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Franchise Sales & Development

For Franchisors Who Need a Better Sales Engine

Franchise Sales, Franchise Development, Mutual Evaluation; regardless of how you phrase it, franchise sales is a challenge!

First, “franchise sales” is a misnomer; if you have to “sell” someone on your brand, they are likely not a good fit. Done correctly, franchise development is a mutual evaluation process where the candidate is deciding whether to change their life, and the franchisor is deciding whether that person belongs in the system. If you are new to this, you may find yourself thinking, “How can I convince this person that my franchise is the right one?” The better question is, “How can I help them determine whether my brand is right for them while simultaneously making sure they are someone I am interested in doing business with for the next decade or two?” That is why franchise sales requires more discipline, more process, and a different lens than most companies expect when they first try to grow.

What is Franchise Development?

To begin, let us establish terminology. If you have been exploring the idea of bringing in outside franchise experts, you have likely heard the terms franchise sales and franchise development used both seemingly to refer to the same thing, and at other times obviously referring to two different subjects. The reason for this dissonance is that the latter of the two can be used with two completely different meanings.

On one hand, the term Franchise Development is typically a euphemism for franchise sales. It is used as such because franchise sales is in many ways counter-intuitive; a franchise development professional is constantly looking for reasons not to sell a given prospect a franchise. That is not to say that other salespeople are not professional or discerning, but rarely do salespeople have a legal obligation to disclose the name and contact information of all of their current and some of their past customers. A franchise development professional truly is “developing”; every time they help the right person into a franchise, or recognize a poor candidate, they are developing the longevity of the brand.

Alternatively, Franchise Development can be used to refer to the process of taking a small business and turning it into a franchise (which we cover under the franchise startup section of this site). There is nothing inherently “right” about either usage. For consistency’s sake, however, we will use Franchise Development solely to address the various aspects of the franchise mutual evaluation and sales process.

In practical terms, that usually means four connected disciplines:

• lead generation
• lead nurturing and follow-up
• the franchise sales process itself
• management judgment around fit, pace, and growth

If any one of those breaks down, the whole system gets noisy. You can have plenty of leads and still not have a healthy sales engine. You can have a decent close rate and still be bringing the wrong people into the brand. You can have motivated salespeople and still have a weak process.

Where Franchisors Usually Get Stuck

Most franchisors do not struggle because they care too much about process. They struggle because franchise sales looks simpler from the outside than it actually is.

Common problems sound like this:

• We have leads, but not the right leads.
• We are getting portal or broker activity, but we do not know what is really working.
• Our follow-up is inconsistent from one salesperson to the next.
• Candidates are making it too far before we realize they are not a fit.
• We are not sure whether to build this in-house or outsource it.
• We know franchise sales matters, but we do not have the time or internal structure to run it well.

Those are not separate problems. They are usually symptoms of the same thing: the franchise sales function is not yet operating as a coherent system.

Outsourced Franchise Development

Many franchisors make the decision to outsource their franchise development process. Some start in the business that way and never change, and some do not make this decision until they have established a base of franchisees. Still others attempt to make a go at it alone and realize that either franchise sales is not their forte or they simply do not have the time available to commit to a real franchise sales process.

If you are uncertain whether outsourcing is the right solution for you, you may find reviewing the reasons to outsource franchise development helpful.

Choosing Your Partner

If you are considering outsourcing, it is important to select the best outsourced franchise development solution. Where you are in the life-cycle of a franchisor, what expertise you have in-house, and what type of franchise program you offer will all play into the decision of whether outsourcing is the right choice, and what company is a good fit.

If you are in the process of franchising, your franchise consultant will most likely be intimately involved in most of your day-to-day decisions; what executives to bring on, how to market your franchise, what information should be contained in the FDD, how to write your Operations Manual, and much more. In this case you need to have access to individuals with real-world franchisor experience. If your system is more mature and you are simply considering outsourcing your sales efforts, your consultant will need to have a deep and nuanced understanding of the mutual evaluation process, and the character traits that you value in a prospective candidate, or who succeeds well in your system.

In this case you simply need a true franchise sales expert.

Lead Generation

Regardless of whether your franchise development team is in-house or you decide on an outsourced solution, franchise lead generation is pivotal to success in a franchise business.

Understanding where your particular brand can best source prospective franchisees, and evaluating the ever-changing landscape of both franchise lead generation and your individual brand is critical for sustained growth. Franchise leads can come from many sources including portals, franchise brokers, your website, and even your franchisees. Not every lead source produces the same kind of candidate, and not every source should be worked the same way.

The Franchise Sales Process

Many franchisors do not understand how necessary a complete, documented, and followed franchise sales process is. If you are at the point of selling franchises, you have already gone through the exercise of developing an Operations Manual, and likely at a very detailed level. Franchise sales should be approached from this same mentality.

Once a candidate enters the system, the real work is the mutual evaluation process: qualification, program review, validation, and closing. That process should help the right candidates move forward and help the wrong candidates opt out before they become costly mistakes.

How to Use This Section

If your main issue is lead quality or lead mix, go deeper into franchise lead generation.

If your main issue is process discipline, candidate flow, or follow-up structure, go deeper into the franchise sales process and related articles.

If your main issue is whether you need outside help, the pages on outsourcing, partner selection, and Be First or Be Last will give you a better sense of what kind of support or structure makes sense.

This is the top of the silo: the place where the moving parts come into focus so you can see what kind of problem you are actually trying to solve.

Franchise Development is our specialty. We have taken several brands to the top of the sector. If you need help identifying whether your real issue is lead generation, process, execution, partner selection, or overall sales infrastructure, Franchise Beacon can help you figure out where the actual bottleneck is.