Franchise Update Magazine Issue II, 2012 | Page 44

Grow Market Lead

Challenge
the pros
What are you doing to improve
the speed and effectiveness
of your responses to prospects
evaluating your system?
Steve Cox
Vice President, Franchise Development
i9 Sports

To better position us to
reach our 2012 goal of
doubling franchise awards,
we recently revamped our
lead follow-up processes
to increase the speed and effectiveness
of our prospect follow-up.
Step one was the implementation of
Captivate from FranConnect. Prospects
want a lot of information before they are
willing to fully engage. With the implementation of Captivate, we are providing
prospects with more information than
ever. Our Captivate virtual brochure
provides them with the emotional hook
needed to engage them, while also providing them with the nuts and bolts of
our opportunity, which allows them to
determine (1) if investing time in the
discovery process makes sense for them,
and (2) if they qualify to engage.
Step two was hiring a lead qualifier.
His job is to engage prospects through a
series of three telephone calls and three
emails over a 10-day period. Prospects
reached are asked a few pre-qualifying
questions, and their basic questions are
answered. Our qualifier not only invites
all new prospects to a weekly webinar we
host, but for those ready to engage immediately he also offers an opportunity
for a one-on-one call with a development specialist.
Step three is for me to host the weekly
webinar for new prospects. This allows
us to reach out to prospects who haven’t
yet engaged fully with our franchise development team, but who are interested
in learning more about the franchise
opportunity. Since I am both our vice

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Franchiseupdate Iss u e II, 2 0 1 2

president of franchise development and
an i9 Sports franchisee, I look to bring
some real-world answers to our prospects
in these webinars. The webinar focuses
on who we are and provides an overview
of the opportunity and the support we
provide, followed by a Q&A session. The
call is wrapped up in one hour. The following day our qualifier is on the telephone working to schedule a follow-up
call with those who attended. We send
an email to those who missed the call,
with a link to a recording of the webinar.
Step four is a drip email campaign
designed to (1) keep us top-of-mind with
those looking at different opportunities,
and (2) serve as an ongoing touch point
with those who may be great prospects
but who are not quite ready to engage.
We believe these four steps will increase
our speed of follow-up, make us more
effective, and allow us to hit our goals.

Jim C. Brown
Vice President, Franchise Development
Comfort Keepers/CK Franchising

The in-home care sector
of franchising has become
extremely popular in the
past several years. More
new concepts are being
launched every year. In addition to more
competition, these new brands bring
more visibility to the sector. Our strategy and sales system have evolved since
Comfort Keepers began franchising in
1999. One foundation of our system has
remained the same, however: TKD, or
Time Kills Deals.
The first opportunity for engagement
with a potential prospect starts the clock
ticking. Most often, that first opportunity
is an Internet inquiry. Like many systems,

we use a CRM system that generates autoresponders and a drip email campaign.
The drip campaigns include links back to
high-interest areas of our website. Many
of our franchisee prospects are Baby
Boomers who still appreciate printed
materials. Because of this, we also mail
a small trifold brochure the same day we
receive the inquiry. Additionally, we send
a comprehensive information packet to
engaged prospects.
To connect as quickly as possible with
prospects, we have increased our sales staff.
Today we have three people working with
potential franchisees. In our process, we
believe phone skills are critical to success.
The truly golden opportunities are from
inbound inquiry calls. This first interaction is critical, and having a process for
that call is essential.
Comfort Keepers participates in the
annual Franchise Update Leadership
& Development Conference, which includes mystery shops. Additionally, at least
twice a year, we engage an independent
research company to do mystery shops.
Each sales team member receives at least
three calls with each engagement. The
company representatives listen for the key
process components we have identified.
We are supplied with a written report on
each shop, including a narrative of their
experience on each call. Our team is very
competitive and the mystery shop results
make for some lively sales meetings.
Comfort Keepers’ strategy and sales
system evolution is continuing this spring
when we launch a new, more interactive
engagement system for our web inquiries.
The goal is to more effectively communicate with truly interested prospects on
the front end, which in turn, will increase
opportunities for the sales team to optimize their time.

Dino Chavez
Director of Franchise Development
Pizza Inn/Pie Five Pizza

After years of declining
store sales, the slow economy, and the challenges
franchisee candidates face
in securing loans, the pressure and responsibilities of securing and
approving candidates falls back on the