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This is going to be a difficult and sensitive topic, and I’ll probably receive a lot of negative feedback about it. The truth is that this is a terrific job in the current business climate, as opposed to those in medicine or health care. In today’s corporate environment, this is one of the most lucrative careers you can have. The truth is that the majority of people are not taking advantage of it to the fullest extent; in fact, they rarely even manage to make

These four strategies will help you guarantee that your franchise partners are successful if you are a business owner thinking about turning your company and brand into a franchise or if you are already an emerging brand franchisor. I recently had a discussion about what would make a franchisee lucrative with several friends in the franchise sector. First off, I absolutely adore franchisors who discuss the profitability of their franchise partners because it shows me that they have the right perspective and are taking things

Today’s topic, on why and what franchisors should do to assist their new franchise partners in ramping up and becoming the best franchise partners they have ever signed on, truly excites me. I assure you that you won’t want to miss this. One of the first things I did as a master franchisee, and the first master franchisee for a worldwide franchise coach at a franchised coaching and training organization, was to develop a program I dubbed the “Kickstart.” The importance of the first six

You won’t want to miss today’s discussion because I am going to give you five ideas for working with franchisors and brokers more successfully. During my 15 years as a master franchisee, 24% of my franchise sales came from consultants, recommendations, leads, or registrations from brokers; this is a significant percentage. So I went back and examined why I believed I was so effective in converting or selling those prospects. To help you, whether you’re a franchisor or a broker receiving leads from a broker

What’s your reason? How can answering these three simple words change your company and your life? Regular readers of my articles are probably professionals who work with people’s futures. You operate in the franchise development industry, assisting others with their businesses, and you may have worked for or own a particular brand that you’re attempting to promote. You need to find the appropriate individuals, or your franchise consultant or broker who works with many different brands. Because you’re trying to determine whether business ownership through

You see, one of the keys to the franchise, pitfalls and profits is to help us make more money, but in the long run, it’s also for us to live a more contented, purposeful life. Today, I’m going to review a book for you on that subject.  I’ll read some extracts from the book today and share some of my views and opinions with you. I’ve read this book so many times that the binding is cracked and the pages are coming loose. So I

I want to know what you do. I’m going to share what I do.  You know, some professions have requirements for continuous education from their associations, the law, or even both. Therefore, whether you work as an educator, an accountant, an attorney, a financial planner, or another profession that requires continuing education, you must return for CEs. There are just a few courses and activities that qualify for CEs. However, there isn’t really anything expected of you as a business owner, franchise owner, or executive

Today, we’ll discuss lead generation, which is arguably the biggest obstacle to franchise sales and franchise development. To be quite honest, in my 22 years in this industry, lead generation and franchise sales, franchise development has probably been the most challenging aspect, the biggest challenge to building a six-figure business as a franchise broker or franchise consultant. So that’s what we’ll be discussing today. And what I refer to as the various lead generating techniques is how to deal with this problem. Having many lead

Are franchise expos dead? That’s what we’re talking about today. Hello, and thanks for being here. What I want to discuss today is whether or not participating in an exhibit at a franchise expo is beneficial and a wise investment for franchisors. And today, we really want to start a discussion and a dialogue about this. Therefore, I’m going to invite you to share your opinions here. You know, I really want you to be making comments today because I really want your opinion on

Today, I want to discuss the topic I refer to as the “elephant in the room.” It handles objections, as you may know. It’s actually dealing with what I call the deal killers, or possible deal killers, and handling the things you don’t really want to deal with, not handling objections in the old-fashioned traditional sales manner. It involves talking about the topics that are most likely on your candidates’ minds.  You hope that these topics never come up at all or, if they do,

The franchise development industry is fantastic. Today, I want to discuss satisfaction, joy, and pure professional as well as personal enjoyment and fulfillment that come from aiding others in starting their own business. That’s what I really want to talk about, regardless of whether you work for a single franchise brand, are a franchise consultant or broker, or are considering either. I’m going to share some things with you today because I want to give you some real examples of people I’ve assisted so that

You won’t want to miss this, and I will explain why you should not have missed it back then or now. Hey, I was having a fascinating conversation with my son over the weekend when he began to tell me about a piece that John Oliver had on his program, which was a parody of something that had been published in one of our leading journals and was getting awards. And it was about how horribly a certain brand’s franchisees—I won’t say which one—were treated

One of the things I think might be interesting is to think and talk about why I got into business for myself.  It all began with being moved about during the hostile takeover of the corporation. Some eventually bought the business. You see, in the end, I made it through everything. I’m not sure if that was a good or terrible thing. You know, at the end of the day, I made it through all of the corporate bouncing around and all of the corporate

One of the most dreaded topics in sales is what we will be discussing today: PROSPECTING. I read a fantastic book by Jeb Blount, and it’s called Fanatical Prospecting. Therefore, we are going to try something new today and give you a book review. So instead of taking my usual freelance route, I am going to read a little bit more. Please bear with me as I read for a bit, but I truly want you to embrace the idea of “fantasy prospecting.” I first

Why aren’t my deals dying? Why are my deals not getting terminated? It is because getting the candidate to the stage of decision took too long. The habits plus a few sales-related techniques, in my opinion, will be the keys. We are going to concentrate on it today. Do you always make the next call before the one you are on has ended? I cannot even begin to count the number of consultants and FranDev people I have spoken with who have had a light

We are going to discuss why prospects ghost you and why you have so many no shows. What is with the crickets? That is our topic of conversation. The fact that you don’t provide them with enough value and cause them to continue answering your calls is quite succinct. The process you are managing or leading them through isn’t enough about them and is too focused on what you want to know and offer rather than on them.   It is all about you when you

I’m going to share with you what happened to me when I first got into franchise development. I was a master franchisee, as many of you know. I want to share with you some of the key factors that helped me go from almost zero in sales to a 600% increase in my year over year, first year to second year.  My experience was really critical to understand, having gone from year one to year two with a 600% increase. So here are the key

Just a failure until I realize this: the amount of information that you share with them and the pace that you provide is critical. You have to recognize that when you’re first working with a candidate, or a prospect, you are a lot more knowledgeable and excited about the opportunity. They, in fact, know very little about what’s going on, very little about the process, they know nothing about you, and your opportunity. So they’re not going to be too plugged in until you get

In my last year as the master franchisee for corporate territory, why was my conversion rate 27%? I’m gonna give you some tips on these things. One: I invest time with the brokers, as a franchisor, or as a master franchisee, I invest time with the brokers. This is a relationship business so that’s the point. Number two: build relationships, critical, they are not going to make referrals to people who they don’t have relationships with who they don’t have confidence in closing a deal

We’re going to talk about why I failed at selling franchises in my first year in particular. So one of the things I want to talk about today is the fact that I did not have a sales process, I did not have a candidate evaluation process, it’s so important to narrow down the things that you have to do, the things that you know are working, and to document it, and to do it the same way, each time. I promise you, you’re gonna

Ever think franchise development / sales could be like politics? Well, there is one key that we can learn from the political arena. And that’s constantly staying on point or on the message you want to convey.  Let me explain. Something I’ve learned over the years developing a franchise network is that you have to find out why people want to buy, what is motivating them, what will influence them. As my friend and sales guru Jeffrey Gitomer constantly hammers away on is that you

Another top three deal killers will be FEAR, or as you’ve probably heard it said, false expectations appearing real. While this might be an obvious one and while you may think you can’t do much about it, you can. So let’s explore the strategies to help your candidates with their FEAR. Again like many strategies I’m going to share with you in my blogs this one too requires positioning. Additionally this is one that MUST be dealt with in the first call or two that you have

Today I want to talk about having all the decision makers involved in the process early. This is a common theme or teaching in any sales training. In particular one of the key decision makers in franchise development will be the spouse. And it’s very easy to not bring them into the process or bring them in later in the process after investing a lot of time with a candidate. So let me share with you the factors you need to know about the spouse

If you missed my last blog post, Franchise Development Deal Killer – Part 1, please click here before reading this concluding post. We discussed a lesser known deal killer; surprise. So here’s what you do when you send them to validation. And what you’re going to do for each similar situation where you know they’re going to hear something that may set them off or may be contrary to what they would be expecting. You tell them about it up front before they hear it on their own! That’s

Another lesser known ‘deal killer’ is the surprise. It happens all the time. The prospect is moving through your process nicely, likes you, likes your company and model, and giving you good vibes and ‘buying signals.’  And suddenly it happens. It could be something big, it could be something small. But it was unexpected. It seemed negative; at least that’s what they think. You have all kinds of logical explanations for it. But guess what – it isn’t about logic. Their emotions have been triggered and it’s

Following a particular call flow is comforting to the candidate as well as helps you assure you’re building a relationship as well as always closing without them knowing you’re closing. I always start off my call continuing to build the relationship and go beyond rapport. Rapport is the first couple of calls, relationship comes as you are working with them over time.  Depending on the profile of candidate will depend on how much time in this call you do this. But be documenting key things they say

Time kills deals. If you’ve been around franchise development or sales for, oh, let’s see, at least 5 minutes then you’ve heard this. So why do I write about it again? Whether you’re a seasoned veteran of 13 years of franchise sales like I am, or in the business 13 minutes, this is one of the 3 top killers of deals. So it never goes without saying that you must learn this and, even for you veterans, you must remember and deal with it for