existing sites or proposed.

Routing for frachisor's is also desired but more for sales gen leads. Again, all for ultimately selling to a potential franchisee.

Lastly 'sex' appeal. It helps to make it shiny and new.

Summary of top desired mapping options from Franchisor's:

Features:

* Quick to use, they don't need to spend all day on it.

* Easy to use, so anyone in the company can use it.

* Collaborative with decisions makers, perhaps franchisee's themselves.

* Allow multiple users on the same plan

* Demographics of course, how detailed is dependent on its use, but usually not much

* Sexy product that looks cutting edge

Benefits:

* Sell franchisee's

* Allow franchisee's to have faith in the franchisor.

* Strong communication between franchisor and franchisee

* Build trust between franchisor and franchisee

* Allow franchisee's to expand and grow

* Sexy product helps sell franchisee's, shows one's being in touch with the times

* Sell franchisee's (so important I had to list it twice)

So Sell, Sell, Sell is the main benefit.

Save Time, Time, Time is the second benefit.

The map is just the means to the ends