Franchise Update Magazine Issue II, 2015 | Page 52
GROWING YOUR SYSTEM
Salessmarts
Sell Your Marketing!
Candidates buy your marketing expertise
BY JIM BENDER
M
any of us have been in the franchise industry longer than…
well, a long time. At Franchise
System Builders we have had the fortunate
experience to work with many companies
and to become intimately involved with
their franchise offering, franchise development processes, and resulting successful operations.
Currently, we are working with our clients to update their disclosures for 2015.
Our review of several FDDs over the past
weeks again brought to our attention a
selling opportunity overlooked for years
by franchise development teams. This
opportunity runs through your website,
collateral materials, phone conferences,
discovery day meetings, and even
the FDD. It is an opportunity to
highlight a critical expertise of
your brand and establish another point of differentiation.
It also provides you the
opportunity to present
precisely what the vast
majority of candidates
want and need of their
franchisor partner.
The one core competency
every candidate wants and needs from
their franchisor partner is marketing expertise; or what I warmly refer to as the ability
to “put butts in the seats.” Candidates can
buy equipment and inventory and rent real
property, but success is not made of equipment alone. No matter how we phrase it,
candidates buy the brand’s ability to fill the
seats they just bought. To sell the inventory
they now own, they need the market research, test marketing, marketing agencies,
and the years of experience the franchise
company can provide.
Seems obvious that we should wave our
own marketing flag, doesn’t it? But let’s look
at how we sell our marketing expertise.
Most commonly we speak about local
store marketing managers who help the
franchisee plan and execute programs. We
talk about annual planners and provide a
50
library of materials approved for use. Some
concepts manage local co-ops, regional
or national ad buys, and placements. We
show great ads. We talk about social media campaigns, a digital presence, and brag
about our retail website. Then we dedicate
one or two hours of a multi-week training curriculum to marketing. (In far too
many FDDs marketing training does not
appear at all!)
We parade a host of marketing tactics
in front of franchise candidates when what
they really want to know is, “How do you
know what is the most effective marketing
strategy?” Our typical answer is “We know
through experience.” But that old answer
is not good enough. Tell them how you
know. Put it front and center. “We know
more about our customers than most in
this industry, and that knowledge is the
basis of why we do what we do and why
we expect you to do what we do. Best of
all, it works. Let me show you why…”
Nothing is more exciting to a group of
franchise candidates than market research
with intimate knowledge of the behavior
of their future customers. Tell them what
you know, how you know it, and why it
works. Nothing builds more leadership
credits for the franchisor than raw marketing knowledge.
More important, a focused presentation of your brand’s marketing expertise
expands your candidate’s horizons. As we
have all experienced, the majority of people
say “marketing” when they actually mean
either advertising or sales. Marketing spans
all aspects of your brand. It is the basis for
pricing and promotion structure, decor,
uniforms, vehicles, service, menu, and on
and on. Demonstrating the strong marketing foundations on which key strategies are
built creates even more leadership credits.
Best of all, a pinpoint focus on presenting
your brand’s marketing expertise provides
the opportunity to talk about resounding
success. The history of a store that turned
around with an infusion of new marketing
strategies (not budget) builds candidate
confidence in the brand’s abilities. The
development of a market that now excels
with a targeted marketing effort when only
random execution previously occurred
builds confidence in your support staff. Of
course, to have these types of discussions
you must have prepared the appropriate
Item 19 disclosures far in advance. (No
one ever said that good franchise development marketing does not take planning
and preparation.)
Simply stated, franchise candidates buy marketing. They may
say they buy your success
rate, AUV, gross margin
contribution, or lifestyle
proposition. But what
they are really saying is,
“I buy your marketing
expertise that generates the
AUV, reduces the ramp-up
curve, and ultimately provides
the lifestyle I seek.”
So openly discuss what you
know about putting butts in their seats and
you will sell more units. And double-check
the number of hours devoted to marketing
training in Item 11 for two