I'm Not Going to Tell You We Told You So

by Molly Rowe for FBR

For seven years, we’ve been telling franchisors that they really need to post their franchisee satisfaction results online. For seven years, we’ve been saying it’s not enough to just hope prospective franchisees contact you directly. For seven years, we’ve been saying that franchisors need to provide varied ways for people to discover and research their franchise opportunities. For seven years!

It gets pretty old saying the same things over and over again, so it’s so great when someone else says it for us. A recent article on cnbc.com says what we’ve been saying: Franchise brands need to find new and different ways to get their information out on the internet and to validate their brands because prospective franchisees won’t necessarily go directly to them in the early stages of their research.

The article, “It’s a Brave New World for Franchisees in 2012” (we’d argue it’s been a “new world” for the past several years), says that franchisors must find new ways to educate prospective franchisees about their brand. In “olden” days (i.e., 1999), a prospective franchisee would seek out a specific brand, call a hotline, and receive a packet of company-approved literature about how to become a franchisee. As we know (and as the article says), that’s no longer the way it works.

“Successful brands must also adapt their franchise award process to include ways for prospective franchisees to investigate the brand on the website. That includes uploading interactive media, brief but informational videos and links which allow people to begin exploring the opportunity,” writes guest columnist Brian Miller. “This messaging must be compelling enough to encourage people to continue the process.”

I won’t say it … I swear, I won’t. But it sure feels good when we see that someone else is saying the same things we are.

P.S. This is not to say that nobody listens to us. There are a bunch of franchisors out there that are already using FBR to publicize their survey results, gather leads, and share videos and podcasts about their companies. Check them out in the Franchise Reviews section of our website.
 

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