Franchise Marketing Systems works through an experienced team of franchise consultants and franchise development experts to design, build and customize franchise programs for businesses. Through this refined process, businesses have the ability to grow and replicate through franchising. Go into the franchise development process knowing that you have the tools and experience behind you to successfully franchise your business.

Building a business is a time consuming and life changing experience. It takes years of work to build most businesses and even years more to realize financial returns from them. Franchising a business or growing through licensing can have the same sort of growth pattern that a typical franchise development model might follow. The first year or so may be a slower build up as marketing, PR and sweat equity get the word out regarding a business opportunity and then people begin to buy in. The really intriguing element of franchising or licensing is that once the system begins to build momentum it can have a tremendous snow ball effect and the growth can develop exponentially.

In following this process of building a franchise system and replicating a business model, it is critical to allow for new partners to have their own feeling of ownership. If someone joins a franchise or license model and feels that they are treated as an employee or less than equal in the business relationship, it is very typical for these systems to struggle. The franchise organizations that have succeeded in a short time period have done so through a culture and relationship model that breeds cooperative work together. The Franchisor and Franchisees do not look at one another as different parties, they are a team and both have the same goals in building the franchise system they are a part of.

Individuals often ask us about what franchise development steps they should be taking to franchise their businesses.

This list contains items that are elements of your business or operational model that you may choose to work with in order to position your business and brand for franchise growth. They do not replace the need for franchise development, but supplement this work and will assist in streamlining the process of taking the organization from where it is today to the franchise marketplace.

1. Build your brand

• If you haven’t already, build your web presence.
• Website – It should be professional, clean and clear
• Social Media – Have a presence on the major sites such as twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+
• Develop an email template and gather targeted Email lists for your customers and prospects. These should be clean and professional with consistent signatures
• Develop collateral material in place that you use to market to your customers and prospects
• Collateral materials can come in the form of Brochures, flier, business cards, etc. They should be professionally produced.
• Electronic copies of all of your collateral materials are also very important.

2. Understand your sales process

• Document your call script – what do you say to customers to get them to buy?
• Document your marketing process. Documenting some of the following elements will be helpful:
  • What are you best sources for lead generation?
  • How do you create a value proposition? It is important to document this process. How do you close business and get new customers?

3. Know how you manage your “back-end”

• Delivery of services – You don’t necessarily need to have everything down on paper, but you should know how you deliver your product or services to the customer (bake the bread, make the product or clean the carpets, etc.)
• How do you manage your cash flow? You should have a fairly good understanding of how you would coach someone in how to manage the finances of a franchise.

4. Where do you buy products and inventory?

• It is important in franchise development also to understand where you would direct someone to purchase the needed supplies and inventory. Items such as, but not limited to, the following should be provided:
  • Equipment
  • Machinery
  • inventory items
• You would need to provide vendor lists and contacts.

5. Get to know your training process

• What would you cover when training a new franchisee? What is the best way to train them:
  • Curriculum? What type of a curriculum would you use?
  • What schedule would you use for the training?
  • Who does what? Would you train the franchisee yourself or bring in a trainer? How much time would this take?

Let the Experts at Franchise Marketing Systems Guide you Through the Franchise Development Process. Contact us today at 800-610-0292.