{"id":280300,"date":"2017-06-21T01:07:44","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T01:07:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.franconnect.com\/?p=280300"},"modified":"2024-05-28T19:31:55","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T19:31:55","slug":"engage-candidates-during-every-stage-of-the-franchise-sales-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.franconnect.com\/en\/engage-candidates-during-every-stage-of-the-franchise-sales-cycle\/","title":{"rendered":"Engage Candidates During Every Stage of the Franchise Sales Cycle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Franchisee engagement is a hot topic. We\u2019re seeing a progression away from the rule enforcer\/disciplinarian franchisor-franchisee relationship toward one that places the franchisor as a mentor, teacher, or business advisor. After all, your success is dependent on that of your franchisees.<\/p>\n

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When thinking of franchisee engagement, field operations comes to mind. Field consultants are the ones hitting the pavement, talking to franchisees every day, encouraging them, and helping them succeed. It’s a huge part of franchisee engagement.<\/p>\n

However, engagement starts earlier than that \u2013 it starts with the moment a person learns about your brand. The moment someone interacts with your brand is the moment the candidate experience begins. Sure, many people won\u2019t go on to become an actual candidate, but some do. What does this mean? It means franchisee engagement \u2013 or franchisee candidate engagement \u2013 is important to your franchise sales strategy. It\u2019s a critical step in optimizing franchise development, and your sales and development marketing teams need to be thinking about it every step of the way.<\/p>\n

To achieve this, you need to outline the entire candidate experience: from discovering your brand through application, through commitment. At each stage, describe the candidate experience in detail so the entire franchise development sales and marketing teams can identify:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Where a candidate is in the process<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. What the candidate should be experiencing<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. What the candidate should be receiving<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Here is an example of the stages of the franchise development workflow.<\/p>\n

    Stage One: Discovering Your Brand<\/strong><\/span>
    \nThis first stage of the franchise development process is the scenario we just described. It\u2019s also during this stage that a prospective candidate is researching your franchise development website to learn more about your brand, what it means to be a unit owner with you brand, and the process and qualifications to become an owner.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"A<\/span><\/p>\n

    Open Locations Faster<\/span><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

    Is your franchise recruitment website<\/a> meeting your goals? <\/em><\/p>\n

    Stage Two: Initial Inquiry<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
    \nThis is the first time the candidate explicitly expresses interest in franchising with you brand by filling out a form on your franchise recruitment website. While you are gathering more information about the candidate to determine whether he\/she is qualified, this is your first open line of communication \u2013 take advantage of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Stage Three: Qualified or Unqualified<\/strong><\/span>
    \nOnce a candidate has been tagged as qualified or unqualified, an action must take place to communicate your decision and move the candidate to the next step (or not).<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"Whether<\/span><\/p>\n

    To better qualify leads, be sure you have created franchisee buyer personas<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Stage Four: Application<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
    \nIf a candidate is qualified, it\u2019s time to invite the prospect to fill out an application.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Stage Five: Discovery Day<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
    \nAfter reviewing the application, the next stage is to invite your franchisee candidate to a discovery day.     Discovery days provide<\/a> franchisors and franchise candidates with the opportunity to meet in person. The candidate gets a first-hand experience with your brand\u2019s culture, and it\u2019s also a chance for you to get the candidate excited about becoming a unit owner. Be sure it\u2019s clear for both parties what the purpose of the discovery day is \u2013 is it to make a decision? Or is it simply to continue learning more about each other?<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"Discovery<\/span><\/p>\n

    Stage Six: Agreement and FDD<\/strong><\/span>
    \nAt this stage, it\u2019s time to send the agreement and FDD for review and signature.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Stage Seven: Commitment<\/span><\/strong>
    \nOnce the agreement and     FDD are signed<\/a> and fees are paid, you have a new unit owner! The last step the franchise sales team needs to make is to transition the new owner to the onboarding stage.<\/p>\n

    Your brand\u2019s sales cycle may be slightly different, depending on maturity or vertical. For example, some brands don\u2019t do discovery days. Regardless of what sales stages your brand has, at every stage, it\u2019s important to ask these five questions:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Who is responsible for communication?<\/li>\n
    2. What information needs to be provided to the candidate?<\/li>\n
    3. How is that information delivered?<\/li>\n
    4. What is the tone of voice?<\/li>\n
    5. How does the candidate transition to the next stage?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Request A Demo<\/span><\/a><\/center>
      \n <\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Franchisee engagement is critical during the entire franchise sales cycle, from discovery to commitment. Learn how to improve engagement in every stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":283127,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[46,69],"class_list":["post-280300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-develop","tag-franchise-sales","tag-franchisee-engagement"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franconnect.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franconnect.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franconnect.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franconnect.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franconnect.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280300"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.franconnect.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":285118,"href":"https:\/\/www.franconnect.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280300\/revisions\/285118"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franconnect.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franconnect.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franconnect.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franconnect.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}