CEO and Founder of Brand Journalists, Thomas Scott, is joined by franchise recruitment expert, Brett Larrabee, on the What The Franchise Podcast to share the top 5 qualities all franchise sales professionals must possess.Scott and Larrabee share laughs, wisdom and personal experiences explaining why successful franchise recruiters are curious, enthusiastic, positive, urgent, disciplined and natural-born storytellers.

In this episode, we welcome a very special guest. John Francis, better known as Johnny Franchise, lets us in on what the year 2021 has in store for the franchising world.

Why is Facebook so difficult for franchise salespeople to get good results with?We are seeing brands we work with close franchise deals from Facebook on an almost daily basis. For franchise development, this is where the new action is at. Five years ago, Google was the king of franchise research. If you wanted to research or learn about franchises, you went to Google.Today, Google is still important but it has to share time with a number of other content platforms. Google isn't the only - or even the main - source for you to create brand and build visibility with potential franchisees. Google has gotten more and more expensive - the cost to reach 1,000 people is now $3. Facebook (and Instagram), by comparison, is only .25 to reach the same 1,000 people. Linkedin is .75 per 1,000 consumers. When it comes to lead costs, the average good quality Google Adwords leads run $100-300 a piece. A facebook lead, which might not be the same quality, costs $5-20 per lead."Facebook could double or triple its rates and it would still be the best bargain for digital marketing in town," Jack Monson, CDO of Social Joey.Here's the deal:To combat and deal with the onslaught of digital content coming at consumers today, the typical person is now compartmentalizing digital information. People are not at a desk, working on a laptop, doing research. Today, consumers have shifted - the typical behaviour is different than it was five years ago. Today, people spend blocks of time - mostly on their phone - sifting through the content channels they subscribe to and they do it in sequence. They might look at Linkedin, then Facebook, then Instagram, then email, then messenger, then a news feed and on and on. They might do this 3-4 times a day in blocks. The key is - if you can create visibility during this channel surfing - you have an opportunity to broadcast a relevant piece of content to someone and hit them 3-4 times on multiple platforms. This is the key to recruitment in the years ahead.Frustrated with Facebook? Been telling yourself stories about why Facebook doesn't work for Franchise Sales? Keep telling yourself that - your competition will steal your prospects from you!

If you've ever managed franchise salespeople, you've certainly heard the feedback "talking to lots of people but nobody is financially qualified."No salesperson or recruiter wants to waste valuable time on a prospect that they think doesn't have enough money to purchase a franchise so they make decisions early in the process, often in the first few minutes on whether or not to invite that person into further conversation. On the surface, this sounds smart. In real life, it is the reason salespeople lose 70% of the deals they could otherwise close. When we try to troubleshoot a lack of sales results, we look for the kill rate after initial contact. If we see a call screener or salesperson killing out 95% of the leads the same day the lead comes in OR if we hear the feedback 'nobody has money,' we raise a red flag.The truth in today's market is that prospects don't come to the table with an understanding of what financial qualifications really mean. They don't understand the basic terms 'liquid capital' or 'net worth' and even worse, the financial filters we see on many lead forms are misleading and provide mostly useless, inaccurate data. In our experience working with hundreds of recruiters at hundreds of brands, you don't really know if someone can fund a deal fully until you have an application of some sort that gives you details on the prospects' financial ability. Getting to the application stage in any sales process determines the sales result and good salespeople get them in larger numbers.Poorly skilled or trained salespeople don't. Imagine wanting to shop for a new car or SUV and the minute you walk on the lot, you are ushered into a high-pressure sales room and forced to fill out a credit app before you can even look at a car or ask questions. What type of experience is this for you, the customer?Does this make you trust the salesperson? Are you excited about the car or really disgusted by the stiff process?We see recruiters doing this daily and it's one of the main reasons we lose so many potential deals.Listen in as David Sparks, Brand Journalists' Chief Development Officer and Thomas Scott, CEO of Brand Journalists discuss this important sales topic and offer some simple solutions on how o avoid falling into the performance sucking trap.If you like this podcast series, please subscribe on iTunes!

According to Forbes magazine, more women are buying franchises than ever before and at the same time, women are making huge inroads into franchise development and company leadership.Many of our role models in the franchise space are women and we see increasing numbers of younger women turning to entrepreneurship and franchising in particular. To discuss this topic, we invited two recruiters we admire to join us: Jennifer Benjamin, VP of Development for Lennys Grill and Subs and Kim Robinson, VP of Development for Aamco Transmissions and Hybrid Repair. We've worked with both of these top performers at several brands and have a lot of respect for the way they approach their work.David Sparks, our CDO, is fond of saying 'The best way to sell is simply not to sell' to explain why so many, mostly male, salespeople oversell and push too hard. As franchise buyers have changed dramatically, getting younger and bringing with them new expectations of the sales process and the salespeople, we believe these two guests have some valuable insight into what drives franchise sales results.Listen in!

If you manage franchise salespeople who handle organic, non-broker leads, how often do you hear passionate feedback from them that leads from a particular source are poor quality? That leads from a particular source have no money, are not qualified, are just kicking tires, ect?Is this feedback REALLY accurate or is it a narrative the salesperson builds to rationalize their behavior and results in the process. Tracking and managing lead sources, costs and sales progression is critical. What isn't critical is sharing this information with salespeople real-time.Want to jumpstart lagging sales? Consider hiding the lead source from the notification the salesperson gets. This does two things:1. Forces the salesperson to respond to each lead in a uniform way - there is no way for them to cherry pick leads and they give the same level of attention to each person, regardless of lead source.2. It keeps the salesperson from sabotaging their own results by dragging in mental baggage about the lead source into the conversation. Baggage that keeps them from responding quickly, shortens the conversations, limits followup and positions them poorly to get maximum results in the sales process.Listen in as David Sparks, CDO of Brand Journalists and I talk about how to use this controversial sales management tool. David hides his own lead sources and as a result produces 2-3 times the sales results from the same number of leads other recruiters use.Enjoy!

Missed the 2019 Canadian Franchise Association Conference?You missed one of the best Franchise Development panels I've heard in a long time. We recorded the discussion in front of a packed room so you can listen in. Canada has 1/10th the population of the US but has 25% as many franchise systems. In fact, the 1250 franchise systems in Canada now make up the 12th largest industry in Canada and that industry is growing at a faster pace than the already face paced US franchise industry. Here's the topic and speakers on this panel:Chairman’s Choice: Tips, Hacks, Advice, Strategies and Lessons Learned to Fuel Your Franchise DevelopmentPanel Moderated by:John DeHart, Nurse Next Door and LIVE WELL Exercise Clinic, Chairman of the CFAPanelists are:Mike Skitzki, Fran WorthThomas Scott, Brand JournalistsGary Prenevost, FrannetDavid Sparks, Brand Journalists

When we look at franchise systems that go into decline, it is often because they lack a formal franchise resale program. With increasing numbers of baby boomer franchisees exiting business ownership for retirement, closed units that were once thriving can quickly outpace the number of new units you onboard. Setting up a franchise resale program is not just necessary, it is simple to structure. Listen in as we discuss our tips and strategies with guest Liz Berman from BizBuySell. Don't let franchise resales ruin your growth!

The nature of content marketing for franchise lead generation is changing rapidly. Content isn't just blogs, articles and websites it is video, podcasts, audio, infographics, photos, and animations. Are you ready for this shift? Do you understand the change? Listen in as we discuss our thoughts on the changing nature of content marketing to help you grow your franchise brand.

Gary Findley is well known in the franchise industry, having started out as a recruiter with the Dwyer group at Rainbow Carpet Cleaning then moving to start Curves and grow to over 8,000 locations in record time. He's more recently been in the news growing Restoration 1 from a small number to over 250 locations in a few years and has just begun growing BlueFrog Plumbing. We listened to Gary speak at Palm Beach Atlantic's Titus Center for Franchising this week. Here are three takeaways we learned from his presentation and it is worth a listen!