Utilizing Social Media for Franchise Success

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I believe anything a franchisor does should be done to benefit the franchise relationship, and social media plays perfectly into this philosophy as it affords interactivity at all stages of the franchise relationship. From prospecting for qualified franchise candidates to supporting current franchisees, the utilization of social media tools and technology creates environments that strengthen relationships, shares information, provides two-way communications, and provides points of reference for follow up. It creates a multi-tiered platform of information that benefits both franchise development and customer generation efforts alike. Often, simultaneously.

For franchise startups, the founder’s vision of the concept is paramount to future success. They are perceived as the concept. They are essentially the brand. At least until a significant number of franchises are awarded and brand awareness is established across multiple markets, they are the inspiration for franchise candidates. The benefit to spreading this message through social media outlets such as social networking, video sharing, blogs, etc. is that these tools and associated strategies will generate direct excitement about the business model while generating subliminal, subtle interest in the franchise concept. This establishes a perfect foundation for growth. It also defines a very worthwhile, visible support mechanism for franchisees. Of course, it’s imperative to have a well-defined support system in place for training and assisting franchisees.

For established franchise brands, it’s a matter of improving brand awareness in current markets while creating brand awareness in new markets, and markets that are on the horizon for expansion. Again, as with startup franchise concepts, the interactivity created by social media makes it a viable option in driving customers to franchise locations and generating interest in the franchise concept. But, what’s important in a mature system, and a complement to its franchise development efforts, is the improvement of communications throughout the franchise system that is created by social media activity and ultimately lends itself to validation of the franchise concept by the franchisees. For once, franchisees are feeling part of the franchise development process as it’s visible in the organization’s social media efforts. Something that many franchisees have not been a part of in the past.


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Franchise Failure – Why Does it Occur?

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Ivan Widjaya, author of the Franchise Note blog, recently posted about franchise failure. In the post, Ivan listed these five reasons why established franchises fail:

1. Franchisors compromise too much, franchisees demand too much.
2. Franchisors don’t listen to their franchisees, and vice versa.
3. Franchisors are busy taking care of bad franchisees, bad performing franchisees are becoming “traitors.”
4. Franchisors don’t have strong Management Team, franchisees ask the franchise support team too much.
5. Franchisors make things too complicated, franchisee can’t seem to be able to follow simple rules.

His thoughts behind each may be reviewed HERE.

Certainly, this list is not complete, and I felt compelled to add as follows:

Poor franchise training program – A sustainable franchise system must have an effective, comprehensive training program complete with well-defined and documented process and procedures. Such processes and procedures should be tried and true, and relatively simple to replicate at the unit level. In addition, it is imperative to franchise succees to offer continued training as well as initial training. I agree as the author has indicated, that many franchisors make things too complicated. So, the key is simplicity, but not at the expense of diminishing best practices.

Inadequate franchise marketing programs – Strong franchise marketing programs are essential to franchise success at both the franchisor and franchisee levels, and should be integrated to ensure brand awareness. Poor brand awareness is a key component in many franchise system failures. The failures are the result of poor unit level sales, minimal interest in the franchise opportunity, and of course, poor communications throughout the system. The latter occurs as the system begins to crumble. In the years since I’ve been responsible for directing two major franchise systems, I’ve been repeatedly asked what I would do differently today? My answer is always, “drive leads to the franchisees!” as everything revolves around franchisee success… increased royalty stream, franchisee profitability, system validation, brand expansion, etc…

Of course, there are many other factors leading to franchisor failure that could be debated until the cows come home. But, this is a great start, and it’s important to get this out in the open and discuss so as to minimize failure at any level. For that, I applaud Ivan for choosing this topic, and encourage many more responses.


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Optimizing Your Social Networking Presence

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Whether you’re establishing your presence on Facebook, LinkedIn or any of the other social networking sites, it’s important to get the most out of your experience for it to be effective in your marketing efforts. Basically, it’s important to optimize your social networking presence. In the book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR, the author, David Meerman Scott, detailed how to get the most out of social networking sites for marketing with the following suggestions:

Target a Specific Audience – Create a page that reaches an audience that is important to your organization. It is important to be thinking about a small niche market.

Be a Thought Leader – Provide valuable and interesting information that people want to check out. It is better to show your expertise or at solving problems than to blabber on about your product or company.

Be Authentic and Transparent – Don’t try to impersonate someone else. It is sleazy and could do irreparable harm to your company and to your reputation.

Create Lots of Links – Link up to your own sites and blogs, and those of others in your industry and network!

Encourage People to Contact You – Make it easy for people to reach you online, and be sure to follow up personally on your fan mail.

Participate – Create groups and participate in online discussions. Become an online leader and organizer.

Make it Easy to Find You – Tag your pages and add your pages into the subject directories. Encourage others to bookmark your pages.

Experiment – These sites are great because you can try new things. If it isn’t working, tweak it, or try something new.


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Making the Case for Social Media Policies in Franchising

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Yesterday, within the IFA Group on LinkedIn, a discussion entitled Why You Don’t Need A Social Media Policy was started regarding social media policies within franchising. Of course, I was compelled to chime in…

It is my position that franchisors would be negligent and irresponsible not to have a social media policy in place. At the very least, they should be working towards one. I could go on about protecting the trademark, system development, etc but with everyone’s experience and understanding of franchise best practices in this group, I’ll just focus on social media for now.

While I do agree “local” is where it’s at, it is still communications, marketing, pr, messages that are being put out there on socail media and just as franchises have established policies, procedures, guidelines, processes, etc for operations, marketing, advertising, etc, it is imperative the same be done for social media.

I’ve spent most of the morning trying to find any article, blog, comment taking the position of not having a social media policy within franchising. I have not found one. But, I have found many franchise professionals that have written and posted about the necessity of having social media polciies within franchising. So, if you don’t agree with my position, allow me to direct you to links from several franchise professionals that feel it is best practice to develop social media policies for franchise brands.

http://blog.wsidigitalmarketing.com/index.php/social-media/do-we-need-a-social-media-policy/

http://www.allbusiness.com/company-activities-management/company-structures/14292073-1.html

http://www.franchise.org/Franchise-Industry-News-Detail.aspx?id=50532

http://www.expansionexperts.com/blog/tag/social-media/

By the way, I don’t believe social media policies should be one-size-fits-all just as I believe a social media program should not be cookie-cutter. To arbitrarily state that all franchisees should have a facebook account and / or a twitter account is not a good or well-thought out recommendation. Determining what social media to effectively use within a franchise system is a process in and of itself. The key word here is “effectively.”

Being effective within social media takes planning. It takes identifying targets and where they congregate and communicate online. It takes determining financial and human resources to engage, monitor and manage the chosen social media platforms. It takes an understanding of the objectives to utilize social media and to have clear, concise expectations. In essence, it takes a strategy to develop, a plan to execute and results to analyze.

Once this phase is complete, a social media toolkit should be developed, franchisees (and franchisor personnel) should be trained, and the program launched. Anything less, in my opinion and from my perspective is less than best practices within franchising.

Franchising is all about uniformity and consistency from one location to another. It’s about systems that provide the foundation to uniformity and consistency. And, it’s about the policies and procedures that ensure that uniformity and consistency that makes franchising successful… And, I don’t believe that’s just my opinion!


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Integrated Franchise Marketing For Franchise Success At All Levels

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Integrated Franchise Marketing (IFM) is a term we use at franchisEssentials to describe a comprehensive approach to achieving multiple goals and objectives within start-up, emerging and mature franchise organizations. IFM directs its focus on creating or improving brand awareness for the franchise organization at local, regional and national levels, driving revenue for franchisees, and generating genuine interest in the franchise concept itself.

The key to IFM is the development of a comprehensive marketing strategy that benefits the entire franchise organization, and is in line with the goals and objectives of all parties to the franchise agreement. It includes coordination at all levels to deliver concise, consistent messages that ultimately ensures positive results at franchisee and franchisor levels including:

Franchisee Level

* Local brand awareness
* Increased sales
* Improved communications with corporate office
* Improved communications with fellow franchisees
* Improved profitability
* Increased business value

Franchisor Level

* Regional & National brand awareness
* Increased royalty revenue
* Improved communications with franchisees
* Improved franchisee validation
* Increased interest in franchise concept
* Improved profitability

IFM works within traditional marketing methods and processes through and in conjunction with a very wide spectrum of non-traditional marketing and today’s unique, innovative tools and technology including the many aspects of social media, mobile, and email marketing. In addition, IFM encourages a cohesive, team effort at all levels of the franchise organization through information sharing and process awareness, enhanced by a solid educational approach.

As we are at the halfway point in 2010, and understanding that making things happen in the third quarter is crucial to overall success for the year, there’s no time like the present to develop and implement a plan that will help all within your franchise organization achieve their goals and objectives.

For more information about utilizing Integrated Franchise Marketing (IFM) within your franchise organization please contact Paul Segreto by email or by phone at 832.838.4822.


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3rd Quarter is Key for 2010 Success!

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What happened to the first half of 2010? July 1st started the 3rd Quarter. In football, this quarter is key to the outcome of the game. In business, it’s no different.

Corrections must be made on problems and challenges from the first half. Improvements must be made on things that were headed in the right direction, but not quite as effective as you’d like. And, significant changes must be made if the game plan just isn’t working (be sure to look at execution of plan as well).

So, whether you’re building upon that first half lead or playing catch-up, NOW is the time to kick things into high gear to achieve your goals and objectives in 2010. Waiting for late in the 3rd Quarter or at the start of the 4th Quarter may be just too late…

What challenges did you face in the first half of 2010? And, what measures are you implementing to overcome those challenges in the second half of 2010?

On the other hand, if you’re on target, will you stay the course and in essence, not rock the boat? Or, will you implement some changes to build upon first half success?


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What is Your Social Media Marketing Strategy?

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The following was my response to a business executive that posted the following discussion on LinkedIn in a non-franchise group:

How are you and your business using social media to drive business and gain awareness? With the social media landscape becoming increasingly fragmented and complicated, how are you managing to gain the most from this medium?

“All of my clients are within the franchise industry which is a more difficult environment in which to effectively utilize social media because there are different elements to the relationship between franchisor, franchisee and customer as opposed to just B2B or B2C. That being said, it can and is being done quite effectively. However, it takes a very concentrated focus, or as I fondly describe as [E-IDEA], the acronym for franchisEssentials five step process to social media success:

social media types1. Exploring different aspects of Social Media, including Social Networking and key Web 2.0 technology that creates excitement and brand awareness within your industry segment.
2. Identifying primary and secondary targets – Who will be targeted to purchase and/or visit your franchise locations? How deep do the target groups go and are there collateral groups that can be tapped?
3. Developing a Strategy and Plan of Action – Customized to specific targets in accordance with franchise development goals and objectives?
4. Executing the Plan – Putting the plan in motion including monitoring, managing the process including new content and updates. Keep it fresh!
5. Analyzing & Quantifying the Results – Is it working? Do you continue straight ahead or repeat the process from the beginning? What are actual results in franchise sales and system revenue?

Yes, there are many aspects of social media and more being added every day. That doesn’t mean it’s being fragmented. Instead, it’s providing more tools in which to cross-reference and link together. Unlike traditional marketing that is more or less a straight line, social media marketing, used most effectively, is a cross-platform, multi-tiered strategy that uses multiple Web 2.0 tools to cross in front of the targeted audience multiple times and from different directions.

It’s akin to the businesses with limited marketing budgets that only advertise on TV once or twice a month, at one specific time but on multiple channels simultaneously. Then, when the consumer changes the channel upon seeing the commercial, again and again, the perception is “this business is everywhere and must be spending a fortune on advertising. Therefore, it must be good.”

Unfortunately, social media marketing is not a one-size-fits-all strategy. The strategy must conform to the organization’s goals and objectives and must target the appropriate audience by the appropriate means (Web 2.0 tools). For instance, if the target is young adults age 15-18, MySpace would be an essential component of your strategy. Couple that with a lot of video and audio, as this age group gets bored very easily.

On the other hand, if the targets are businesses in the insurance industry, your strategy might include developing a blog for industry professionals and then linking the same through LinkedIn to insurance groups. Simultaneously, you may develop a Facebook page to refer interested parties to visit and/or join.

A key factor in an effective social media strategy is to be sure to integrate the same with your traditional marketing. As an example, if your company frequently uses direct mail, be sure to include the company’s various social network links, blog links, etc. In a B2B environment, do the same with your blast email campaigns. And, in a corporate environment where you may be attempting to attract a consulting client, personalize your traditional strategy with social network interaction and enhance it with video and audio messages.”

Now that you have read this article, I’ll ask you straight up, “What is your social media marketing strategy?”


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Female Franchise Candidates: The Smart Choice For Growing Your Brand?

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I just finished reading an interesting article about female entrepreneurs. It made me wonder how many franchisors have specifically targeted female entrepreneurs as franchise candidates. Even those “man-in-a-van” franchises could probably benefit by an influx of female franchisees. Maybe a paradigm shift is in order? It’s an interesting proposition to ponder.

Just recently, on Franchise Today, I had a conversation with Leslie Curran, Franchise Attorney and Partner at Plave Koch. As part of our time together, Leslie provided some insight on the Women’s Franchise Network. Of course, this group is mostly comprised of female franchise professionals within the upper ranks of franchise organizations, or at firms providing services to franchisors. A fabulous wealth of talent for sure.

I’m guessing there are female franchisees within the group. But most likely that number is relatively low. I wonder what the discussions would entail at a Women’s FRANCHISEE Network meeting? I envision discussions about improving systems and processes, as opposed to rants and raves about lack of support and other “blame it on the franchisor” issues as is typical in many predominantly male franchisee meetings. I know that may not be fair to say, but I can only go by what I’ve witnessed over the years.

As we know, the foundation of franchising is built upon relationships. And, what gender is better at relationships? Male or Female? No doubt, female. And, what gender pays more attention to detail? I cast my vote for female all the way. And, what gender is more apt to communicate and share information? Well, it’s unanimous, female once again.

So, are female franchise candidates the smart choice for growing your brand? Or, maybe, it should be the obvious choice.

What We Can Learn From Female Entrepreneurs
By: Jill Brown on Entrepreneurs Mindset

Our latest recession created a revolution led by female entrepreneurs ready for a new beginning. According to the latest polls half of all businesses are owned by women and contribute roughly $3 trillion to our Female Entrepreneurs economy; a complete turn around from yesteryear.

Female Entrepreneurs were always held back from the business arena by stumbling blocks including sexual discrimination for being female. The negative images from the “old boy’s network” of overly emotional stressed out mommy’s wanting to “play business mogul” was always a major contributor to mental bombshells that attacked success.

Women were not given the same opportunities or access as men. But women learned how to cultivate positive images and turn those negative stumbling blocks into stepping stones.

The female entrepreneur learned early on that it was far more difficult to obtain funding as in bank loans than it was for a man. While a women’s business plan was just as good as any man’s business model, men seemed to have a more personal closer relationship with banks. But in the end, women are less eager to give up their vision and think their way into winning.

The future female entrepreneur learned the super conscious secret – to believe and achieve. Whatever your mind believes you can achieve. Women used it passionately to empower and eliminate negative mindsets. Female entrepreneurs tap into intuition and allow it to work for us. And female entrepreneurs have a different take on building a business.

Women can blend easier than a man; aspiring to balance their family life, leisure, and business, but the most important motive for both is the start of their own new enterprise.

Women are more motivated by the outlook of more flexibility and equilibrium between family, work, and leisure whereas men are motivated more by the aspiration of becoming an entrepreneur and escaping slaving for others.

Female entrepreneurs work smarter not harder when it comes to building a business. Not to say they are not challenged but they are in tuned to seek out technology and innovative ways to balance their lives and manage their time.

When it comes to creating new enterprise women’s goals differ from men’s. The fact that by starting their own business they attain a higher position for themselves and their family is less important to women than to men.

In general, female entrepreneurs know that they are responsible for where they are going; women have that positive action to conquer in the midst of adversity – meet it, greet it and defeat it.

While many of us still hold self-limiting fears and surrender to the dictates of others there are many up and coming female entrepreneurs that dare to be different and can visualize the success.


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Winners or Losers: Choices Are Made Everyday

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Winners and LosersThe Winner is always part of the answer; The Loser is always part of the problem.

The Winner always has a program; The Loser always has an excuse.

The Winner says, “Let me do it for you”; The Loser says, “That is not my job.”

The Winner sees an answer for every problem; The Loser sees a problem for every answer.

The Winner says,” It may be difficult but it is possible”; The Loser says,” It may be possible but it is too difficult.”

When a Winner makes a mistake, they say,” I was wrong”; When a Loser makes a mistake, they say,” It wasn’t my fault.”

A Winner makes commitments; A Loser makes promises.

Winners have dreams; Losers have schemes.

Winners say,” I must do something”; Losers say, “Something must be done.”

Winners are a part of the team; Losers are apart from the team.

Winners see the gain; Losers see the pain.

Winners see possibilities; Losers see problems.

Winners believe in win/win; Losers believe for them to win someone has to lose.

Winners see the potential; Losers see the past.

Winners are like a thermostat; Losers are like thermometers.

Winners choose what they say; Losers say what they choose.

Winners use hard arguments, but soft words; Losers use soft arguments, but hard words.

Winners stand firm on values, but compromise on petty things; Losers stand firm on petty things, but compromise on values.

Winners follow the philosophy of empathy: “Don’t do to others what you would not want them to do to you”; Losers follow the philosophy, “Do it to others before they do it to you.”

Winners make it happen; Losers let it happen.

~ Author Unknown.

Originally posted on franchisEssentials August 2009


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