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How to Find and Select the Best Franchise Leads

Placing trust in an ideal franchisee lead can be the difference between success and failure. Find and select the best leads for your franchise with these three tips.

With each expansion of your franchise network, you risk not only the time and finances required to establish the new franchise but your brand reputation by bringing on a new franchisee. Placing trust in an ideal franchisee lead can be the difference between success and failure. Find and select the best leads for your franchise with these three tips.

Know Your Ideal Franchisee

Franchise Leads

Before searching for your ideal franchisee or accepting inquiries, you need to determine the qualities of your perfect candidate. While it’s doubtful that you’ll find someone with all of your desired characteristics, having a persona against which to compare your potential franchise leads will save you time, money, and effort that could better be spent building your business and expanding your franchise network.

You must consider a variety of characteristics when deciding your ideal franchisee, including industry experience, leadership skills, personal drive, moral and work ethics, ambitions, motivations, and any other characteristic that helps build a successful franchise. Your ideal candidate should have the necessary abilities to be a business owner, not just a great manager. Depending on the requirements of the position, including working hours, you may want to ensure that the potential franchisee has the support of their partner or spouse, too.

You may also want to consider listing the characteristics that are obstacles to success. Just as it’s beneficial to know what makes an impressive franchisee, it’s also important to know what doesn’t fit well with your brand and business.

Develop a Comprehensive Review Process

Once you know who to look for, you can advertise your franchising opportunities where your ideal franchisee devotes their attention. The advertising and franchise lead-generating channels that you choose can vary based upon your business and industry. Options include signage in established franchises; personalized phone, email, or postal outreach; television or radio advertisements; social media marketing; or business networking opportunities. After capturing a few franchise leads, you’ll want to start your comprehensive review process.

A key to the success of your newest franchise is to ensure that your franchise and franchisee are a strong fit for each other through potential franchisee questionnaires, in-person interviews, tasks or activities, or even providing the lead with resources to develop their understanding of the organization. Some franchises also require that their franchise leads learn about and work in various positions within a location to understand the expectations and experience the minute differences that help ensure success. No matter which methods you utilize, make sure that you’re able to evaluate your potential franchisee against your list of ideal qualities.

Take Your Time

Do not rush your selection process. Whether you’re looking to expand your already vast franchise network and interested in launching your first new location, you should never sacrifice quality for speed. Just as you need to get to know your franchisee, they also need to time do their due diligence and decide if your business model is right for them, too. Use all of your resources to build a strong franchise, including time.

Expanding your franchise operations can be a daunting challenge regardless of how often you’ve done it in the past. Once you’ve captured strong franchise leads, you’ll be able to improve your likelihood of success by selecting the highest quality franchisee available.

Image via Flickr by nodstrum