3 Tips for Improving Your Franchise Sales Process

Have you had a candidate come through your franchise sales process – filled with  excitement and asking all the right questions – only to have them email you at the eleventh hour to say they’re just not ready?

It’s crushing. You’ve been so excited they were a fit, put all this work into the process, only to get that dreaded email when it comes to final decision time.

If you’ve ever wondered what you could have done differently throughout your franchise sales process – the following tips are going to provide you some insights into what successful sales processes do differently.

But first, I want to make sure you know that you’re not alone in your experience. 

At AC Inc we work with emerging and established brands in both one-on-one advising and in our roundtables and we hear franchisors express various versions of this same story over and over again.

The strategies I’m going to share with you are designed to help you create more engagement throughout your sales process. With more engagement and healthy expectation setting, you’ll be able to help your candidates make their final decision with more ease and confidence. 

Identify Pain Points

Throughout your franchise sales process, you’ll need to be listening for the pain points that come up in your conversations. When you can uncover what the major pain point is for your candidate, you can ensure your franchise opportunity actually solves their challenges.

If your franchise candidate is unhappy with their current job, you need to know why. You need to know – on a deep level – what your candidate is struggling with in their current career or stage of life. 

Do they want to create a bigger impact in the world? Is their current career ruining their marriage? Do they want more freedom in their schedule? Why?

Don’t address the pain point quickly and then never mention it again. Instead, repeatedly discuss how your franchise concept could solve their pain point so they really understand how this opportunity will help them.

Focus on Getting Your Candidate to Take the Next Step

It can be very tempting to spend your entire franchise sales process thinking about how much you want your candidates to take the final step (signing that agreement!) But I’ve found that energy is better spent focusing on each small action step that needs to be done at each stage of the process.

If you’re finding your candidate to be a great fit, make sure that you’re giving them clear, actionable tasks to accomplish at each point in the process. 

Example….

Let your candidate know that this call is all about you both getting to know each other and ensuring your values are aligned. If you are both feeling aligned at the end of the call, let them know that the next step is to book a call to discuss the numbers of the business and give them a task to complete before that next call.

When you’re clearly communicating the action steps at each stage of the process, your candidate will be more likely to execute each step, as well as more likely to trust your communication and action plans in the future.

If your franchise candidate is engaged and efficient at accomplishing the action steps at each point in your process, this will speak volumes to YOU about how great a franchisee they will be. If they are flakey and don’t accomplish the tasks throughout the process, that could mean they aren’t a great fit for a franchise.

Provide Value and Build Trust

When it comes to sales (that’s exactly what this process is after all!) The more complex the sale is, the more trust needs to be built along the way.

What can you give your franchise prospect throughout your franchise sales process that will build trust and provide added value to their experience? 

And no – I don’t mean a pen or a magnet!

Try sharing valuable information and resources, maybe exclusive access to podcast episodes, blog posts, handy checklists, or anything else you can think of that will help them understand that you’re on their team and genuinely want them to succeed. 

These resources could be something you created, or even something you know is valuable that was created by a third party. 

This is a long-term partnership and investment that they are considering, so the more you can prove to them that you’re trustworthy and your opportunity is worth their hard-earned money, the better!

Most of the tips that I’ve shared above are focused on taking the selling process a little slower and more strategic. Not trying to sell too early, focusing on how your franchise opportunity solves their unique pain point, building trust, and focus on actionable steps throughout the process.

What are your thoughts on the tips above? We always love to hear your feedback so head to LinkedIn to connect with our team and let us know your thoughts on this post!

A few of the strategies outlined were ideas that came from our emerging franchisor roundtable. The AC Roundtables are a free resource we offer franchisors who are seeking collaboration and peer-to-peer learning. 

We’ve been running these virtual roundtables since 2020 and we always love to have new franchisors join us!

Try one of our free AC Roundtables