A question on how to attract the right franchisees?

A question on how to attract the right franchisees? Posted by Hannah

Considering buying a franchise ?
MatchPoint will help you find the right franchise.
Enquire today, it's FREE!

Franchise Forum!
Franchise Blog!
Franchise Networking!
Ask The Experts Today!

FEATURED FRANCHISE - WSI INTERNET - CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE

Posted by Hannah in Articles on 27.01.2010 10:08:48 pm | 215 views

Hello,

I am after advice on how to attract the right sort of franchisee. I have just launched a local voucher code website franchise opportunity. I think it is quite unique as the target businesses are independent locals not nationals like on other sites.

In a nutshell the franchisee gets training, support a tailored website and promotional material and a designated region for £395. I am not making a profit on the franchise sale but have structured a monthly fee of £150 per month which the franchisee would Begin to pay after an initial three months free period which gives them a chance to get going. If by this time they are not making any money they can walk away. I hope they will be making money and the £150 will in time increase in relation to their earnings to 10% of their earnings.

Sorry if that sounds a little long winded my question is that as I have decided to price my franchises low in order to get all 420 regions up and running quickly how do I attract the right sort of driven people that will be committed enough to take the business forward. I was also wondering which are the best websites to advertise on?

Thank you

Hannah

Comments

Matthew on 28.01.2010 10:21:35 am

Hi Hannah and welcome to our NetFrog forum.

I took a look over your site and think i understand he opportunity you are offering - have you actually ran it as a standalone business itself yet where you have got your own local area up and running successfully? The reason I am asking is that the business needs tried and tested first before you can consider taking money from people.

Outwith that though - low cost opportunities like this can go down quite well on the major franchise directories. Although there are a lot of low cost franchises nowadays (4-10k) I have found from my own experience that many people looking to purchase a franchise just do not have the funds, however they can get together under 1k and when presented with the right opportunity via the right advertising medium, enquiries can literally pour through the door.

The main franchise directories all cost a lot to advertise on and what you really want is access to their database of subscribers, if you can get a newsletter out to their DB then you are guaranteed a decent amount of leads. However this does not come cheap.

As a guide you would be looking to spend 3-10k advertising on each of the following:

www.franchisedirect.co.uk

www.franchisesales.co.uk

www.selectyourfranchise.com

With a little bargaining you might be able to squeeze a little extra from them for your money.

Now - we do not charge anywhere near those guys, they have all been in the business for years and charge a premium for their services, we have bigger databases than them and probably slightly more website visitors yet only charge up to £800 per year and that is with several newsletters to our 36,000 website subscribers included

Yeah ok im getting all sales pitchy!

So - as the old saying goes, you have to spend money to make money and with the low cost of your opportunity you really do not want to be spending ten grand on lets say franchisedirect and not get some decent sales through from it. I would ask them all for a trial run and see what they say, that way any that do give you a trial you will be able to monitor performance and see what works best.

There are many other franchise directories out there also so it could be worth ringing round them all to see what discounts or free trials you can get out of them.

www.franchiseroute.co.uk

www.totalfranchise.co.uk

www.theukfranchisedirectory.net

www.franchiseexpo.co.uk

www.franchiseek.com

We have a new start-ups package which runs at £200 for the year and includes 3 blasts to our website subscribers which is a great deal but I would like to see your franchise working first as a viable opportunity. a lot of franchises come and go so to ensure we keep a clean sheet of opportunities for peopel to buy it is essential that they show that the opportunity is viable which I think you can understand.

Happy to discuss our website and other sites with you if you want to give me a call on 01542 810389

Kind regards,

Matthew Anderson

The Franchise Shop

Hannah on 28.01.2010 12:43:54 pm

Hello Matthew

Thank you very much for your detailed response. We have trialed the concept as a stand alone region and within six months had over 150 businesses advertising regularly with us. One person can comfortably run a region working full time for an initial two months and then on a 16hour week to retain this level of advertisers, obviously the more hours they put in the more opportunity there is to earn more money.

In line with our business model it only cost £12 per month per offer for a business to advertise so we found after the initial push (offering 2 months free) retention was very good, bringing in £1800 per month with minimal overheads. We would like to pitch as a well priced opportunity to earn a sensible income, not a get rich quick.

Because we have just launched as www.printanoffer.com and I have recently moved to the town of Stroud I have started Stroud as my demo town using the PrintAnOffer platform, print media control pannel etc just as a franchisee would. I have again had good feedback so far. I will keep you posted with stats and in the mean time make some enquiries with the companies you have kindly listed. Although I would be very interested to advertise with you once my Stroud region is a little more established and has proven itself past the 2 months free stage for my first group of businesses.

Thank you again for your input