How to create a great franchise recruitment strategy

So you have franchised your business, have all your documentation in place and now you are ready to take your franchise opportunity into the market and find your ideal franchisee’s, so where do you start?

• Franchisee profiling – Do you know the ideal person that is most likely to buy and more importantly succeed running your franchise? Take at look at yourself and others within your business that are working really well and analyse age, background, previous experience. Basically you are seeking to create a demographic profile of you and/or your top performers so you can use this a a criteria not just for selection but alsi when putting together your lead generation strategy.
• Franchisee recruitment process – You need a defined structure for your franchisee recruitment. As soon as someone makes an enquiry they are building up an image of your business so you need to ensure every communication is both professional and conveys your brand correctly. The process could include a series or emails, SMS marketing, telephone calls, informal meetings via video or in person and perhaps face to face meetings via regional franchise Discovery Days. You need to clearly define your process and record every communication so it’s consistent and accurate, that way you can easily track engagements and conversions and tweak the process to maximize your franchisee recruitment.

Once you have a detailed plan for the above you can then take putting together your franchise lead generation strategy which could include the following;

• Franchise portals/directories – Probably the most cost effective way to generate franchise recruitment lead online and generally drive leads at the lowest Cost Per Lead or CPL.
• Social media marketing – Great way to target demographically to hit your ideal candidate as per your ideal franchisee profile. Leads & conversions generally more expensive.
• Paid search ( PPC ) – Great way to drive highly targeted leads by search terms & geographic areas although the downside is lots of competition and these leads can be very expensive to generate
• Franchise & business shows – These sorts of events have been losing a lot of traction over the last 10 years but can still be a great way to meet new and existing prospective franchisees although compared to digital marketing CPL is very high.
• Vertical marketing/PR – Trade magazine, newspapers are a great way to target demographically & geographically via paid adverts & PR.

To find out more about franchisee recruitment strategies why not book a free consultation with one of our franchising experts & complete the form below

About The Author

Joel Bissitt

Joel has been an entrepreneur since the age of 19, now 33 years on he has experience of many different industries including retail, catering, health & fitness, technology and sport. Joel is our MD, the CEO of the Quality Franchise Association & has been a Franchisor twice himself. He is also founder of Franchise UK, the UK’s largest online franchise directory established in 2004 and owns other franchising publications including Franchiseek, an international franchise directory. Through these roles Joel has helped hundreds of franchise brands grow over the last 20+ years.

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