Recruiting FranchiseesUltimately, a franchise system is only as good as the franchisees within it. It is therefore vital to commit the resources required to find high quality franchisees. Franchisee recruitment can also be a very expensive and time consuming process, so it is equally important to carefully plan and execute the recruitment process to ensure maximum return on your investment. The key elements of a successful recruitment strategy are: Lead GenerationThe choice of advertising options are numerous. Internet portals, magazines, exhibitions and newspapers will all take your money, but which ones work? - Do plenty or research and testing to find out which media work, but more specifically, which media work for your type of opportunity.
However; don't rely of direct advertising. It is important to explore other options, including PR, trade media and franchise consultants to help generate leads. Most franchisors initially under-estimate to volume of advertising required to generate sufficient leads, which is the lifeblood of the recruitment process. Lead ManagementHaving spent significant amounts of money on lead generation, many franchisors fall down on lead management.
Most are good at responding by sending literature to the candidate, but what next? - Do you follow up by phone?, if so, how quickly?, If you don't get through, do you keep trying until you do?, Do you log all the responses that you get? We run regular mystery shopping exercises on franchise opportunities. 100% of companies promptly send us some glossy literature. An astonishingly low percentage follow up our enquiry. - So; not only do they miss out on a possible sale, they can't meaningfully analyse the feedback from candidates. Selection ProcessA good franchisor with a strong proposition will have a clearly defined recruitment process. Although a prospective franchisee will be investing into the business, a successful franchisee will be able to follow the system and operating procedures of the business. The recruitment process is a good test of this!
You may have detailed application forms, psychometric tests, profiling tools and structured interviews, along with significant time to answer prospects questions and schedule validation visits. A good selection process will be different for each franchise; what is important is that the process is clearly defined and made clear to the prospective franchisee up front, including anticipated time scales. This will demonstrate your professional approach to business, help keep the prospects on track, and quickly identify time wasters. BudgetFranchisee recruitment can be an expensive process. Not only can advertising and promotion budgets balloon, but the management time involved in recruitment is usually under-estimated. Your budget should allow for the cost of all of the activities discussed above, not just the raw advertising. Summary Constant focus on lead generation is required to keep the pipeline of new franchisees full.
Pro-active lead management will put you ahead of most of you competitors.
It is vital that you can measure the effectiveness of your recruitment process, so a good CRM system is highly recommended.
Ensure that you have a clearly defined process for managing franchise applicants | 
