Watch This Metric To Find Franchise Success

Written by Jim Otto

There are lots of moving parts to a franchise, including your franchisor's opening assistance, training and ongoing support. All of the aforementioned are important to your success as a franchisee, and the best way to measure these are to talk to current franchisees. 
 
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Why You Picked the Wrong Franchise

Written by Jim Otto

I was floored recently when I talked to a friend of mine about the franchise she bought. You see this wasn't what  I would call your "typical" franchisee. Jane (as I will call her for the sake of this blog) has been in the franchise consulting business for 25 years. She has trained and taught both franchisees and franchisors about what to look for in a franchise, how to run a successful franchise business and what makes franchisees successful. 

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Is Your Business Invisible to Customers?

Written by Jim Otto

It's a mystery! As a business owner, you just can't figure it out. You have a great location in a high traffic area, and you have a great store with a product or service that you KNOW the people of your community need or would love. However, you just aren't getting people to come through your door. What do you do?

I was thinking about this the other night when I was out with my family. We have an extremely busy intersection near our home, along with a nice shopping area where hundreds (if not thousands) of potential customers drive by every day. As we were looking for a little time to kill, we decided spur-of-the-moment to visit one of the stores that we had passed by every day for over a year, but had never visited before. After we had spent a little time there, we were all impressed with what the store had to offer - and wondered why we had never been enticed into shopping there before. After my spouse and I talked about it for a while (as we always find marketing and why people do the things they do to be of interest), I came up with the following...

1. We didn't recognize the brand: Even though the store was one we passed by every day, we didn't recognize the sign of the store and unfortunately had nothing to pull us into the store. Take for instance "Hobby Lobby" or "Michaels". The logo is instantly recognizable, and when you see the sign - you more than likely know what's inside. True, these are national brands that have a huge amount of marketing dollars behind them in order to build brand recognition But smaller brands who may not have those expansive resources can still work on getting the brand out to the immediate community through flyers, advertising in local papers, advertising at local sporting events, parades, guerrilla marketing  efforts, etc.

2. The exterior of the store was bland: Don't get me wrong, the exterior of this particular store is very nice. But there was nothing to actually communicate to us what was inside the store. No posters or window displays to attract our attention and help us understand what was actually waiting inside. Some local stores that we didn't know anything about prior to visiting, actually were able to get us to walk through the door through a cool window display, a banner on the outside advertising what's inside, or some kind of poster in the window showing more about what to expect inside the store.

3. Awareness of Service or Product Costs: Sometimes as a customer, we've decided not to visit a store because we don't really know how much the services or products may cost. It isn't until we look up a menu (for a restaurant) or find a sale advertisement in a local newspaper that we decide to pay the store a visit. For example, I love coffee shops. However, it wasn't until my local "Dunkin Donuts" sent me a flyer in the mail advertising their drinks that I was suddenly made aware that they were even in the community. And seeing that their drinks were comparable to what I was already spending, I was enticed to give them a try. After their effective marketing and great service, I now go there frequently.

Do you have a store that needs more customers?  Take a look at the exterior from a different viewpoint - use some of the tips above to communicate!  

Shear Madness Franchising franchises Shear Madness Haircuts for Kids salons. We have worked with franchise stores in providing franchisee support (in order to encourage continual growth and business success), and have sometimes seen the unexpected happen! We provide poster designs (to help communicate who we are), do photo shoots so our franchisees always have content to communicate with their potential customers!  We know that most franchise owners may not have opened a business before, having someone who can advise them is a significant advantage of franchise ownership!

Are you interested in learning how YOU can join the Shear Madness Haircuts for Kids family and run your own successful small business? We are one of the fastest growing kids hair salons in the industry today! If you would like to learn more about this franchise opportunity or small business marketing, great marketing strategies, resources for small businesses, franchise success, how to grow your small business or how to become a successful owner of your own kids hair salon franchise business, please click below or call 1-888-98 GONE MAD

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Franchisees Thrive Because They Understand This One Thing

Written by Jim Otto

I was recently looking through a research report about what types of people make the best franchisees. The answer may surprise you, although intelligence, business skill, and former experience as a business owner are highly valuable characteristics. However, the fact that you have an  MBA did not get you to the top. Neither did the fact that you may have been a CEO of  a fortune 500 company. Instead, the report listed  Sales Executives  as the top candidates to become successful franchisees. 
 
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How Charismatic Connectors Create Franchise Success!

Written by Jim Otto

In previous blogs we have discussed the importance of  being able to manage people and create a great team in your franchise. This doesn't happen over night, and depending on the industry you're in it may take months or even years. The key to all this may be your ability to identify the one or two employees who have the ability to lead. Identifying individuals who are the ultimate team players may very well be the key to your business success. A recent Harvard business report calls these individuals "charismatic connectors". These employees will become your Managers and free up your time so that you can work ON your business and not IN your business. They will help save you hundreds of hours of time, and be your wall against you working in your business handling problems. By letting them handle the problems,  this helps free you up to work on growing your business. 

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