Franchise Update Magazine Issue III, 2012 | Page 16

Grow Market Lead

By Evan Hackel

Optimize
Your Franchisee Conventions
Generating maximum attendance

T

his is the first of a three-part
series on how to optimize
your franchisee conventions.
In this first part, we examine
how to get more franchisees to attend
your conventions. In the second, we will
address how to get the maximum benefit
from your conventions. Finally, in the
third part, we will look at how you can
extend the life of your conventions and
ensure you derive the maximum benefit
from them.
No singular event is as powerful
as your convention in terms of communicating with your franchisees. It
is the single most effective form of
franchisor-franchisee communication.
According to Katrina Mitchell, CEO
of Speak!, “A key investment for most

franchise systems is their annual franchise convention. With careful planning and a focus on what you want
your franchisees to take away from the
experience, your annual meeting can
have a tremendously positive effect on
a franchisee’s productivity, profitability,
and passion for the brand.” Because of
this investment, it is critical that you
maximize this event. Part of maximization is high attendance.
No matter how great your convention content and agenda are, if you
are delivering it to an empty room it
has no value to your system. Perhaps
more frustrating than no franchisees
attending is when only half of them
show up. This results in part of your
system being extremely excited and

motivated, and the other part significantly lagging behind. It is critical
that you have as close to 100 percent
attendance as possible.
Recently, Speak!, Ingage Consulting, and Franchise Business Review
conducted an online survey of franchisors about their franchisee conventions.
Nearly 200 franchisors responded. The
following are some of the survey results.
Maximizing attendance

The question is, how do you maximize
attendance? The long-term answer to
this issue is to have an event so valuable
that no franchisee would want to miss
it. This topic will be addressed in the
second part of this series. So let’s look
at some short-term ideas:

What percentage of your franchisees
typically attend your conference/convention?
What are your requirements
for attendance?

21-40%

8.5%

81-100%

41-60%

20.2%

41.0%

No
requirement

Mandatory and
we enforce

20.2%

41.0%
12.2%

30.3%
61-80%

26.6%
Mandatory,
but we do not
enforce

14

Franchiseupdate Iss u e III, 2 0 1 2

Mandatory
and we
selectively
enforce