The discussion in the franchising world is shifting from how to find franchisees to how to find good franchisees. If you are finding that you’re receiving a lot of leads but few of them are high-quality ones, then you may need to rethink your franchise recruitment process.
But what is franchise recruitment, why is it important and what options are available to you to help you find the best candidates for your franchise business? We take a closer look below.
Table of contents:
What is franchise recruitment?
Many franchisors already know that franchisee recruitment can be a lengthy and often difficult task. The reason is that this is a multi-step process of “discovering” the right candidate and ensuring that all bases are covered.
To achieve this, franchisors conduct interviews with the candidates; enabling them to meet other franchisees and the corporate team; as well as offer Q&A sessions.
Other parts of the franchisee recruitment process may include webinars; providing both in-person and online tours of the franchise locations; and preparing the franchise disclosure document, franchise agreement and operations manual.
All this amounts to a lot of time and resources to get it right. As such, usually, finding the right candidate(s) might feel like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Why is it important to hire the right franchisees?
When done right, franchise recruitment can offer the franchisor many opportunities. This is why the importance of franchise recruitment cannot be overstated.
Some of the reasons why it’s important to hire the right franchisees include:
- Franchisees are essential for building a franchise business;
- The right process can reduce losses in precious time and resources;
- The wrong process can set back a company’s growth for several years;
- Finding operators with a proven track record of success means better potential for both parties to experience growth;
- Incorrect franchise recruitment can quickly stall a franchisor’s plans for expansion in addition to being a draining process;
- Poor selection of franchisees can potentially damage your brand;
- Franchise owners can expand their reach and boost their profits with the right people; and
- A quality process enables franchisors to focus on big-picture projects such as strategy, market analysis and growth projections.
How to hire franchisees
Having covered the importance of the right franchisee recruitment process to help grow your franchise business, it’s now time to take a look at the actual options you have in terms of how to recruit new franchisees.
Here are several steps you can follow. Their order is not mandatory and neither are all the steps relevant to every franchisor. However, these options can help broaden your horizons quite significantly and quickly. Let’s take a look.
Step 1: Identify your ideal franchisee
Many franchisors do not approach their franchise recruitment process by first starting out with determining their ideal franchisee persona. This persona is a must and it can be developed by using demographics such as age, gender and even professional experience.
However, it’s also crucial to look at the person’s psychological make up: what drives them to succeed? How hard are they willing to work to make a success of their business? Do they have the necessary commitment to continue along on the journey with your franchise?
Looking at these criteria sometimes means going beyond cold facts and figures and rather venturing into the “softer”, less easily determinable side of an ideal franchisee as well.
Step 2: Pick your industry events wisely
Industry events are not suitable for every franchise. But if you do opt for these, make sure you deploy a consistent, transparent and professional approach in order to attract solid candidates.
Also important to note is your executive team’s participation at conferences and trade shows. These are usually planned months in advance, and if you have a speaking spot available, you need to also be willing to participate in discussion panels and roundtables.
Your presentations should be ready at least six months to a year before the actual event. And when you prepare these, you must ensure that they stand out from the pitches made by your competitors.
Although these events can be costly, they do allow you to meet prospects face-to-face.
Step 3: Cultivate a strong company culture
This is a more indirect way of drawing in potential franchisees, but you should be aware that most of them will be doing their research online.
This means you should be emphasising any and all aspects of your business offering online that will make your franchise stand out.
These can include back-office tools, CRM systems, proprietary software and others.
Step 4: Pinpoint brand advocates
Don’t be afraid to rely on your existing network of franchisees to spread the word about your franchise opportunity.
Pick out top performers and ask them to be a part of your franchisee recruitment plans.
Make sure they have an open line of communication with the executive team so that they are on the right track.
Step 5: Solidify your online presence
As we already mentioned above, most prospective franchisees will be doing their research online. This is why it’s essential to be able to cater to these changing trends and have a strong online presence that’s specifically targeted at potential candidates.
Things to consider during this step include:
- Website: which clearly outlines your requirements and expectations
- Paid search/Google AdWords or pay-per-click advertising
- Franchise portals and directories
- Email marketing
- Social media adverts
- Local search engine optimisation
- Local marketing
Step 6: Seek and reward quality referrals
You’ve got several options here: franchise referral consultants, organic referrals and internal referrals. Also, don’t be afraid to look for potential franchisees in your existing customer base.
With the latter two options, however, you can get referrals and reward the referring party with some form of compensation if the prospect works out.
This can be a much more affordable option than choosing franchise referral consultants, whose fees may, indeed, be quite hefty.
Step 7: Use every opportunity to screen candidates
Once you’ve covered steps one through six, you would have had the chance to interact with some of your prospects already. However, this opportunity needs to be maximised to its full potential.
Don’t use Discovery Days as your only time to screen a candidate. Instead, make it a priority to get as much depth of information about their professional ambitions as possible.
Aspects to consider include their career ambitions, values and reasons for getting in touch with you, previous experience and qualifications and the status of their finances.
Once you create a list of the qualities you value, use it to evaluate the franchisees at every stage of your franchisee recruitment process. Watch out for the ways in which they interact with all the different people in your organisation. Check if they have done their homework. Establish if they have a good personal support network as this will be important for them along their franchising journey.
Wrapping up
As one of the most cost-effective and quickest ways to get quality leads for your franchise business, working with one of the industry’s best franchise portals – Franchise Fame – is an ideal solution. It’s a great way of solidifying your online presence while attracting the right candidates to your franchise.
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