One of our clients is a mature franchise brand that has been around in the UK for nearly 15 years. In the early stages of their development, recruitment of franchisees was done purely through a major franchise magazine and handling these leads was a simple call and email process that would ‘reach’ between 65-80%.
Print vs. Online
In the past 3-5 years there has been a distinctive downward trend from the volume of leads produced by the publication, so a decision was taken 2 years ago to start internet advertising with major franchise sites. This has created a good lead flow of between 150-200 leads per month and a sign up rate of just over 2 a month for a sizeable investment.
The major problem created was that the ‘reach’ rate dropped dramatically to a mere 40-50%. The reason for this lies in the nature of the lead itself.
A Sense of Control
The traditional leads were not very educated about the opportunity, apart from what they had read in print, and this meant that the salesperson would get to build a profile of the lead before that lead found out much about the offering. The information imparted could therefore be closely controlled depending on the authenticity of the enquirer, and the lead relied on close contact for this to happen.
Internet leads are much more educated when it comes to both the offering and how franchising works in general. They are able to access vast amounts of information online, and therefore they are much more in control of the sales process and this is where the biggest problem lies when contact is made.
Stay in Charge
When this contact is made, the sales process must be perceived by the candidates as a 2-way interview as early as possible, and too often candidates believe they have a right to pick and choose the franchise brand they desire. Due to this trend, sales people must be trained as to the best ways to handle different types of leads, as this will be the key to maximize potential.
Leads that enquire via various internet sources should be fed information more slowly as research suggests that many of these leads:
- Are 6-8 weeks away from taking things any further,
- Want to gather information without much intrustion, and if they are directly contacted too many times before they are ready may actually cross that opportunity off their list!
- Will often initiate contact when they have enough information and when they do can often move swiftly through the sales process.
Internet researchers say this is “typical internet buyer behaviour” and unless brands recognise this they will not realise the potential of those leads.
We have implemented a lead handling strategy for this particular client that has enabled them to sign just over 2 new franchisees a month, and if anyone would like to discuss this topic further or would like to be kept informed, please email dugan.aylen@frsltd.co.uk
