How to Succeed from Day 1 as a New Franchisee

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Long-term, sustained success takes planning.

Achieving great things – no matter how farfetched they may seem – is possible, but the work and strategic efficiency it takes to accomplish it isn’t easy.

That’s why it’s so critical for new franchisees to be ready to really dedicate themselves from the first day as a new franchise owner – setting themselves up for success right off the bat, so they can hit a home run on their new investment.

Ensure systems are optimized, right staff are on your team

Franchise systems are the hallmark of franchise success, and ensuring they’re optimized is paramount to helping your franchise reap its rewards. Before you open your doors, ensure you put as much work as possible into working with the franchisor to study and get familiarized with its systems. Make sure you know why things are being conducted a certain way, so that you can best teach and mentor your managers and staff.

Of course, having the right staff is also key to succeeding from Day 1 in business. Before you start hiring your staff, take time to speak with other franchisees and learn what type of workers and managers helped them succeed the best. By combining this information with your own opinions, you can create a strategic direction for hiring the right team to help optimize your franchise success.

Excellent service, quality, and atmosphere will bring customers back

While an initial marketing blitz and new-business buzz may help drive customers to your business once it opens (social media, guerilla marketing, and other forms of advertising campaigns will be needed), retaining and growing this customer base is the bigger challenge.

So, how does a brand-spankin’-new franchisee do this?

If you’ve already hired and trained in your staff with a customer-service mindset, you can most importantly ensure your customers have an excellent first experience. Along with this, you want to ensure the quality of what they’re getting is maximized – it seems obvious, but don’t forget the amount of other businesses out there that you may be being compared to.

As a final touch, ensure the atmospheric experience is a perfect once. Just like if you go to a nice restaurant and the food’s good but the place was less than ideal, the same goes for your franchise. Ensure you have a modern, professional, clean, and welcoming environment tailored to your target market.

Doing so will help you get quick out of the gates, and onwards to success.

To learn more about entrepreneurship through franchising, attend our free monthly webinar, Franchise Ownership as a More Stable Career Path. The webinar is free, but you need to pre-register, which you can do online by clicking on the linked seminar title.

You may also register by calling 866-246-2884.

How Vets Can Finance Franchises through Crowdfunding

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Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it did take a heck of a lot of people to do it.

For military veterans looking to franchise, there are significant franchise-fee discounts and other reduced costs to encourage them to become a franchisee.

But what about raising the rest of the capital needed?

In recent years, crowdfunding – gaining the capital needed to start a business from a large group of people – has become increasingly popular, and should be considered by vets looking to become franchisees.

Donor-based crowdfunding driven by good will, communal interest

For starters, donor-based crowdfunding is perhaps the most convenient for new business owners. It involves financial backers donating money to help get a new business off the ground, who often donate because they want to be part of a new and exciting idea or they believe in the product or service.

In addition, sometimes a business will offer crowdfunders products, services, or other perks in exchange for their donation.

Investor-based crowdfunding gives donors piece of the business

This type of franchising is more capitalist-rooted in nature, where investors will buy into a business to seek a share of returns and equity.

In both cases, the long-term benefits for vets becoming new franchisees are created from the communal buzz of the crowd-sourced marketing.

Crowdfunding grows buzz, facilitates community engagement

One of the major advantages of crowdfunding is the initial marketing it gives to the new franchise. From the buzz surrounding the crowdfunding campaign and engagement on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media, the community gets involved in the discussion around the new franchise.

And, if the crowdfunding campaign is a major success, it gives a huge indication to the franchisee that the franchise will be success right off the start, too.

To learn more about entrepreneurship through franchising, attend our free monthly webinar, Franchise Ownership as a More Stable Career Path. The webinar is free, but you need to pre-register, which you can do online by clicking on the linked seminar title.

You may also register by calling 866-246-2884.

5 Reasons Vets Should Invest in Emerging Franchises

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It’s easy to invest in a big-name franchise brand, but it takes real gusto to spot an emerging brand and invest while the iron is hot.

More risk, yes, but also the potential for more reward.


And who’s more capable of handling this risk – and more deserving of reward – than veterans of our country’s military?

After all, veterans thrive in franchising because they are highly adept in leadership situations, able to follow processes, manage teams effectively, and react under pressure to find solutions.

Here are 5 Reasons Vets Should Invest in Emerging Franchises:

1. Vets Make Key Difference Early On. It’s no secret that vets are highly sought after by franchises to become franchisees, because of their natural and military-honed abilities to succeed in this business model. For new franchises, vets are even more important to getting the first few franchises running effectively, and advising the franchisor on how to improve processes and manage growth.

2. Taking Advantage of Potential Growth. Seeing opportunity before everyone else does and jumping on it could mean significantly more success when growth begins to happen.

3. Expansion Opportunity. Once a franchise begins to take off, you could cash in on expansion opportunities in your area through multiple franchise units as success grows.

4. Excitement. Sure, owning an established franchise can be highly rewarding and fulfilling. But investing in a new franchise in the early going – just before things begin to take off – could bring a new level of excitement, purpose, and challenge as you embark on your new mission in civilian life.

5. Helping Teams Thrive. When investing in an emerging franchise, the organization will feel like a tight-knit group – similar to the relationship with your comrades in the military. Each of you will work closely together as you strive to achieve a common goal: success for each franchise and the brand as a whole.


To learn more about entrepreneurship through franchising, attend our free monthly webinar, Franchise Ownership as a More Stable Career Path. The webinar is free, but you need to pre-register, which you can do online by clicking on the linked seminar title.

You may also register by calling 866-246-2884.

5 Sales Secrets to Help Boost Franchise Profits

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Having trouble converting customers to buyers, or worried you may in the future?

Having a large number of customers and leads for a franchise is always the first goal, but all of this marketing success doesn’t matter unless you can convert on sales.

After all, how do you expect to make money?

For service- and product-based franchises, converting leads into one-time or long-term clients or customers is difficult – and hard selling and poor service isn’t a good place to start.

Here are 5 Sales Secrets to Help Boost Franchise Profits:

1. Promote One Thing at a Time. While your franchisor’s processes and main promotions will always take precedence, you can also put forth your own promotions on occasion depending on the agreement you have with your franchisor.


By implementing promotions, it limits your potential buyers’ thoughts processes to a simple “yes” or “no” – making it easier for you to convert while drawing them in with great pricing.

2. Open With Your Biggest Benefit. What’s your franchise’s unique selling proposition? For a fitness franchise, for example, be sure to succinctly communicate why your franchise is different – and better – than all the other ones you’re competing with. This will help customers make a quick-and-easy decision on whether they’d like to buy, and saves them from having to listen to all your benefits and becoming impatient.

3. Custom-Tailor Your Approach with Potential Customers. No two people are alike, and that’s why it’s hard to simply follow a sales script word for word. Instead, listen to what potential customers need and then customer tailor your messaging to how your franchise’s services or products benefit the customer.

4. Provide Clear and Concise Information. Nothing’s worse for potential customers than hearing “high quality” and “best” and “top-of-the-line,” over and over again. Instead, provide specifics on why your franchise’s products and services are superior.

5. Make Buying an Emotional Decision. The easiest sales are forged on emotions – how much a person likes their salesperson and imagining what buying a service or product feels like. While your franchisor should have significant investments made in this, be sure to train your staff about building relationships with your customers and being likeable at all times.

To learn more about entrepreneurship through franchising, attend our free monthly webinar, Franchise Ownership as a More Stable Career Path. The webinar is free, but you need to pre-register, which you can do online by clicking on the linked seminar title.

You may also register by calling 866-246-2884.

Looking to Retain Customers? Invest in Superior Customer Service

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Here’s an oxymoron for you: customer service.

It shouldn’t be that way. Customer service should never be an add-on or afterthought to take care of customers who need more than a sheet of paper printed in several languages. It should be a key part of your business and emphasized as a responsibility to your customers.

Hire Professionals to Deliver Customer Services

There are two huge mistakes businesses often do in a half-hearted attempt to provide customer service:

  1. Dump it on newer, younger, or inexperienced staff.
  2. Wing it and provide as needed.

The truth is, many employees and businesses just don’t like the idea of customer service. This is a huge mistake. Customer service isn’t something to be avoided but rather recognized as part of doing business. Employers who treat customer service like dirty laundry or make it the least desirable position are hurting themselves because today’s consumers have a lot of choices about where to spend their money. One bad experience will drive them away.

“But all my staff are trained to provide customer service,” you may insist. Fine, but do you really want employees working on production or shipping deadlines to drop everything when there’s a consumer problem? Or do you want a professional to take charge and make your business a pleasure to deal with? Once it’s more than a few emails or phone calls a day, it’s time to hire dedicated staff, notes Alley Watch, a news service for New York-area entrepreneurs.

Get a Customer Service Solution That Works for Your Customers

The solution, many experts say, is to hire dedicated customer service staff. They can devise solutions that work for your specific customers. For example, modern consumers value their time, so customer service delivered online through chats are valuable and particularly appealing to Millennials, suggests Forbes. Or outsource to professional customer service providers. Today’s contact centers, which provide these services, “are righting mistakes of the past,” says Entrepreneur, which notes that they offer several ways customers can reach them, including:

  • Website chat agents.
  • Interactive voice response (IVR) phone lines.
  • Automated callbacks.
  • Sophisticated call routing that ensures timely responses to callers.
  • Email management.

Analyze your customer service requests so far. Did they call, text, email or contact you on Facebook? Good providers will create solutions that focus resources where they are needed most and have agents who can work on multiple platforms, including mobile.

There’s a ROI in Customer Service

Investing in customer service will bring an ROI (return on investment) in several ways. For starters, good customer service is strongly associated with customer loyalty, according to a report conducted for Oracle that looked at 273 U.S. and British companies with various levels of customer service expertise. U.S. firms with experienced customer service enjoyed:

  • A 16 percent competitive advantage.
  • An 18-point loyalty advantage.
  • Up to 10 percent more chances to earn customer recommendations.
  • Less “churn” (abandoning the business for a competitor).

U.S. companies can earn back “hundreds of millions of dollars” with modest investments into customer service, according to the report. Retailers were the second largest beneficiaries of good customer service, just behind fast-food chains in terms of additional purchasing, lower churn, and new business from customer recommendations.

Entrepreneur recommends that in addition to ROI, business owners should do a risk benefit analysis when considering a professional solution for customer service. For example, do you know if late or poor customer service cost you a sale or return customer? Are all your staff good at providing customer service or do they do it because they’re told to? (Sometimes, we should just let accountants do accounting).

And finally, are staff stressed out by the demands of customer service, particularly during busy seasons? Stressed staff do not make good customer-facing decisions.

HR Bootcamp: Top HR and Payroll Tips for Franchising Vets

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Amidst all the details of seeking out and purchasing a franchise, some new military veterans becoming franchisees can forget the importance of Human Resources and their payroll.

Once you think about how important your staff is to the success of your business, though, it’s hard to forget.

Hiring the right people is integral

For starters, you need the right pieces in place to creative maximum efficiency. One small mistake every day can have a large impact on the success of the unit, so it’s crucial to hire the right people for your franchise from Day 1.

As a military veteran, look for the same traits in others that you’ll be managing your franchise with: leadership, respect, and the ability to follow processes. You can also use your excellent leadership skills to train your staff to work as efficiently as possible.

Make sure you appreciate your employees

Saying thank you can go a long way to boosting your bottom line. By showing your franchise you care, it will in turn want to work harder, stay longer, and even go the extra mile when serving customers or clients.

You can also perform regular performance evaluations to give your employees positive and constructive feedback, and reward them for making improvements along the way.

Be sure to outsource your payroll

In the military, multitasking under pressure was a regular occurrence and it’s no different in franchising. However, for some things, such as payroll, it’s better to outsource it so that you free up time to focus on what you do best: leading your business.

Besides this, there are also tight payroll regulations that need to be adhered to, so make sure you take care of your employees and franchise by hiring an experienced professional for this.

Build and grow relationships with franchisor staff

As part of your franchising agreement, you’ll be entitled to a number of services from your franchisor, including legal resources, HR management, and accounting managers.

Don’t wait until a crisis to build a rapport – touch base as soon as possible, and work towards building a supportive relationship so that you can benefit as much as possible when you really need it.

As a military veteran, you command the respect of a nation – but you’ll also command the respect of your staff through mutual respect and understanding.

And your increased business will thank you for it.


To learn more about entrepreneurship through franchising, attend our free monthly webinar, Franchise Ownership as a More Stable Career Path. The webinar is free, but you need to pre-register, which you can do online by clicking on the linked seminar title.

You may also register by calling 866-246-2884.

5 Tips for Vets to Kickstart a Franchise Career in 2015

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After a relaxing holiday season with family and friends, some military veterans might be making a New Year’s Resolution: to become a franchisee.

But before they transition from the military to franchising, it’s important they take the right steps to ensure they get off to a successful start.

Here are 5 Tips for Vets to Help Kickstart a Franchise Career in 2015:

1. Take the time to search. Don’t hastily rush into buying a franchise, just because you want to take care of it early in the new year. As a veteran who’s selflessly served their country, it’s important to finally take some to find a franchise that’s right for you.

2. Keep an eye on market trends. Have a passion for healthy, active lifestyles? This progressive mantra has been booming in franchising recently, but what could be the next trend in 2015? If you have an eye to catch something that could be big, make sure it aligns with your core abilities that were honed in the military – leadership, teamwork, and the ability to follow processes.

3. Investigate financing options. While SBA Loans and Patriot Express Loans are among the most popular options for veterans looking to become a franchisee, cash, leasing, conventional loans, self-directed retirement plans, and receiving home equity are all options for veterans.

4. Get everything in writing. Promised something by a franchisor? Make sure you get it in writing. Otherwise, it could come back to haunt you when things go wrong or you try to sell your franchise. To help with this process, hiring an experienced attorney to guide you through the legalities can be a major help.

5. Get professional advice from consultants and mentors. By getting professional advice from a certified consultant, you can help understand the process of buying a franchise even better from an industry expert. On top of this, getting a mentor with experience in the franchise industry – such as a fellow veteran – can really help ensure you make a smooth transition to becoming a franchisee.

To learn more about entrepreneurship through franchising, attend our free monthly webinar, Franchise Ownership as a More Stable Career Path. The webinar is free, but you need to pre-register, which you can do online by clicking on the linked seminar title.

You may also register by calling 866-246-2884.

How to Optimize Your Time as a New Franchisee

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Time really is everything in business, and even more so for franchisees.

With your bottom-line success dependent on how much you ensure all operations follow your franchise’s tried-and-true formula, there is little room for error.

Don’t use a one-size-fits-all approach

While sticking to the process, be sure to custom tailor your management style around different employees. Each employee will react differently to various approaches to management, so be sure to use the right one that works best for their personality.

As well, while you might use one strategy when dealing with customers – say, friendly and accommodating – you will likely need to have a stricter, more business-focused relationships with your suppliers to ensure on-time delivery of product.

Keep lines of communication open

Unless you can teleport, you won’t be able to be everywhere at once – so you should hire, and keep, the best talent to ensure all operations are running smoothly.

To do so, ensure you keep positive lines of communication open between you and your employees, so that they feel comfortable enough to contact you regarding problems even before they arise.

Plan ahead and keep a documentation log

Optimizing your franchise as a new franchisee is crucial, and planning ahead is one of the best ways to do it. By pinpointing how things need to be conducted in advance, you and your employees won’t waste time scrambling for answers under pressure – instead, they’ll know an efficient way to take care of problems before they arise.

Along with a plan, document how your operational efficiency is progressing. Highlight both positives and negatives, and make suggestions for the future and incorporate them into your long-term plans.

Doing so will optimize your franchise even more – leading to greater success.

To learn more about entrepreneurship through franchising, attend our free monthly webinar, Franchise Ownership as a More Stable Career Path. The webinar is free, but you need to pre-register, which you can do online by clicking on the linked seminar title.

You may also register by calling 866-246-2884.

5 Ways to Prepare for Franchising Before the Holidays

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Not many people want to be focused on work around the holidays.

For prospective franchisees getting ready to buy their first franchise, it’s an especially busy time of year as they prepare for the holiday season while trying to get ready to become a franchisee before things get busy.

That said, there are ways a prospective franchisee can work more efficiently before the holidays to ensure they can relax and enjoy the season.

Here are 5 Ways to Prepare for Franchising Before the Holidays:

1. Write your own franchise plan. Incorporate materials given to you by your potential franchisor, and begin to implement a plan of action. Be sure to not only detail how you want to run day-to-day operations, but also the long-term plans for the business.

2. Visit an existing franchise location. See how they operate around the busiest time of the year. If possible, try to take in the customer experience to find out what it’s like. Speak with the owner or manager if you can, as well, and note things you think you can do at your location to make things more efficient.

3. Determine your real estate. If you’re not a home-based business, you’ll need to lease or buy a property to house your franchise. By doing so ahead of time, you can try to negotiate and find a better deal than by leaving it for the last minute or over the holidays.

4. Talk to your family – before the holidays. Your family will need to know what to expect, now that you’re becoming a franchisee. They’ll need to know how busy you’ll be, but to also understand that with the freedom of entrepreneurship through franchising you’ll also be more flexible.

5. Focus. Focus on your key goals. How much sales do you want to do? Write it down. How to you want to treat customers? Add it into your plan. Overall, you need to be dialed into your business to ensure you come out ready for success in the new year.

To learn more about entrepreneurship through franchising, attend our free monthly webinar, Franchise Ownership as a More Stable Career Path. The webinar is free, but you need to pre-register, which you can do online by clicking on the linked seminar title.

You may also register by calling 866-246-2884.

5 Ways to Spot Franchise Marketing Success

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Before you invest in a franchise, make sure their brand brings in customers.

There’s nothing worse than investing in a company as a new franchisee, only to find out that the company you thought to be a sure-fire great investment was struggling to drive business through the doors.

In franchising, one of the greatest strengths is centralized marketing – pooling money from all franchise locations to leverage greater marketing power.

But before you sign your franchise agreement, keep an eye out for certain things. Here are 5 Ways to Spot Franchise Marketing Success:

1. It drives customers through the doors. The #1 question to ask a franchisor: Does your marketing bring customers to all regions? What are their strategies? Find out what ideas they have coming up, and track how recent marketing strategies have affected sales.

2. Franchisees’ ideas are incorporated. Great ideas often comes from great teams. That’s why some of the most successful franchises seek marketing input from their franchisees, to better strengthen their strategies. If a franchise has some sort of marketing bridge between franchisees and franchisors – such as an advisory group – it’s a good sign they take franchisees’ ideas seriously.

3. It allocates money effectively. From the marketing fund, money needs to be allocated into three key areas: (1) internal/external costs of administering ideas; (2) cost of producing marketing materials; and (3) advertisement costs. If a company is spending too much in one area than other, it’s a sign their marketing efforts aren’t being conducted effectively – which could have a major effect on sales.

4. Marketing plan and strategies are well documented. Marketing strategies with significant thought and effort put into them will be well documented. They’ll have drafts, ideas, and formalized presentations of them available. While a franchisor won’t hand everything over to a franchisee, they will likely give you the skin-and-bones of it to ensure you have a good understanding of the level of effort they put in.

5. Check with franchisees to see if marketing works. There really isn’t anyone better to ask than those benefitting (or not benefitting) from a franchise’s marketing. Find out if different marketing strategies have had an effect on sales, and whether they have any concerns.

To learn more about entrepreneurship through franchising, attend our free monthly webinar, Franchise Ownership as a More Stable Career Path. The webinar is free, but you need to pre-register, which you can do online by clicking on the linked seminar title.

You may also register by calling 866-246-2884.