Let's Talk Lead Gen for Franchise Development

For leaders that want to get ahead and dominate in the new year, winter is the ultimate goal-setting season. To wait and put it off, is to miss opportunities and waste precious time that savvy competitors are likely taking advantage of.

Here’s a quick pep talk: Make goal setting a priority and let go of the idea that it has to be a monumental task. Forget about weeks or months of planning. Grab a whiteboard, crank up some good music, and dive into the work. It's as simple as that. Here's a question to get you started…

First, where are you headed?

Hitting the bullseye is impossible if you can't even see the target. It's time to get clear on your direction. Once your vision is razor-sharp, it's all about reverse-engineering your path to get there.

"Hitting the bullseye is impossible if you can't even see the target."

Second, unlock the secret for nailing your 2024 franchise development goals with this simple method to figure out the exact number of leads you need…

FRANCHISE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

1. Determine the number of new units you want to sign in 2024

2. Know how long your build-out time is and subtract that from December 2024 to see when the cut-off date is to sell units and get them open in the same year

3. Find out your franchise sales cycle time and subtract that from your cut-off close date in Step 2

4. Determine how many leads per acquisition you need

5. Generate that amount of leads with a variety of tactics

"Unlock the secret for nailing your 2024 franchise development goals with this simple method."

Third, let’s look at a real-life scenario as an example. For simplicity sake, we will use the same questions listed above with a franchise brand that has a 7-month buildout process.

SAMPLE FRANCHISE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

1. Goal: 25 new units in 2024

2. Build-out Time: seven months

   1. This tells you that May is the cut-off month to sell a unit and get them open in the same year, which means you must sell 25 units by May if you want them all to open in the same calendar year

   2. Is this realistic? Probably not if you didn’t double down on lead generation in Q4 to give you a massive pipeline of leads to sell to

3. Average Franchise Sales Cycle: 12-20 weeks

   1. This means you need a healthy pipeline of serious franchise candidates by December 2023 – February 2024 to hit your goal of 25 new units by May

4. Leads Per Deal: Brands tend to need 100-150 leads per deal

   1. This brand needs 2,500-3,750 leads RIGHT NOW in Q4 to hit the target of 25 new units by May, giving them the best shot at opening in 2024.

5. Generate that amount of leads

   1. We have a handful of very impactful ways for you to market your opportunity. It’s a combination of ads, organic content strategy, press, strong unit economics, broker networks, events, and more. 

Here’s a heads-up: your franchise development goal might not sync up with the timeline for new store openings. If that's the case, omit Step 2 and you've got the tailored data you need.

When you're geared up and ready to dive into a world of diverse strategies for generating top-notch leads, give us a call. Let's get to work!

Follow for more tips on consumer marketing, local store, grand opening planning and franchise development marketing. Ready to connect? Email Halle O'Neill, Brand Director, at halle@themomentumbrands.com to set up a free one-hour discovery call.