TES Insights

3 Effective Ways to Create a Strong Experience

Most people would say, start exploring different methods of franchise development and marketing strategies. But there’s a crucial element to consider before you’re ready to start onboarding new franchisees, and it’s not what you think.

When working with franchise candidates, everything comes down to their experience.

It can be tempting to want to share all the new technologies and exciting programs you’ve implemented, the incredible “secret sauce” that keeps customers coming back, and tell the founder’s story of how he broke into the market so many years ago. These are all great features and benefits, but they are not what will make a franchisee enter into a 10-year relationship with you.

So then, what will?

Taking the time to understand this and develop a strong personal experience with each franchise candidate exploring your brand will make all the difference.

Think about every conversation and interaction with team members, each brand presentation and piece of marketing material – how will a franchise candidate feel after every interaction?

Will they feel like they can trust your brand and that your company’s vision and values aligns with their own? Will they feel as though your brand has their best interest in mind and as though their time, needs, motivations, and fears are valuable?

How do you create this experience for franchise candidates? Here are 3 effective ways to do this:

Meet the client where they’re at.

Being professionally persistent here is key. It’s their timeline, not yours.

Express early on that you’re there to educate them on your brand, and then work on their schedule as you guide them through the education process and through each conversation.

Often these people are juggling full time jobs, with children in school–or these days, at home–and these hard-working professionals and parents will deeply appreciate someone who understands that life happens, and respects their need to attend to needs or hurdles that will pop up.

This might mean that it takes longer than your anticipated or desired timeline, but it also means that you are setting up your relationship for long-term success. From a 10-year perspective, taking two or three months longer in the beginning of the relationship is a very small increment of time, and investing that additional time up front will pay off dividends in the end, and the candidate will appreciate it.

Lead with education.

The candidate is curious to learn more about your brand, but they don’t know what they don’t know.

Keep in mind that they are most likely exploring an industry, business model, and service or product that they never knew existed, and it will realistically take time for them to really understand the ins and outs and get excited about the brand. You know that your brand is awesome, give the candidate time to realize that too!

While this may take more time up front, it will be pay off in the long run when the candidate becomes a die-hard, raving fan as a franchisee.

Involve the whole team in the franchise development process.

It’s not uncommon that a single brand representative will guide the client through the education journey mentioned above, but consider peppering in other team members who may be able to shed light on a specific area in a way that builds the candidate’s trust in your brand, and allows them to get to peek behind the scenes at the entire support team.

This can often feel like a dance, and will most like need to be tweaked and adjusted, but franchisors that take this approach of introducing other team members to talk about marketing, or training & support, or even the founder of the company, see that this approach is effective in helping build excitement and trust in their brand, so that when the candidate comes to Discovery Day, they are simply solidifying what they already know to be true.

Taking some time to create your own franchise development strategy in order to deliver the best franchise candidate experience will ensure the entire team is onboard, and that the candidate receives a white-glove experience right from the first conversation through their 10th year anniversary as a franchisee.