Doc Franchise Writings and Ramblings

I do not know a franchise company that doesn't attempt to train their franchisee's to create an organized and "intentional" marketing program. Part of that would be of course to create a calendar to organize by and then execute the calendared events.

Most do not create the events so that they don't feel badly about not executing on it. We must change this!

To all my franchisee, Action Coach Consultants and small business friends it’s 60 days before the end of the year. Let's finished the year strong.

I've made these sound as if they are "end-of-year." The truth is these ideas work around any time of year, but help when they are tied to significant dates or celebrations. Some of these are not tightly defined as "marketing" but perhaps sales & marketing campaigns. These are simple and straight forward. That was my intention. Pick only one or two of them. But, know that in doing so you could change your momentum and begin a very strategic start to 2010.

All the best...

1. Plan a year-end webinar series. Record the webinar, and sell both the live event and the replays. Or consider using it as a lead capture tool to bring people into your marketing funnel in exchange for free access to the webinar replay.

2. Share a compelling customer case study. This can be shared with new prospects, or those who just haven’t made a decision yet. Be aware of updated FTC guidelines especially as it relates to testimonials, endorsements, and disclosing any compensation. (I am not lawyer, and this is not legal advice. It is something to consider before investing in a case study.)

3. Issue a press release on anything that would be classified as newsworthy of your work, company or client successes for your market. There are both paid and free online press release services. Consider PRWeb.com or OpenPR.com.

4. Create a simple contact your best customer program (Minimum: Top 10 but a better number is 25-30) Mix a short survey in with a valued personal gratitude gift to them. Determine if there are special needs you can meet in their business by end of year. Take this opportunity to also connect with them on any social networks they may be on (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.). And please, remember, ALWAYS ask for referrals.

5. Prepare a Thanksgiving email message, expressing what it is you are grateful for relating to your work and your family. Provide a gratitude offer to them (You are making the special offer because of your grateful heart over their patronage).

6. This next one is a no-brainer P.R. driven ubiquitous opportunity: Celebrate “Black Friday” with a “Black Friday” themed campaign of your own. Since “Black Friday” is for retail businesses who are becoming profitable for the first time in the calendar year (going from red ink into the ‘black’), talk about how your product has helped customers be profitable from day one, or within NN days of purchase. Build a story around the success customers have had with the product. Refer to a case study (#2 above).

7. Consider a marketing campaign themed off of the 12 Days of Christmas. Perhaps build a tip list of the 12 essential tools necessary to get the job done. Some of these tools can be ones you sell, but don’t make it all about buying from you (yet). Offer value.

8. Cap off the 12 days campaign with a special 3 day sale of your tools. Done right, the campaign should help them understand how your product or service would benefit them, and an enticing offer to cap it off will help them make a decision (to buy).

9. As an end-of-year message tell your marketplace of your most successful product, or business activity so far this year. Then offer a special sale to commemorate the accomplishment. Use email marketing or social media — or both — to communicate this event.

10. CRITICAL: Set goals and objectives for whatever marketing activities you engage in for the next 60 days. This not only helps understand the results, but often yields better results (see Hawthorne Effect). It will also serve as a guide to future marketing activities, as you learn what your market responds to.

Happy Hunting!

One of the things that often slays me about coming up on someone's freshly designed website is just how much content they attempt to jam into the homepage.

Similarly, receiving coupons, whether paper or electronic with multiple messages also leaves me and virtually every other consumer albeit household or business...they leave us flat.

Franchises and small businesses have a real challenge. Common sense dictates to us that it is important that our potential clients and customers know precisely what we do.

The problem is what seems to make sense falls flat in practice.

First, if you want your brand positioning to resonate with prospective clients and potential franchisees, it's essential that you appeal to their emotions in some way. Fail to grip them emotionally and you are simply tossing money down the tubes.

Effective positioning sells your vision, company, or services. It may not be terribly creative, but if you can package some good creative content into your message that appeals to a strong need or want within your target audience, it will certainly create awareness. Effective positioning creates brand awareness and is convincing. It engages prospects as if you were speaking to them face-to-face, and when you succeed in making this connection your prospective client's perceptions and thinking processes about you become your brand at the individual level. If you can intuitively make the transition to branding and positioning from advertising check out Advertising Basics for Small Businesses for some pointers.

Secondly, should you achieve the enviable position of having a compelling position execution within your market, a stimulating message, your work has just begun. In fact, in branding and in any market segment the work is never over.You must expose your customers, prospective customers, and suspects (those who aren't currently interested in your company or product, but who might be shortly) to the same messaging over a prolonged period of time has two effect. The first is powerful. The second a willer. The first one is long after you are bored with your message they are still wrapping their arms around it. Keep it up. Here in Phoenix, Arizona Discount Tire Company still plays an ad from the 70's they created showing an older woman tossing a tire through a window, returning her tire for a full refund or replacement for the life of the tire. That is now a 39 year old ad. People just now are "getting it."...still!!!

The second is that an ad that is much less impactful in its delivery; where the emotions are not raised to such a high level, can lead to stagnation of your brand position. Test and measure. Obviously the folks at Discount created a very cheap (it even looks cheap) but powerful ad was created four decades ago and yet it lives and still helps them to keep a market position they value. An add for buy 3 and get one free has long since died. Why? No emotional tie!

Coke, one of the world's most valuable brands, reinvents its messaging and image when it decides they have begun to lose effectiveness. We often need to re-say the same thing in a new and vitally relative way as the years change to keep up with cultural adjustments. Apparently that isn't so true of the tire industry.

Creating an Effective Market Positioning

So how do you create an effective branding strategy? I want to suggest one effective strategy. It is the single benefit methodology. It could also better be described as the singular position technique. This concept directly links your brand to a single benefit. If your product is more environmentally safe, you shout it out. This is a characterization or personification positioning. It should involve, from a marketing strategy bringing a character to life (like our dissatisfied Discount Tire Company lady). They express product benefits or intriguing (defined here as socially powerful) personality traits in living terms. They are associated with the brand positioning. They show up wherever the message is being delivered.

Create a brand position that attaches your product or service to your target markets emotional high ground.Using the Discount Tire Company model we can play off their fear of buying the tires and shifting to a scene with our character, 6 months later, having a blowout, attempting to take it back to XYZ Tires and having the guy, cigar in mouth, shrugging and laughing versus her brining it back to Discount Tire for full satisfaction.

Although a calculated and well thought out advertising campaign may do a good job of creating brand awareness, it may fall short of inducing product preference or, the end goal, purchase. For this reason, don't rely on advertising as a complete solution. Instead, support it with marketing and sales promotion to help trigger a purchase. Branding comes together when positioning, marketing strategy (high level thought processes), advertising and the sales message and method are in alignment.

Apply the following criteria to test the effectiveness of your advertising message:

1. The brand position statement intelligibly and simply states a single message.
2. The Marketing Campaign evokes a specific and consistent, acute emotion throughout all the delivery methods.
3. The advertisements themselves are presented in a space (place where your market expects to find them and/or visits) where it will likely be noticed.
4. The overriding message is clearly evident and is easily projected at the customer service and support level.

Finally, understand that even a carefully thought out, highly creative campaign with a strong, concise message will fall flat if you do not stay true to the mission of the brand alignment-marketing-advertising-sales-support process for a massively long period of time. Time is your friend. Provided you have a product or service that is desirable you owe it to yourself and your business to stay the course and ensure everything you do will get you the place in your market you desire.

I hope this message rings true with my franchiser friends who have changed up their message 10 times in 10 years. You need to settle down, settle in and get out there and drive the emotions for your products straight to the cash registers of your franchisee's.

John is a 26-year professional in the franchise industry. He has been a franchisee, a franchise executive and an advocate/consultant to the public and to dozens of franchise companies. He is the founder and managing partner of Wilson Associates and can be reached at docfranchise@gmail.com. or direct office 480.838.1641

What? LinkedIN as a Sales Funnel?

I know that there are many frustrated franchise sales and development types out there who use LinkedIn. After several months or a year or two on it they are wondering what all of the ruckus is about? In all their time on LinkedIn they haven't generated one lead.

What's the problem? Well, the problem is that they are not using it effectively. They haven't discovered effective lead generation techniques.

LinkedIN is not about the most connections necessarily. Contrary to many users’ beliefs, whoever has the most connections does not win (unless your only reason for being on LinkedIn is to get a lot of connections). In addition to friends, family and secondary business contacts on LinkedIN, all of whom are mirrors of you and your services. I desire several hundred targeted connections of people interested in me, my services/products, or helping promote my business. Perhaps this happen-chance method is great for Twitter but LinkedIN has much to much content about you (or potentially) for it to be a drive-by experience.

I’m going to share with you 3 lead generation techniques that I regularly recommend. However, they are not all equally effective. If you are in the position where you will only implement one technique, then focus on the first technique I discuss.

Lead Generation Technique #1 – Groups

I've helped many people with their LinkedIn profiles and one of the biggest mistakes I see is ineffective use of groups. First, people are only involved in a few groups. Secondly, the groups they’re involved with are personal professional groups filled with people who do the exact same thing they do. From experience it is good to have a few of these to refer to; to determine what the rest of the market is talking about and perhaps pick up on a new method or technology. Rarely do they provide you with potential leads or even (in all sincerity) great strategic alliances. Why? The others in those groups, regardless of how different you may be, still view you as a competitor.

Ask yourself, who is my target market? What are their interests? (Jobs, careers, professions other than yours, executive improvement and skill sets, etc.) Join those groups – LinkedIn allows you to be a part of 50 groups at the free level.

Be active within those groups - in the right way! Post content that references their interests and not your sales message. You'll be labeled a spammer and discussion board leaders dislike having them in their LinkedIn groups. So, what is active in a good way? Start by answering questions – whether they are directly or indirectly related to your business. Ask thought-provoking questions around the issues and problems addressed by your products and services. If you start a discussion, make sure you follow-up with it and respond to comments.

Become an authority within groups. Share important news articles from other sources that relate to the needs of the group. Remember, not everything has to be about you. Meet their needs. Be a good discussion group member. Having said that, if you write a blog, submit your new blog posts as news articles to your groups. NOTE: Post these in the new section of the discussion group and NOT in "New discussions" or questions. Now, if you post a discussion question relative to the blog post, you can add the link to the bottom of the post as additional information, but the discussion item should be able to stand on its own. I think it is very rude when people essentially just say, “read my blog post, here’s the link, don’t forget to comment!”

Finally, become the authority in the group. Normally you cannot do this within an existing group. Of course many groups are so universal in scope they have sub-groups. Typically this is not true. You become the expert by starting your own group. Just remember, if you start a group, make it interesting to a wider audience than just you. You come across much less salesy if you create greater scope. If your franchise is a "Fast & Fresh" Mexican Food concept then add additional restaurant territory along with it. A title like, "Future Franchise Food Concepts" might d the trick. Be creative. Ask other creative types. Often indirectly related to your business is much more appealing and still allows you control of the forum.


Do Not recreate the wheel...er...forum! You may have to research what groups are already out there in the LinkedIN world. If you find another similar group but it has very few members, I would recommend going forward with your offering as long as you have a more compelling proposition. This requires some work as you can see. The work involves promoting it in other groups where there would be potential members, pre-inviting LinkedIn connections to join, and using your email list or sales database outside LinkedIn to promote it.

Something else to consider - you want to get the group growing as quickly. No one will initially find it on their own. On LinkedIN group search results are listed in order of group size and there are a ton of tiny groups. If you prepare you won't get lost in the jumble. If you do start out slow and build more slowly just be prepared to get lost in the search results until you have enough members to move you into the higher echelons.

Lead Generation Technique #2 – Introductions

The introduction feature of LinkedIN is rarely used. This is terribly unfortunate. If you know the LinkedIN story you'd know it is one of the main reasons that LinkedIn was created.

The free level of LinkedIn allows you to have 5 Introductions active simultaneously. The introduction feature is basically traditional prospect research made easy. Most members allow their connections to see their other connections. So, spend time reviewing all of your 2nd degree connections to find people of interest and request an introduction. The advanced people search will show you people who are 3 degrees away. Again, when you find someone of interest, request an introduction!

Lead Generation Technique #3 – Become an Expert


The Answers forum in LinkedIn is not just a place for you to look for advice. You should consider it your own professional forum. It is a place where you can become an “expert” in the eyes of the entire LinkedIn Community. Further, it’s also a place where people self-identify themselves as being interested in and wanting specific products, advice, and services.

When someone asks a question in the Answers section, they can specify up to 2 categories that are related to the question. After the question has been open for 6 days, the questioner can then identify one of the answers as the “best answer”. The person whose answer is selected then gets an expert point in those categories. Pick a couple of categories to regularly monitor in order to find people asking for your business and to answer questions that could score you expert points.

So John, what's next?

Well frankly group, that's my coaching for the day. In all sincerity, the rest is up to you and your promotional, marketing and sales skills. Generate the activity above and you will interact with many people you wouldn’t have otherwise found. Those are your leads and strategic alliances. Connect with those people. Begin building relationships with those people. And, ultimately sell to those people.

I hope you find this useful -

John is a 26-year professional in the franchise industry. He has been a franchisee, a franchise executive and an advocate/consultant to the public and to dozens of franchise companies. He is the founder and managing partner of Wilson Associates and can be reached at docfranchise@gmail.com. or direct office 480.838.1641

Most likely if you are over 30 and live in the USA, you have lived a life that has been in support of franchise chain businesses.

I recall the drives between my house in the Chicago area down to my grandmothers' in St. Louis and Terre Haute, Indiana and counting all the Howard Johnson's and all the Shell Stations and all the Aamco Transmission shops in the towns as we passed through. But mostly I waited for the "big 3," McDonald's, Dairy Queen and A&W Root Beer stands! Reflecting back most of those succeeded (at least for as long as they wished); some of them failed, but all of them fought passionately for the my attention.

Today I realize there are hundreds of factors that dictate a franchise’s success. Master your franchisee training but fail to maximize the value of your territory and that franchisee is in for a world of hurt.

This leads me to my point. The branding of any franchise continues to be one of the most essential ingredients in a franchise’s profitability; from the corporation down to the single unit.

I can still remember walking into an Applebees in Long Beach for the first time. There was just something authentic about it. It "felt" like the local or neighborhood bar & grill. Clearly, someone in their corporate offices had gotten all the small details right and the result was a memorable franchise experience.

Today I realize that branding is often the difference between whether a franchise rises into the public consciousness or if that business, as good as its products and service may be, drifts away unsuccessfully into oblivion.

Janet Muhleman, the president of re:group, has gathered together her belief set on branding in the latest edition of Franchising World. Here are her seven tips to improve your franchises branding:

1. Listen to your customers

2. Tell your brand story, what you believe in, why you do what you do.

3. Create a brand personality that people relate to and want to engage with.

4. Make believers out of your franchisees and their front-line staff so they can live the brand.

5. Engage your customers consistently and openly at every possible touch point.

6. Measure your performance and be prepared to embrace change and innovate to stay current and relevant.

7. And finally, as you listen to your customers also remember to be genuine and lead with your heart.... Now, re-read - Return to No. 1!

Branding is local for most businesses in North America. You have to convince YOUR customer (and not just the universal position) of who you are and what you do...so stop the self defeating self-talk about the company and what they should do. YOU OWN YOUR MARKET.

I welcome your thoughts on this topic - Do you have anything else to add?

John is a 26-year professional in the franchise industry. He has been a franchisee, a franchise executive and an advocate/consultant to the public and to dozens of franchise companies. He is the founder and managing partner of Wilson Associates and can be reached at docfranchise@gmail.com. or direct office 480.838.1641

As a small business owner, you know how difficult it can be to compete for one of the ten hot spots on the first page in search engine rankings. Large companies have the resources, traffic and inbound links to be recognized as trusted and therefore rank higher. Long tail keywords with geographic targets is a great way to get started in the local search however we know that keywords/on page SEO only accounts for roughly 25% of the ranking process. Local searches have become increasingly popular as when people begin their search, many are looking to weed out the large companies and seek local businesses. Creating and/or claiming your business on the local directories in conjunction with long tail geographic keywords will improve your local rankings. With so many to choose from, which ones are best?

While it is inviting to create or claim your business on every directory, this can be counterproductive as these sites rank very high and will push your actual site to the 2nd or even 3rd page. The following is the top sites to create your local business listing.

5 Top Local Directories

1. Google Local. This I find to be the best as you are required to have a Google user account however once you create and then create your listing, it provides statistics such as impressions, actions (# of driving directions requested, #of clicks to your website). Listings are set up quickly and an automated call is placed to verify your information through a pin that they send.

2. Yahoo Local. As with Google local, you do need a Yahoo account to set up your company. They will verify the information via review of a human as they term this and once verified, the listing is submitted.

3. Bing/MSN. Quite similar to Google and Yahoo however despite reading that you can verify via telephone, I am set up to receive a postcard with a pin number on it.

4. Yellowpages.com. Free listings tend to get lost on their site as paid listings will rank higher for each category but on the search engines, your site will be recognized and rank well on the search engines.

5. LinkedIn. Creating a company page further enhances your rankings on the search engines. Traffic to the site may not be the most abundant but it is another way to rank.

These are the top online directories. Others such as Superpages and Kudzu will increase your rankings on search engines as well. If you are unsure and want to add your company listing to additional sites, be sure to do a search on them to see if others have provided feedback. This will help to determine if their site is the right place for your company.

Be sure to be consistent with your company description as many times your listings will appear one after another on searches and it can be confusing if you promote different parts of your business on each site.

Any additional directories that have worked for you? Ring me up and let me know!

I love technology. It intrigues me. It keeps me excited and ever learning. Technology has also changed the face of business in spectacular ways. It has enabled businesses to embrace a greater community, it has increased productivity, and simplified communication. There are so many positives that they would be hard to name here in this post.

There is one aspect of technology that I find sad, and that is how it has made us lazy regarding personal contact or “face time” with customers and prospects. Email makes it so easy and efficient. But, you know what they say, “out of sight, out of mind.” In business this situation can be the kiss of death. If your entire relationship is email and text based, there is virtually no relationship.

Never believe that expediency is a better choice than relationship.

Electronic customers take on a different dynamic. Customers within a few hours drive are worth having face time with. When they are both a distance and treated with a steady diet of E-Mail you are in jepoardy.

Companies like the investment company Edward Jones, does not allow it’s advisors to use email with their customers. They do allow personal, voice and snail mail contact only. This effort is rewarded repeatedly. Here are some other things that I do to make “face time” work for me:

Coffee Clutch Time: When a person contacts me to see how we might work together, I typically suggest we meet over coffee. This way I can size them up better and try to understand their motivation. I’ve struck up some terrific business relationships this way.

Network meeting: You can use these events to spruce up your sales skills and put a face to a name. It gives you a chance to help someone on the spot. It also is an opportunity to create dialogue and open up lines of communication with potential partners.

In-person presentations: It has been my experience that an in-person presentation is your most powerful ally. I can demonstrate my desire to serve their business needs and I desire it enough to get out of my office and shake some hands. Virtual relationship is an oxymoron. A physical business shows you’re a real business.

Ignore email: I actually did not believe this until I took a lesson from a marketing wizard. Purposely visit customers or at least make phone calls when you get electronic messages. Showing up to chat WILL get you more business. It certainly ensures you will be taken seriously. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve taken something in person to a client that I could have just as easily emailed only to get other projects given to me on my way out the door. Seeing you reminds them of other ways that you can help. In today's virtual discussion environment, it is so rare that it also creates a certain amount of felt need to make sure your time was not wasted.

“I’m in the area” opportunities: Sometimes, when “I’m in the area” I call to see whether I can pop in to say howdie. These friendly requests always brings a smile and some great conversation.

New service meetings: Recently, I emailed a number of old files and offered to bring them a coffee and discuss what I’m offering these days that might be of help to them. A number of them took me up on it, and this effort resurrected some old business.

The point here is not to rely on convenience to grow your business. It’s not about you - it’s about your clients and customers and nothing tells them you care as much as hearing your voice, feeling the palm of your hand in theirs and listening to your laugh when they tell their latest jokes.

John is a 26-year professional in the franchise industry. He has been a franchisee, a franchise executive and an advocate/consultant to the public and to dozens of franchise companies. He is the founder and managing partner of Wilson Associates and can be reached at docfranchise@gmail.com. or direct office 480.838.1641

Often I am asked to review the sales and marketing pitches provided by franchise development groups and individuals. Many times these have been developed by marketing and are part of an overall franchise development strategy aimed at creating a more appetizing business offering.

Most often the consultants and sales managers who develop these are not aware of the subtle undertones of certain worn-out words and how we have skewed their meanings.

This whole kick on language has come about as I have listened to business development people by the carloads inflict an aura of self-destruction jargon around a business model that has a better story.

I am not getting into the fashioning of the story but I want to address the words and, in any business setting these 12 need to be used sparingly lest you are put in the pen your audience has labeled huckster or B.S. slinger.

Here they are:

1. Just
   This is most often used to make a huge request or error seem trivial as in: “Could you just do this (500 page) document by Monday?”, a request best made late on a Friday afternoon. In sales terms it might be used thusly, "Just think of this as a cost of doing business."
   
2. But
   Remember, whatever is said before “but” is b*llsh*t, as in, “That was a great presentation, but…”, or “I would like to help, but…” (I'm actually not going to help at all!)
   
3. From
   Much loved by advertisers, as in “Fly to Rome from $199″ excluding $200 of taxes and other “optional” extras for a flight leaving at 4am, going to an airport about 100 miles away from Rome and the ticket has to be booked one year in advance.
4. Might (and any other conditional verb)
   Might is used to achieve two things: first it sets up a negotiating position as in, “I might be able to do that if…” Second, it lays the ground work for excusing failure later on: “I might have done it, if only….”
5. Only
   Closely related to “Just”, it is an attempt to make a big request or problem seem small. “It was only a small error….we only dropped one nuclear bomb over London…”
6. Important (and urgent)
   Used to puff up any presentation: “This important new product/initiative…”. Important to who? And why? Maybe it is important to the salesman, but why is it to me?
7. Strategic
   This is the same as "important," but with bells attached to the ankles. See Strategic Human Capital division, formerly known as the Personnel Department. Alternatively used to justify something which has no financial justification at all: “This strategic IT investment…..(which costs $60 million and has no identifiable payback at all) is essential to the survival of the business”
8. Rightsize, downsize, best shore, offshore, outsource, optimize, redeploy, downshift, re-engineer
   How many ways are there of avoiding saying straight up: we are going to lay off staff, kill morale and kill our business culture?
9. Thank you
   Normally “Thank you” is a good thing...except when used by automated voices at call centers located in India or Costa Rica saying, “Thank you for calling, we value your call…(and we have so much contempt for our customers that we can not be bothered to answer your call promptly, so we will put you on hold until you give up and try to use our impenetrable and useless online help instead).” Similarly, in a sales connection when you, as the potential client ask a meaningful question that has no simple answers and the sales type says, "That's a very good question." Be careful. That usually means a not so very good answer is about to follow.
   
10. Interesting
    Fear this word. When your franchise lawyer uses it, you are doomed. When your doctor uses it, check your will is up to date. "These are interesting times." Uh huh. A slightly less interesting time would be preferable.
11. Opportunity
    Because the word “problem” has been banned in business speak, all problems have become opportunities. This means many opportunities are problems. There is a limit to how many opportunities I can solve. Interesting and strategic opportunities really scare me.
12. Investment
    Investment was first hijacked by the British government to justify wild and uncontrolled public sector spending. Our government followed suit. Spending is bad, but investment is good, so they simply re-classified all their spending as “investment” in the health, education and future of the country. The businesses which followed the government’s lead by going on a spending/investment splurge are now going bust: unlike the government, they can not print money or raise taxes.

I am sure you have your favorites. If so, add them in when you leave your comments.

John is a 26-year professional in the franchise industry. He has been a franchisee, a franchise executive and an advocate/consultant to the public and to dozens of franchise companies. He is the founder and managing partner of Wilson Associates and can be reached at docfranchise@gmail.com. or direct office 480.838.1641