This is the final post in a week-long recap of my 2012 interview with Renee Bailey of Franchise Direct. The title of the post in Franchise Direct was “Marketing, Media and Franchising – An Interview with Paul Segreto”. The full interview may be read HERE. But if you’ve been reading along this week, the following represents my final answer along with some parting advice for prospective franchisees.

In August of 2011, HubSpot explored why every franchisee needs their own website (story link: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/bid/22027/). Does this relate to your philosophy that individual brands enhance the overall franchise system?

Yes. I don’t think that it can be argued that a franchise organization with franchisees with strong personal branding wouldn’t be significantly stronger than a system with franchisees that just stand behind the counter.

Now, I’m not degrading the efforts of franchisees that strive for 100% customer satisfaction and are willing to put in long hours to ensure the same. But with a strong personal brand that reaches into the local community, franchisees would be more successful driving the business. I refer to this as “GOYA marketing” – Get Off Your Ass marketing. Here’s the great part of GOYA marketing… in today’s digital world, much of the personal branding can be done online!

Are there any additional insights you would like to share with prospective franchisees?

It doesn’t matter what your level of investment, or visibility and strength of the brand, the key to your success is YOU! Yes, I am a firm believer in location, location, location, and I always stress not to fall so in love with a brand that you accept a secondary location because that is a recipe for failure. But as important is for me to stress: You, you, you.

Until next time, this is Paul Segreto, wishing you the best, the very best, in this great thing we call franchising!