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!

I recently got onto a plane, settled in with my computer case at hand, my ipod Touch at the ready - my Bose headset set up and my computer in my pre-planned position to swipe it out of said aforementioned case.

Then came the flight attendant.

He looked at me, grinned and asked if I would "be so kind" to switch seats with a husband who was needed by his wife so the two of them could keep their baby from exploding onto the passengers in and around where she was currently seated. Now, here I am. I am comfortable. I have perfected my environment. And this clown disrupts my mental zen. Further it will require some deliberate focus and nurturing to get me back on track once I have settled into my new digs.

This of course is a minor thing isn't it?

Imagine that same seat-swapping scenario occurring during a period of severe weather turbulence. Not only would you be anxious and feeling unstable in your current seat, you now have to collect yourself, mobilize without falling on your pa-toot with such concern related to spilling all over the passengers along the way and then get re-oriented in the new situation.

Organizationally change is usually difficult. It typically comes in the midst of failure and chaos. Change amidst instability is the worst. Yet many employees are feeling lost, anxious, hurt and confused lately as their companies reorganize, reallocate resources, cut costs and downsize staff.All the while, in the bigger picture, the economy searches for stabilization.

Franchisee's, are typically once-bitten victims of this kind of turmoil. Actually, many of them may have been bitten several times by downsizing or more generally, by being deeply and personally affected by change that caught them off guard in their previous careers.

It is then no wonder, now, at a time when they seem to have more control as business owners (often a significant reason they became business owners in the first place) when put into similar transitional scenarios in their franchise business, they resist strongly. They dig their heels in, shut their ears and just refuse change.

My experience also tells me that franchise organization must be better at forecasting and predicting change within the company and in the greater market than their corporate counterparts in business. This higher standard of expertise is something the franchisee, though it may be unspoken, is buying when he invests that fee into the franchise.

Franchises need to make a core competency out of looking at their current situation, considering options and executing on those well in advance of the changes needed. Franchise organizations, compared to companies that operate multi-unit/multi-regionally have many "owners." They have many decision makers and to get this distributed leadership onboard takes a significant communications effort. That effort must start sooner and create an atmosphere of listening, learning, hearing, training and teaching.

While we are at it, think of communication as the second core competency that every franchise desiring success must have or acquire. Period! Franchises must be communications experts.

If it typically is a 6-month ramp up time to changes required for a corporation then a franchise needs double that time. This time should be allowed for contemplation and preparation before transition can be deeply understood and welcomed. Occasionally changes are made under emergency circumstances. If this is the case, just know that success and acceptance is not likely to be 100% or even 75%. You will have to manage to another lower level of acceptance (and should you get better, because of your culture of trust then count it a blessing!)

To encourage employee buy-in, a executive I met recently shared how her company applied the "head, heart, hands" concept as an organizational imperative as they underwent some restructuring. I believe this kind of methodology is even more significantly exercised within a franchise since the cultures of franchises are so very personal (and the more personal the better in my estimation.)

Here's how it works:

Knowing that staff would find any change unsettling, the company's leadership created a unified plan to fully communicate and engage their teams before taking any action. Explaining all the logical and rational reasons for the change would enable staff to begin intellectually processing the information (head); acknowledging how the change would make employees feel before, during and after implementation would assuage their fear (heart); and outlining the tactical plan and ensuing goals would satisfy their need for action (hands).

Franchisers, remember, you have a very sensitive leadership team. They are your franchisees. They come in all shapes and sizes. They are however acutely concerned with change. Keep them abreast of unique opportunities or concerns in their area of concern (which includes the home office by the way.) Change, in our current climate may be inevitable but it does not have to be excruciatingly painful. Your leadership will make all the difference.

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

Everyone has heard of it by now. Very few know how to use it and I suggest that many franchises are still missing out on a major marketing process by continuing in the dark ages by ignoring it. I am talking about Search Engine Optimization.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a powerful Internet tool aimed to increase brand, product and service visibility and your business presence on the web. Since the Internet is now the primary source of information and goods for multi-market and Top 100 regional market companies and service providers, it only makes sense to be as visible as possible in order to attract and meet the needs of your prospects, clients and customers.

There are many ways to approach SEO efforts, and it can be difficult for businesses just starting out. Luckily, there are many resources available to assist in SEO efforts, especially for small businesses. Here are my quick tips for effective SEO marketing and your franchise.

1. Set a Goal

Search engine optimization efforts (SEO) will not go far without a specific goal in mind for your overall branding efforts. What words do you want to own on the web? How do you wish to be positioned on the web? If you have a strong competitor or competitors and they already have established a high presence using certain terms and owning a particular place in the minds of customers you need to ask yourself, "what can I own? What position still exists that would service our company and our branding?"

Before you dive head-first into your market position efforts, develop a strategy for what you want to accomplish. Perhaps it already exists in your current marketing plan. Is that plan transitional to the Internet? Secondly, create objectives that relate to your planning. Whether it’s to increase the number of views to your website or landing pages each week, increase your franchisees page rank, expand your customer base or have a newsworthy story picked up by a certain number of information outlets, having a goal for market positioning and goals for constant web presence and position improvement within your field will assist you in improving your brand, and also provide something to compare and measure your results against as it relates to your current efforts.

2. Add a Blog

I want to keep this simple today but so here is the simplified version of understanding web presence. Research has consistently shown that a static Web site (create once - walk away) will have little lasting effect on improving your marketing efforts. A blog is a way to change that. Even having a blog (ongoing messages about you, your business, your business partners, the market you are in and the market trends) as your main SEO priority can help drive traffic to your Websites.

And oddly enough a blog also adds credibility to your company, shows customers that you’re Web savvy, and can help your company stay on top of current trends. Like every other part of your marketing game make sure the blog has an over all purpose and is providing content that will attract readers from the beginning. Again, site credibility is a key for a webblog. One word of caution, Blogging is a commitment. Make sure you realize you are in it for the long haul. Have it determined that you can add contact to your blog at least once and more would be better times a week.

3. Produce Valuable Content

There is an increasing trend for companies to form with the intention of making money simply through advertising and second-rate content. While these companies do provide keyword-rich content, they do it for all of the wrong reasons. Search engines respond to the number of times a term is repeated on a site, as well as the number of other sites that are linking back to it. Inbound links from these sites are what really drives up your page rankings. This is what many SEO link builders focus on the most. Don't get stuck just yammering on about particular key words or links. Providing interesting and valuable content that will stand out from the fake sites is surprisingly easy to do.

Google offers this insight for webmasters:

“The best way to get other sites to create relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can quickly gain popularity in the Internet community. The more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it. Before making any single decision, you should ask yourself the question: Is this going to be beneficial for my page’s visitors? “

4. Use Free Resources

The Internet provides a number of resources and tools for analytics and web marketing, and many of them are free. Again, for brevity sake, I simply refer you to Google, do a search for SEO analytics. As a matter of fact our favorite web search tool has it's own free tools. Installing tools such as Google’s Analytics can help you track traffic, and also give reports of where visitors are coming from, how often they visit, and the keyword searches (What did they search for that brought them to you?) that bring them there. Additionally, Twitter has long been a tool for Web marketing and SEO efforts, because of the number of people one can reach at just the click of a button. The Twitter community has amazing and free tools to capture who is viewing you, from where and from your efforts get a sense of why. Can you imagine how that helps you to understand how the market, potential clients and competitors might see you and your brand?

NOTE: You can get a sense of your current status by typing “link:yourwebaddresshere” into Google; the results will show what sites are currently linking to your site, and you may discover some sites and users you were previously unaware of. Analyzing the results can help to target certain audiences and build a base for developing future tactics and content.

5. Establish Relationships

For my money Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are the top 3 social networks every business needs to hook into. You can create relationships with similar companies in your field, market partners, influential writers, PR professionals and journalists as well as people who are interested in your company. Establishing these relationships, will gain you a community that are willing to distribute links to your site and often link back to your site from their web addresses.

Within those web tools mentioned above there is a second way to improve your product, service and company message. Participate in discussions, and join forums within those web sites and their tools. Linking to others’ content can highlight your company, your brand, your service and your content.

The extended value of this last methodology provides you a professional platform and process within a more ubiquitous arena of interest. Your inks will be displayed from credible, influential Web sites that will add valuable traffic to your site.

Learn more about SEO on your own. Don't just leave it to the so-called professionals. Most of them are less than 24 and know nothing about your business, what you are attempting to accomplish through your web presence or know how to ensure you attract the right viewers to your websites. What they do know is the general information I just shared with you here. It's up to you to add the particulars.

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

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

Good Morning World! I’m covering some overarching advice today as I believe small business owners and marketers need to think strategically about social media use, perhaps before they ever start to discuss tactical use.

1) Integrate – Don’t treat your social media activity as something separate from your other marketing initiatives. Feature links to your social media profiles in your email signature, on your business cards, in your ads, and as a standard block of copy in your weekly HTML email newsletter. In addition, make sure that links to your educational content are featured prominently in your social media profiles and that Facebook fan page visitors and blog subscribers are offered the opportunity to subscribe to your newsletter and attend your online and offline events. Make your social media profiles a part of your address copy block and you will soon see adding them to all that you do as an automatic action.

2) Amplify – Use your social media activity to create awareness for and amplify your content housed in other places. This can go for teasing some aspect of your latest blog post on twitter or in your Facebook status, creating full blown events on Eventful or MeetUP, or pointing to mentions of your firm in the media. If you publish a bi-weekly newsletter, in addition to sending it to your subscribers, archive it online and tweet it too. You can also add social features to your newsletter to make it very easy for others to retweet (tweetmeme button) and share on social bookmark sites such as delicious and digg. I would also add that filtering other people’s great content and pointing this out to your followers, fans and subscribers fits into this category as it builds your overall reputation for good content sharing and helps to buffer the notion that you are simply broadcasting your announcements. Quality over quantity always wins in social media marketing.

3) Repurpose – Taking content that appears in one form and twisting it in ways that make it more available in a another, or to another audience, is one of the secrets to success in our hyperinfo driven marketing world we find ourselves. When you hold an event to present information you can promote the event in various social media networks and then capture that event and post the audio to your podcast, slides to Slideshare, and transcript (You can use Castingwords for this) as a free report for download. You can string 5 blog posts together (like this series) and make them available as a workshop handout or a bonus for your LinkedIn group. Never look at any content as a single use, single medium, act.

4) Lead generate – So many people want to generate leads in the wide world of social media, but can’t seem to understand how or have met with downright hostile reactions when trying. Effectively generating leads from social media marketing is really no different than effectively generating leads anywhere – it’s just that the care you must take to do it right is amplified by the “no selling allowed” culture. No one like to be sold to in any environment – the trick is to let them buy – and this is even more important in social media marketing. So, what this means is that your activity, much of what I’ve mentioned above, needs to focus on creating awareness of your valuable, education based content, housed on your main hub site. You can gain permission to market to your social media network and contacts when you can build a level of trust through content sharing and engagement. It’s really the ultimate two step advertising, only perhaps now it’s three step – meet and engage in social media, lead to content elsewhere, content elsewhere presents the opportunity to buy. To generate leads through social media marketing, you need to view your activity on social sites like an effective headline for an ad – the purpose of the headline is not to sell, but to engage and build know, like and trust – it’s the ultimate permission based play when done correctly.

One glaring exception to this softer approach for some folks is twitter search. I believe you can use twitter search to locate people in your area who are asking for solutions and complaining about problems you can solve and reach out to them directly with a bit of a solution pitch. People who are talking publicly about needing something are offering a form of permission and can be approached as more of warmed lead. The same can also be said for LinkedIn Answers – if someone asks if “anyone knows a good WordPress designer”, I think you can move to convincing them that you are indeed a great WordPress designer.

5) Learn – One of the hangups I encounter frequently from people just trying to get started in social media marketing is the paralysis formed when they stare blankly at twitter wondering what in the world to say. The pressure to fill the silence can be so overwhelming that they eventually succumb and tweet what they had for lunch. If you find yourself in this camp, I’m going to let you off the hook – you don’t have to say anything to get tremendous benefit from social media participation. If I did nothing more than listen and occasionally respond when directly engaged, I would derive tremendous benefit from that level of participation. In fact, if you are just getting started this is what you should do before you ever open your 140 character mouth. Set up an RSS reader and subscribe to blogs, visit social bookmarking sites like BizSugar and delicious and read what’s popular, create custom twitter searches for your brand, you competitors, and your industry, and closely follow people on twitter who have a reputation for putting out great content. And then just listen and learn. If you do only this you will be much smarter about your business and industry than most and you may eventually gain the knowledge and confidence to tap the full range of what’s possible in the wild and wacky world of social media marketing.

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

If you are the proverbial Internet information junkie, the one who grabs hold of a topic and then will run the gamut you will find abundant opinion and expert on franchising. When researching for "your" franchise you will find a maze of opinion and thought and philosophy as it relates to whether or not you should buy a business, specifically a franchise business. You will trip head long into massive doses of opinion that run smack dab into one another with the force of two locomotives, at full steam, heading over any trestle you have ever seen in any movie scene with trains in the last fifty years.

It's ridiculous! It's absurd! Who are some of these Nimrods? What do they get out of making the most ignorant statements other than to see their own words typed on a page in front of their faces?

I want to clear up some things that seem to fly in the face of one another if I can. However, if you are simply one of those who loves to hear his or her jaw flap when you finally get someone in the know on the phone as you consider business ownership this will have little affect other than to provide more fuel for the fire to keep words floating in the wind and your actions from actually moving you into business ownership.

Here is a bottom line statement you can take to the bank: If you aren't prepared to step out of your comfort zone and become a business owner you will find a plethora of excuses to justify your lack of forward progress.

Here is another: More than 85% of the people who engage a franchise consultant or a franchise development person in negotiations to investigate franchises NEVER BUY A BUSINESS OF ANY KIND...EVER! The corollary to this statement is that they will bother, annoy, cajole, hassle, stalk, bedevil, beleaguer, nag, nettle, perturb, pester, plague and provoke a half dozen individuals who earn their livings providing assistance to those who truly are looking at changing their lives. That is what happens...ever searching but never making a decision to become a business owner.

So, here is my advice to you if you are a true seeker. Look in the mirror, and for a week of Sundays and all the time in between those 7 Sundays, say to yourself, "Stanley (Susan, Ward, Jill, Rudy... whatever YOUR name is) you have decided you are not going back to work for another company as an employee. You have decided...I have decided I will become a business owner. I will understand the components of a business (not the name of it but the attributes of the business model as developed by the franchiser) that will satisfy my personal needs and I will decide what it is I must be able to experience in a business in order for me to have created a condition that I would define as success."

Here is the second piece of advice - If you are still out there looking for a business and looking for the next job simultaneously you will never be any good to another employer or to a franchise company (who needs you at your best in order to continue to grow the value of the brand). Stop looking for the business. Now. Stop it. Seriously. Go get the job and shuffle back into mediocrity. At least for the time being and until your resolve is cemented and you have the will to change your life.

Having said that I realize there are business models that allow you to grow the business as a sideline. As long as you are willing to move at a snails pace in a business whose cost structures would be decidedly less, whose progress would be exponentially greater if you were available full-time plus, then fine...give those a go and put that into your set of business model requirements. Just know regardless of what anyone will tell you, this ex-franchisee in multiple business models and current consultant who works with hundreds of franchises (yes 100's!) is telling you right now what should be obvious to you, more involvement, more hours, more dedication to your business means more rapid, more sure success.

Where was I? Oh yes first you (and then later the nimrods of confusion) - this is what you need to do:
1. Decide first you WILL become a business owner
2. Decide what your business needs to be able to take advantage of relating to:
Your talents - Your learned skill sets
- Your personal gifting (orator, mechanical, tech astute, creative, financial, systems, admin., etc.)
- Your passions (community, environment, faith, hobby, physical fitness, etc.)
3. Decide what your budget is...and frankly don't decide on less than $50,000 liquid ($100K is better) plus
4. Review the types of business format and which you will be most satisfied in operating:
Entrepreneur: I must create it - mold it - make it - control it - be lord of all I see within and relating to it
Franchisee: I will take advantage of someone else's passion, system, creative idea and operate something I enjoy and feel strongly about that meets my criteria (see above) within a structured framework of systems, training, market niche, branding and culture. I will own it but be content with having support and a fraternity of others in my same fleet and type...
Business Opportunity: See Franchisee above and extricate any strong ties to accountability, systems, training, branding (possibly) and ongoing support. There are many fine business opportunities and distributorship's but in my estimation should be the focus primarily of those who already bring marketing, operations, experienced internal training and a talented team to the business table.

There are iterations of all of these...businesses that fall in the cracks; but the more succinct the definition you are able to associate with your business and what you are developing the more you will be content in operating the better you will be to focus on creating business success than constantly tweaking the model in order to stay in some sort of compliance to governing rules and regulations.

What are these disassociated claims that fly in the face of each other that I spoke of early on...?

I just read a plethora of posts that all said franchising is more expensive to operate than like non-franchises. Really?

Let me pose two questions:

1. What would you rather end up with...a business in which you made 30 cents on every dollar over breakeven but you were limited in reach to your market, say you top out at $500,000 by virtue of your model, product offering, branding, systems or marketing efforts or would you prefer a business in which your average unit revenue is less limited and perhaps tops out at $1,000,000-1,500,000 but you only make 24 cents per dollar by virtue of an expanded market, product offering, systems, technology, etc.?

If this takes you more than 6 seconds to answer do NOT become a business owner...not until you get your time down under six seconds.

I have just described what typically happens in franchising. Business franchise formats take advantage of systems, marketing, operations excellence, ongoing support, superior training and far better market savvy and take market share from less organized and professional independent operators. Occasionally they create products and markets. Most often they simply improve on a market that exists and feed a larger piece of the potential market.

On to question two:

2. On what planet does someone in small business consulting have to be living on to tell the Internet world it costs more to be a franchisee than it does to operate an independent business?

I mean the uninformed, usually newbies to franchise research, might add things up like royalties, required advertising and conformed purchasing practices (where you buy from an approved list of suppliers) and say, "Ah ha! They take my money and more of it than I would normally spend...that's their sneaky, under-handed trick to separate me from my wallet!"

But really? Is that what you think? I could list half dozen studies done by the International Franchise Association, Franchise Update, Entrepreneur Magazine and more that show otherwise but let me just make a plea to rational thinking with you...

If you are a bigger business, say, oh, a franchise of 50 units or 100 units or 500 or 15,000 units and you centralize purchasing, and negotiate for volumes do you think you will, as a franchisee have the opportunity to take advantage of preferred pricing or will you pay more than your independent competitor? Now, before you answer, yes, I admit it, there are the very few instances when an unscrupulous franchise company takes the excess savings and pockets them. It is rare. Why? Because in a franchise system there are no secrets.

By the way, you would be correct and earn extra credit if you surmised that the bigger the system the more negotiating power you gain, the lower your rates can go.

Secondly, the expense required to advertise...where do you think that comes from? Now, in some organizations there are larger national expenses than others and these are typically with franchises who have grown to the size where they can take advantage of their market position. That is what happens. Organizations mature, they grow, they get bigger, they are better known and they can take advantage of their brand name, market reach, size and positioning - it is the price you pay to be effective.

Free truism: This one costs you nothing - there are very few franchisees in the universe that like the marketing campaigns of their franchiser and it's corollary is everyone knows more than the experts about a better method to do it. Deal with it. Speak into the situation where you can but just realize this on the front end.

Finally, the cost of royalties is not a cost at all and unless you are running a schlock operation; should you be running your business as prescribed in the franchise model your production and business systems, cost savings through ordering and economy of scale and more effective and consistent marketing efforts will more than make up for this line item expense.

If you want to understand the cost of doing business in comparative independent businesses and franchises always remember seek first to understand before you open your mouth and remove any doubt of your lack of solid research.

• Compare average revenues of franchises to independent businesses
• Understand the expenses in a comparative sense as well
• Realize that advertising creates recognition and recognition gives you a fighting chance in the market ergo it is not just necessary but needs to be consistent, focused and aggressive
• Think deeply about what you will need to do and create if you decide to run your own show without the support of a franchise company - realize that systems create more time to produce and more time to produce create increased revenue opportunities

...and that kids is a big part of what a business should provide to you...

Now, I know some of this sounds harsh - but you owe it to yourself to use your time wisely and that is my hope for you. Please take this to heart. It will provide you with a more sure and solid foundation from which to make this life-changing decision to own your own business.

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