Franchise Marketing Systems and Franchising Your Business
The franchise industry has been in a strong growth curve for almost a decade now and in some ways doesn’t seem to be slowing down. What is driving this growth and is now the right time to franchise your business? The difficult question is similar to any new business investment as in you want to do your best to time the market and try to play the upswing if possible before you go into expanding your brand. From a franchise development firm’s perspective like Franchise Marketing Systems, the reality is that Franchising is not a short term “Play the market” strategy. It is a long-term, 5 year plus business strategy that must be committed to over a long enough time period in order to realize real results and see a franchise expansion model come to fruition. The reality is that franchising has a viable play in a down economy as well with franchise candidates unable to find work now turning to entrepreneurship and franchise ownership. If franchising is a consideration, it needs to be a big picture strategic decision, not a quick reaction to current economic trends.
Our firm, Franchise Marketing Systems was founded to help business owners review and discuss franchising as a business expansion model and determine whether franchising could be an effective expansion vehicle. The firm was founded by Chris Conner in 2009 and has worked with over 200 brands to support the process of franchise development. Many of the consultations and franchise business reviews take place in meetings or phone discussions with Mr. Conner, Mr. Alan George or other franchise consultants and the first questions relate to the businesses viability as a franchise offering. Does the business have the financial proof of concept to present an exciting investment opportunity to a potential franchisee? Is the business structured with systems, processes and technology needed to duplicate the original business? Is there a market that is sizeable enough for the justification of a franchise development plan to be put in place? Mr. Conner and Mr. George review these businesses in detail and work to understand whether the business owners have the ability to work with franchisees and be effective in training and developing other people who choose to invest in their franchise as well.
At the time where the franchise development plan comes together, Franchise Marketing Systems supports clients on all levels of development. It starts with Strategic Planning to go into a deep financial review and research report. The franchise strategic planning process reviews both the franchisee’s and franchisor’s potential return on investment and documents the plan for how growth goals will be achieved. Franchise Marketing Systems defines it’s role in executing the plan and in how the expansion model will be managed from a sales, support and management perspective. Once the plan is in place, Franchise Marketing Systems refers the legal process to a qualified franchise attorney to document the FDD, Franchise Agreement and necessary franchise registration work. Following legal, the operations, training and support systems are developed to provide the franchisor with the needed tools to support and deliver value to a franchisee who chooses to join the system. The last phase of the development incorporates the franchise marketing strategy, planning, franchise brochure, franchise video and franchise website development needed to promote and market the franchise offering. Franchise lead generation strategies such as Franchise Clique are incorporated to promote the new franchise offering and develop a pipeline of new franchise candidates.
When Mr. Conner founded Franchise Marketing Systems in 2009, the vision for the company was to be different from the majority of the franchise development field in not only providing franchise development work, but also to execute the strategies and expansion models with clients. This unique approach to the market puts Franchise Marketing Systems and the Client in a position where there is a long term relationship and a performance based relationship where both parties benefit from a successful roll out of the new brand. The reality is that start up franchising is a difficult process until the model achieves validation. Mr. Conner realized this early with brands that were able to get 5-10 units who were performing and would reference the system to others many times could scale exceptionally well and grow quickly. Franchise Marketing Systems was designed to support that initial roll out and franchise validation in order to break through the start up phase and get to critical mass.
For more information on Franchise Marketing Systems, visit the corporate site or email Chris Conner directly:
www.FMSFranchise.com
Chris.Conner@FMSFranchise.com
