Brands are diversifying their franchise recruitment process, responding to the needs of the market. So how are brands building trust, reaching the right market, and ensuring franchise buyers understand what’s required?
Maximising franchise recruitment
At Frontline, Michelle Gamble says while a tight labour market is great for recruitment it can make it more difficult to find prospective franchisees
“There’s a generational shift as well; the new buyers are millennials. The younger generations have researched a lot online. Transparency is a huge concern, they are looking for trust.
“I think a really good culture is important; the culture of trust between the franchisor, and the franchisee,” she says.
1. Creating authentic content
Jim’s Group’s social media marketing success has been well documented. Joel Kleber heads up marketing at Jim’s and has championed an authentic content policy.
“The great thing with social media is you put a video out there, you get negative comments and that’s the stuff you need to address. So for us, it’s about fees, or my friend had a bad experience, all these sorts of things, and you can create content to then address those concerns. Our content strategy is to be as transparent as possible,” says Kleber.
“I think all franchises need to be really transparent about what they do, how fees work, all that sort of stuff. The more transparent you are, I think, the better prospects you get.”
3. Using AI to translate content
Kleber is also using AI to reach potential Jim’s franchisees for whom English is a second language.
“We’ve been taking a lot of our existing videos, franchise content, FAQs and stuff, and translated it into Hindi or Bengali or Mandarin.
“We’re trying to use it to help with recruitment for people who would be good franchisees, and it helps them understand a bit better about running a business,” Kleber says.
4. A clear call to action
Luke Martin at Pack & Send says the business continues to utilise traditional advertising platforms but with a new focus. “It’s a lot about our call to actions and our scripts,” he says.
Pack & Send is keen to ensure franchisees understand what will be the focus of their business.
“Our successful franchise partners, they’re not just waiting for customers to come to them. In particular B2B customers. We’ve seen a shift in our customer profile with about 65 per cent B2B.
“We’re looking for quality candidates that are open to learning the skills, embracing the training to take on business development roles within their business.
“We ask ‘Do you like speaking to customers? Do you like selling, do you like connecting to people and closing deals? Are you comfortable going out and speaking to people, networking? And then also the back end of that, are you prepared to do the research on businesses that you want to focus on?” he says.
“It’s about getting them to understand our process, our business model, and how they can leverage off their skills and experience and transfer it over to the business.”
5. Fast-tracking to a conversation
Red Rooster’s Clint Ault says refining the enquiry-to-conversation process is a new goal.
“I think sometimes we make it really difficult to get through the process. I think actually just getting to a conversation is probably the most important thing, rather than filling out the application.
“We can discover very quickly whether we’re the right fit for you, whether you’re the right fit for us, and then we can progress from there.
“I think it’s something that I keep pushing to saying how do you get to a conversation faster? It is something we need to work on over the next 12 to 18 months.
“We’re recruiting the right people to be able to help improve franchise recruitment so that we can get to those conversations significantly faster,” he says.
