Every franchise buyer wants to know how much money they can make. What are you going to tell them?
New franchisee recruitment & sales is very competitive with more franchise brand options available today than at any time in the history of franchising.
All of them are competing for your prospects.
Qualified franchise buyers might not be enthusiastic enough to buy your franchise, right now. You have to give them compelling evidence.
Here's how some franchise sellers succeed in selling in this recovering economy: using creative, imaginative, but magical communications to convert prospects to franchise buyers.
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Partner with an industry or business publication. Give a stellar interview explaining the strength of your concept's unit level sales performance to the journalist. Of course have links to the articles on your website and send it out in your drip email campaigns.
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Use social media chatting where you can explain the important key performance indicators on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ forums.
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Blogging is a terrific way to get the word out to potential buyers. Contract with blogger journalists for hire who will write success stories about your business model including key franchisee interviews.
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An Investment ratio is a simple and common creative way for your prospects to do the simple calculation for gross revenue.
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Direct your franchise candidates to your select high performing franchisees who will share their P&Ls with franchise candidates.
All of these tried and true franchise prospect "confidence builders" work very well since every franchise-buyer wants to know how much money they can make.
And you should use them only if you are willing to sell franchises both recklessly and carelessly.
So what should you do instead?
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Stop believing in magic.
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Make sure your franchise model Return-On-Invested-Cash - ROIC works for franchisees.
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Give the evidence your franchise concept is investment worthy by including a detailed Item 19 Financial Performance Representation - FPR in your Franchise Disclosure Document - FDD.
It's really that simple.
Franchise buyers demand business model performance evidence. Give it to them and you'll attract better qualified franchisees and sell more.
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Point 5 is dead on: Direct your franchise candidates to your select high performing franchisees who will share their P&Ls with franchise candidates.
Owning 2 franchises in the past and speaking with 100's of franchises over the years I can't say enough about the value of validating any business with other existing owners.
High performing is important, but I definitely believe interested franchisees can learn a lot from those who aren't in the top also. If it helps someone learn earlier they're not a right fit for the franchise it helps the franchisor have franchisees with higher chances of success.
I don't think it such a good idea for a franchise seller to send prospective franchise buyers to hand-picked existing franchisees who the franchisor or franchise seller knows has P&Ls to share with buyers.
A franchisor shouldn't make an earnings claim through a 3rd party.
Franchisors should have detailed Item 19 FPRs so they can make franchise sales with strong foundations and have a competitive advantage over franchisors with weak business models that don't have an earnings claim.