As a franchisor, it can be tempting to hunt for the next bank deposit, screening be damned. That habit can slowly whittle away your brand value, though. Franchisees succeed because they’re qualified, and not because your system is too airtight to sink. Use our prospect qualification checklist to find out how artificial intelligence can help you to make sure that the deals you close are worth closing.
1) Capital Requirements
If your prospect lacks the funds or credit to come aboard, even the strongest personal assets can’t bring power to your brand. Undercapitalization is one of the most common reasons for franchise failure. New franchisors may need to fund as much as $160,000 in startup costs. That’s considerably more than their franchise fee, but how do you generate accurate numbers when expenses are often mired in the abstract? Artificial intelligence (AI) can transform established accounting processes into predictions that improve your prospect qualification checklist considerably.
2) Work Ethic
Franchisee interviews tend to leave honesty by the way-side. AI engines can analyze job boards, social media usage, and emails to assess work ethic before feeding you a smaller recruitment pool. That gives you the time you need to manage a more involved recruitment process.
3) Purchase Readiness
Franchise recruitment has a strong marketing angle. You must not only source great leads but engage them as well. AI will sort that pool by buyer-readiness so that your team approaches every lead on your prospect qualification checklist at the right stage of the buying funnel.
4) Psychometric Testing
Psychometric tests can identify the profile of an ideal franchisee, but the process is time-consuming. Industrial psychologists are often used, but AI is proving to be talented enough to replace them. It can assess decisiveness, dominance, and impulsiveness without human intervention. It can even incorporate a Myers-Briggs assessment into the mix. Predictive hiring tools can use these results to optimize placement.
5) Management Skills
Franchisors say that the primary reason for franchise failure is poor management, but how do you ascertain who will lead your brand to greatness? To complicate matters further, franchising relies on a certain degree of rule-keeping. Wendy’s isn’t Wendy’s without the fresh beef, and every franchise must produce the product its brand is known for, day after day, branch after branch. You need leaders, not strategists, and that’s a delicate balance to achieve. AI can identify problem-solving and administrative coordination skills. Then it will place its findings into a visual report, ready for your next qualifying stage.
6) Background Checks
Mismanagement and fraud are usually results of mistakes in the qualifying process. AI is improving background checks in more ways than one. It can use chatbots and automated emails to gather documentation, reducing reams of paperwork into relevant insights. Every candidate is different, so you need bespoke algorithms that evaluate leads based on your values. Machine learning can also identify patterns in background verification data and map suspicious activities.
7) Identity Verification
Background data is easy to manufacture in online ecosystems. AI will collect documents and continuously re-evaluate that data so that every record you add remains current. Liveliness detection and biometrics add several layers of fraud-detection to your verification process.
AI can reduce cost-per-screening by 75%. It will never replace recruiters, but it can qualify leads so that you have more time for human engagement. Trying to market to a pool of unqualified leads is like shooting in a dark room. AI will turn on the lights, giving you a recruitment process that will translate into profits years into the future.
