The one-two punch for attracting franchisees

Every franchisor can utilise these invaluable tools when looking for new talent

When you market your franchise opportunity, you want to make it as appealing to the right sort of people as possible – the ones who fit your franchisee profile.

There’s no point trying to cast a giant marketing net over the whole of the U.K. and everybody in it when in reality you are maybe only trying to attract 50 people in quite specific areas of the country. So, what tools do you have at your disposal that can really hit the mark?

Case studies

One of the most valuable, and cheapest to produce marketing tools available to an up-and-running franchise, is the franchisee case study. So why so valuable? It can offer a prospect two things that you, as the franchisor, normally cannot.

Firstly, all your franchisees have once stood exactly where the people researching your franchise are standing right now. You built a business and franchised it, whereas your franchisees wanted to ‘work for themselves but not by themselves’, so researched franchising to find the most suitable opportunity for them. This is the relatable element that is so crucial in a case study.

Prospects will likely be trying to weigh up the pros and cons of leaving a job, with a salary and benefits, to take a serious leap of faith into running a replica of the business you created. You really can’t underestimate the level of trust you are asking for from a prospect to join your network. This is where the second most valuable element of a franchisee case study comes in – the third-party endorsement.

Don’t underestimate the endorsement

In a world where Amazon has become most people’s first port of call when buying anything from a frying pan to a new TV, and where TripAdvisor helps us decide where to go on holiday, and where CheckATrade tells us who’s our best bet locally to fit a new tap, we are hugely influenced by the reviews of people we don’t even know. When it comes to a prospect making their decision, there is nothing more powerful than the endorsement of your existing franchisees who all made the leap of faith and are now, hopefully, reaping the benefits of doing so.

Of course, the aim of the case study shouldn’t be simply to have a franchisee repeat your marketing messages about what makes your brand so great and how well they are doing. What matters is the human element of that person’s journey to become a franchisee – the decisions they made, how they overcame their own objections, and those of their partners perhaps, that will really resonate with a prospect who is going through that exact experience in real-time.

It’s why prospects spending time with a positive franchisee is such an important part of your recruitment process, and why having successful franchisees with you at an exhibition can be so powerful.

Prospects want to read positive case studies full of insight and relatable human elements from happy and successful franchisees, or if your network is in its infancy, a franchisee who is happy and feeling confident that they are ‘on their way’ to becoming successful.

The author

Suzie McCafferty is CEO of franchise consultancy Platinum Wave.