Franchise Marketing Support Fails To Move With Times

Written on the 28 February 2012 by SOCIAL MEDIA BUSINESS BOOSTERS

Experienced franchisors are discovering a greater need for robust franchise support as businesses around the country struggle.

Recent job losses and national franchise closures are forcing franchisors to react quickly. Experienced franchisor Max Collins has been on the receiving end of feedback from new, and veteran franchisees. "It's no secret that there are essential ingredients to owning your own business, and the franchise industry is no different. Those ingredients are simply Professionalism of Management, the Quality of Internal Systems, Training and Support for Franchisees, and Visibility of income, as well as general Market trends."

Max Collins says the biggest fundamental mistake that franchisors make is in not providing enough marketing support for franchisees. "Franchisees do not consider themselves salespeople or marketers - they consider themselves solution providers, and building in robust support to back any franchise or licence system is critical."

Should potential business owners be on the lookout for poor support offerings? Collins says that the industry is lagging and needs to catch up, or risk losing out. "It comes down to innovation in a challenging market. With a company like Social Media Business Boosters, we're finding that offering a Training Calender, Support Suite, a mixture of video, audio and email bulletins, coaching calls, webinars and one-on-ones is re-framing what premium support can do for business success."

Franchises at the lower investment levels need to re-evaluate and constantly innovate to stay in the market. However Collins agrees that it is the 100% duplicable, replicable and proven marketing systems that get results. "Businesses don't know about the incredible value to be extracted from Social Media and that is really unfortunate. Our answer was to create a business where you can own a business that manages Social Media for other businesses. We've developed a system around that and it works. And we're answering a need and practicing what we preach by engaging with our network and supporting them 24/7".