Successful Franchisees Make It Happen |
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Yes, successful franchisees do make it happen. But, do they have to be
hard-core sales people to be successful? Not necessarily.
The most successful franchisees are ones that take a less formal and more relaxed approach to selling. But make no mistake about it, as informal and relaxed as their selling style may be, they still sell—on a daily basis.
These are some of the findings from a study conducted to identify the common characteristics of successful franchisees. Among other things, the findings showed that successful franchisees tend to feel very comfortable selling and marketing their products and services. They did not simply wait for business to magically appear. Or, wait for the franchisor to somehow drive business to them.
Successful franchisees genuinely enjoy simply talking to strangers about their business and products in their normal day-to-day life, both inside and outside their business. They are open to exploring new ways of marketing their products or services in the community. Whenever possible, they are active in promoting their business through community events. Of course with the proviso that their methods of marketing met with approval from head office.
The Importance of Community Involvement
People naturally tend to prefer doing business with others that they already know. By going out and getting involved in the community, franchisees gain this valuable exposure and can therefore take a much more relaxed and positive approach to selling on a daily basis. The successful franchisee takes advantage of this.
It puts a whole different spin on the selling process when the customer comes into the shop with a positive image of the shop-keeper in their minds. This perception makes it much easier for the franchisee to approach the sales process as someone who is trying to help a friend rather than someone trying to “sell” the customer. When the customer perceives the franchisee as a “friend,” they are much more readily “up-sold,” if that opportunity presents itself. And, they are much more likely to forgive slight errors.
Compare that to the attitude of a customer if the franchisee is perceived to be a stranger. Customers are more wary. It is far more difficult to up-sell them. Problem customers always come from the ranks of those that view the shop-keeper (or their staff) as strangers.
Successful franchisees tend to feel very comfortable selling and marketing their products and services.
Plus, being involved in the community and being perceived as part of the local family helps keep customers loyal. All things, like service levels, being equal, most people would much prefer to support their local merchants if at all possible.
Manager or Co-Worker?
The best performing franchisees see their role not simply as a manager but as an integral part of the sales team. They enjoy taking time on the shop floor talking to customers. Not hard to do when your customers already have a positive image of your business. With their less formal, more down home approach to selling, customers respond favorably.
The most successful franchisees understand this. They take care to train their employees in selling and customer relations. They communicate to their employees the importance of recommending new products to customers.
The Importance of Sales Orientation
So how important is sales orientation to franchisee success? Although not the biggest predictor of performance, it still rated a weighting of 17 percent when predicting how well the candidate will meet the sales potential of a given location.
Effective Ways of Using These Study Results
The first step in putting this knowledge to good use is to interview the candidate using behavioral style interviewing techniques. Ask questions designed to identify how the candidate really feels about sales and marketing. Give them some scenarios they could find themselves in. Then ask how they would resolve the problem, or simply how they would react to the situation. If done effectively, behavioral style interviewing can give you a tremendous edge. This way, you will have some idea how the candidate may react in given situations. Try asking questions like the following.
Franchisees are often provided with standard corporate advertising programs and national exposure for the chain.
- Within your local market, what would you do to supplement these head-office sales
and marketing strategies? - How would you get the message out that you have opened a new
franchise outlet? - What factors would you need to consider in choosing your
strategy? - How would you evaluate the success of your marketing strategy?
Here’s a sample of some possible good answers:
- Creative ways of promoting the franchise
- Consideration of the costs involved in different forms of advertising
- Willingness to see if particular strategies are effective and adjust if necessary
- Mention of hitting the “target market.”
Definite Poor Answers
If the candidate comes up with answers similar to the following, you might want to re-consider that person or look into the possibility of providing extensive training to overcome and change the candidate’s attitude.
- No ideas of ways to promote the business
- No consideration of the expense of advertising method
- No discussion of what methods are effective
- No mention of the “target market.”
It is important to ask every candidate the same questions not only for this core value, but for all of them. This helps to eliminate placing too much emphasis on personality while bringing consistency to the selection process.
One thing to keep in mind when assessing a candidate is this core value. It is possible to change. This is not a personality issue. Attitudes can and do change quite often over a lifetime. If a candidate has never been in a similar situation, they may simply be very uncomfortable in discussing their business with strangers. Cultural issues may also affect the candidate’s initial attitude.
However, effective training can help the candidate change their attitude. Once they understand the importance of local store marketing, the benefits of doing it well, and are comfortable talking about their business to strangers (without being overbearing), they could do very well.
Fred Berni is president of Dynamic Performance Systems Inc. He can be reached at 416-201-0202 or fred@franchise-profiles.com
