Franchisor Marketing

A Franchisor asks: We are a young franchisor with 23 units that have protected territories. We are in the service category and do mainly residential work.
A couple of our franchisees are concerned about “Franchises Available” being on some of the marketing material(for example our brochures and service vans).

Sean Kelly responds: The key is to create a culture in which
everyone realizes that building the system benefits everyone, not just the
franchisor. That takes constant reinforcement, and communication of the
benefits that will come when particular threshholds in buying power,
advertising, etc. are reached. If the franchisees are adamantly opposed to
anything they perceive benefits the FR and not them, there are larger
relationship issues that need to be addressed.

Additionally, your marketing should weave the fact you’re a franchise
company throughout your overall brand message. You should have a brand
“story” that includes the franchise nature, local ownership, community
involvement, etc. of what you do. Whenever possible, spotlight your
franchisees, make them the heroes. When I began working to build the Auntie Anne’s
system, we bragged about our local ownership and our
franchisees every chance we got. We included info on “Pretzel University”
on our brochures which indirectly promoted our franchise program. We
weren’t concerned about plastering our phone number everywhere; as long as
they knew we were franchised they would contact us. We built goodwill with
franchisees and generated thousands of “free” leads.

For more ideas on this specific topic, see an article I posted on
FranchiseMarketing.Com: http://www.franchisemarketing.com/generic65.html Good luck! SK