3 Ways FranchiseSoft Puts Franchise Development Practices To Work

You’ll find plenty of franchise development theory online, but few tell you how it’s put into practice. Today’s post explains how to effortlessly implement franchise development best practices with FranchiseSoft.

To paraphrase the great Sandy Pentland, the big data maestro at MIT: the value of big data is that it tells us what people do, not what they say.

With the right reporting and analytics, big data will help you identify candidates that fit your dream criteria and exhibit all the same behaviors of top-performing franchise owners.

“Today, we can only imagine the impact that lead generation techniques enhanced with big data intelligence will have on the franchise development sales process,” writes Jim Bender in a new article on Franchising.com.

But we don’t have to imagine anything—FranchiseSoft is designed to put big data to work for your franchise development campaign.

For instance, these are just a few of the big-data inferences we’ve made regarding franchise development behaviors over the past few years:

• Response time is a major influencer of lead interest. According to Vendasta research, 78% of leads buy from their first responder, and sales conversions are 391% higher in the first minute following the lead’s request for information.Research by Drift suggests that less than 7% of surveyed companies responded in 5 minutes or less, and this represents a major opportunity to pull ahead of the competition. To up your response time, we designed a powerful alert system that tells you the moment a lead takes interest. Reach out instantly using the lead’s preferred method of contact, all from the same dashboard, or set up automatic email “welcome” messages to buy you a bit more time.
• Leads want to be met on device, on-demand. If the only way for a lead to connect with you and learn about your opportunity involves new account creation, lengthy registration forms, or switching devices, there’s a good chance you’ve already squandered the sale. Franchise development research shows users want to be met on-device, on-demand, which means contacting the lead through their preferred communication channels, the moment they’re ready to talk.FranchiseSoft is designed to help users accommodate these client preferences and create a smooth, convenient outreach experience. You’re alerted the moment your leads are active, and you have the option of SMS, email, phone call, or direct message, all from our main dashboard.

• Linguistics matter. Different demographics respond better to different verbiage, so make sure you’ve tailored your message to the right audience.

More importantly, FranchiseSoft’s automated reporting provides easy big-data insights. Auto-generated pipeline reports are sent automatically to your email so you never miss any key metrics.

Shift Your Franchise Development Focus Down The Sales Funnel

According to research by the Franchise Performance Group, only 13,000 to 20,000 of the millions researching franchise opportunities each year will become franchise buyers.

As such, focusing your franchise development efforts on the top of the “purchase funnel” is a big mistake. If you want to grow an iconic brand, you’ll need to target those 13,000 to 20,000 serious buyers, which means concentrating your sales effort further down the funnel.

Of course, that’s not to say you should completely ignore what comes before—without a constant influx of new interest, you’ll never reach your franchise development goals.

So how do you reconcile these dueling demands? How do you serve the top of the purchase funnel without taking up all of your top salespeople’s time?

Easy—the best franchise development strategies automate the early stages of the lead generation workflow in order to free up top sales talents for more important tasks, while still fulfilling those upper sales funnel obligations.

Surprise: that’s exactly what our franchise development software can do for you. In addition to seamless integration with any lead portal—which populates leads for franchise owners automatically—you can set up automated “events” that send new leads welcome messages. These “welcome messages” can be customized to your needs, but they typically thank the lead for their interest, assure them that a franchise representative will contact them soon, and share details about the franchise opportunity. In this way, FranchiseSoft’s franchise development module is able to automate the top of the purchase funnel, enter them into the system, and begin to “warm up” leads for your sales talents.

Once they’re in the system, lead nurturing is simple. From the Lead List tab, you can quickly sort through leads using specific criteria (e.g. projected closing month, net worth, cash available for investment, inquiry date, etc), then reach out directly using their preferred form of communication, all from the same dashboard. Any notes, call logs, or correspondence you previously inputted will be waiting for you, so you can pick up right where you left off, and you can monitor their progress in the franchise development “workflow” in real time.

Furthermore, when reaching out to those high-value leads located further down the sales funnel, you can instantly attach info straight from your brand’s digital library (e.g. quarterly reports), create tasks and events (e.g. to-do lists or appointment times), or send custom-made virtual brochures. Finally, the Franchise Development sales tab automatically compiles your Top-5 Lead Sources, which allows users to make their lead generation efforts even more efficient.

Keep Leads Warm For Better Franchise Development Results

You’re not always going to have the luxury of “hot leads” to talk to, but it’s never a good idea to let leads cool off entirely. When a lead starts warming up and showing interest, try to keep the conversation going as best you can. It might feel like hard work keeping on top of every lead that shows interest, but it’s much easier than trying to warm up a lead that’s gone cold.

FranchiseSoft makes it easy with our “tag-team” lead nurturing functionality. Anytime you need to step away or handle some other aspect of your business, you have the option of “handing off” the lead to another sales representative. Since all correspondence, calls, and notes are logged on the lead profile, your sales rep can pick up right where you left off, and avoid those uncomfortable situations where you’re repeating the same “sales pitch” to a lead who just heard it.

Free Quote On Premium Franchise Development Software

Visit the FranchiseSoft franchise development module page or call 888-302-3676 to learn more about our franchise development solution and book a free virtual demonstration.