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If you thought recruiting staff was easy, try recruiting franchisees!

Written by: Philip Peters

Article Overview: Recruiting franchisees is complicated. Franchisors are looking for a very special individual who has the drive to run his or her own business. And there are numerous other problems to overcome!

If you thought recruiting staff was easy, try recruiting franchisees!

Recruiting franchisees is NOT easy.

Every year the number one frustration for franchisors is the recruitment of good quality franchisees. (Nat West BFA Survey 2008)

Recruiting franchisees is complicated. Franchisors are looking for a very special individual who has the drive to run his or her own business, likes the trade the Franchisor is in, has the abilities required for that trade and has the money to invest in a new venture.

And then the Franchisor and Franchisee have to like each other. After all if you are going to work together for many years in a "partnership", you have to like and trust each other - especially to begin with!

Generally we believe that people who apply to join a franchise will be one of three types:

He is a corporate man happy with his lot and not wanting to venture out of his comfort zone. He might be driving a van or running a big department but he is still the sane sort of person. Is this someone who has the get up and go to run a franchise?

He is a "Richard Branson" entrepreneur type who wants to run the world. Is he going to be happy adhering to your carefully thought out systems or is he going to be telling you how to run your business on the first morning of the training course?

He is a good businessman - not a corporate man or a Richard Branson clone but someone "who wants to be in business for themselves but not by themselves". In reality he is the mid way point between "Corporate Man" and Branson Clone" In short - our ideal candidate!

The most important step in the process is identifying the "ideal" candidate for your franchise. What background and skills do they need? Do they need to have certain qualifications or certification for your industry? Have they the necessary man management or sales skills to really make a go of your business?

So we have identified our ideal candidate profile for our particular franchise and we know that we are looking for someone who matches the ideal candidate identified above.

Then we have three major issues to deal with:

Keeping marketing costs under control can be a real challenge. National advertising works for some but not for all. Similarly the franchise magazines can be useful but not every time. The trick is to spend enough money to get a return on your investment - and remember no-one has ever recruited a franchisee for your franchise before!

Can you sell your business over the telephone? It is very much a "cold call". Speaking to someone you don't know and enthusing him or her - no matter how much you love your business - is very daunting. This is especially true when you realize that, at best, you are one of very many franchises they are interested in or at worst that they may just have a vague idea of going into business for themselves.

The greatest problem is coping with the workload that recruitment brings. Even a relatively small number of enquiries can produce a disproportionate amount of work. By the time you have tried to telephone someone several times - which is very much the norm - it is very frustrating and not a good use of your limited time. And that is before you go through the typical interview and meeting process.

So these are some of the challenges in recruiting that special individual who is going to be your franchisee!

The trick is to "Sell the dream - avoid the nightmare"!

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Article Tags: bfa, candidate profile, clone, comfort zone, corporate man, entrepreneur, franchise, franchisee, franchisees, franchisor, franchisors, frustration, good businessman, man management, mid way, nat west, own business, partnership, recruitment, richard branson



Related Forum Posts
Re: Network Marketing - [quote="saraloves":3bc8xfg2]I've had a few people approach me for networking marketing opportunities. Most of them sound very unprofessional and seem more interested in recruiting member than selling or supporting products so I think that's why they get a bad rap. [/quote:3bc8xfg2] I only investigated one MLM company, many years ago, and this was exactly the problem I had with them. It was when I was in my twenties, already employed by someone else, and just looking for ways to earn "extra money". A friend tried to recruit me into an MLM company to sell collectible phone cards. But all she ever talked about was how much money I'd make by recruiting other people to recruit other people also - there was never anything about how to actually sell the product. I went with her to a seminar on the company - two hours long - and it was the same thing. How to recruit other people to sell the cards, how much you earn depending on how many people [i:3bc8xfg2]they [/i:3bc8xfg2]recruit, (the typical fancy grades of "diamond, emerald, pearl," for each level of income you got to, etc.) but again, absolutely no advice on how to sell the cards, who produced the cards, the guarantee of if they'd maintain their value, etc. By the end of that seminar I'd been convinced not to try it, for two reasons. Most importantly - although I've become more outspoken and self-confident and professional in the years since then - I did *know myself* at that time, and there's no way I could have approached people - whether strangers or friends - and attempted to recruit them - especially when I didn't believe in the product. And the second reason was I simply didn't believe in the product. If all the time in a seminar is spent not on hyping the product but on hyping the money you'll make by recruiting other people to sell the product, then something's wrong!
Network Marketing - I've had a few people approach me for networking marketing opportunities. Most of them sound very unprofessional and seem more interested in recruiting member than selling or supporting products so I think that's why they get a bad rap. who is a good example Binary guy?
Re: Help me review my report. - Hi Yinka, I enjoyed reading your story of using offline recruiting methods for your Internet business. The info about the mistakes you made in the beginning and how you learnt from them was also instructive. I will read it again and send you a testimonial.
Re: My Brags: Backlogs & Punitive Refunds - Thanks for the feedback, guys. @Yinka, Nice suggestion, but in most cases, no I cannot or would not do that with "difficult" customers. I will occasionally recommend other suppliers if I cannot fulfill an order. I am beginning to think about recruiting some of my college students as casual labour though...
Re: My Brags: Backlogs & Punitive Refunds - [quote:29wsnscu]I am beginning to think about recruiting some of my college students as casual labour though...[/quote:29wsnscu] Very good idea! I am sure they can use the extra money and you would get cheap yet reliable help.


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