From Lead to Launch: Understanding Your Ideal Franchisee
An integral element in any franchise business is franchisee recruitment. It’s often a subject that comes up early in discussions about the franchise journey with a new franchisor, or indeed how to improve recruitment processes with more established franchisors.
Firstly, ensure you have a defined recruitment process and follow it from the initial enquiry right through to signing the franchise agreement and beyond. That is training programmes and supporting franchisees to plan and execute a successful launch.
One key tip I always give to my clients is to remember that you are “awarding franchises, not selling a franchise”.
There’s an important, but subtle difference in the approach. Awarding franchises will ensure you are in the right mindset when recruiting franchisees. And remember, quality of franchise partners matters far more than quantity… always!
Design your recruitment process to filter prospects so that you only progress with the strongest candidates.
To understand your ideal franchisee, you first need to drill down to the key qualities a franchisee will need to operate your business successfully.
To do that, spend time carefully building a franchisee profile, one that highlights the non-negotiables. The profile should include the absolute must-have experiences, skills and behaviours, plus the “nice to have traits”. For example, if your business is highly sales and target driven, then a strong track record in sales will be important.
When building your franchisee profile, think about the skills that you can teach versus the traits that you can’t. For example, you can train customer service, business operations, and marketing. However, it’s not easy to train work ethic, respect for the brand, organisational skills, accountability or resilience.
Get to know your prospect franchisees:
- Meet face-to-face at The Franchise Exhibitions or one-to-one.
- Invite pre-qualified prospects to meet you and your team at your location.
- Set up Discovery Days to share full, open details about the business, how it operates and the skills required.
- Be transparent about the key tasks franchisees will typically undertake on any given day.
Recruiting franchisees is a 2-way process. Whilst you should share detailed information about your business, make sure you ask probing questions of prospects. Check out their career to date, what motivates them, why they want to own and operate your franchise system and ensure they have the financial capabilities to invest.
Ask franchisees to complete a detailed application form to give you a full understanding of the prospect and their suitability to become a successful long-term franchise partner.
In summary, understanding your ideal franchisee involves carefully considering the skills and experience a franchisee must have to be successful in operating your brand.
Franchisee profiling, a structured recruitment process, taking time to get to know prospects and rigorously applying the process will ultimately result in you recruiting franchise partners who have the skills, aptitude, and determination to build a successful franchise business.
Read next: Current Trends in Generating High-Quality Franchisee Leads in the From Lead to Launch series for more insights into strengthening your franchise recruitment journey.
