The Challenge
You’re a new franchisee……….you’ve been for your training with the franchisor…..and you’re excited about your new business and starting to make some money…….however, no-one’s taught you how to sell……..
A business advisor friend of mine told me years ago that the two biggest reasons small business fail come from 2 main things …..
1) Lack of sales and
2) Lack of cashflow
In my experience (having been a very successful salesperson in a franchise and now seeing some new franchise owners turn up on my cold calling courses) the lack of sales can be a massive problem for most new franchise owners.
Let’s face it, you can’t suddenly just acquire good “new business” sales skills overnight can you?
If you purchase a franchise that you need to “pro-actively” sell in (i.e cold calling, face-to-face meetings etc, rather than a retail environment where the customers come to you and all you need to do is attract more) then typically what happens (in a very simplistic format) is the following scenario.
Step 1 - You go and visit the franchisor and decide to buy a franchise
Step 2 - You receive 2-4 weeks “training” on your new franchise
Step 3 – You start your franchise and have to prospect for between 80-100% new business.
Most of the training from the franchisor will be on the systems and processes of how to “work” the franchise – which is realistically what you bought it for, right? A proven system, with perhaps an established brand name?
Otherwise you wouldn’t have bought a franchise would you? You’ve have set up on your own!
If you’re lucky you’ll get 3-4 days sales training from them – which again is more likely to be on the “system” of selling the franchise products or services.
So what’s next?
Imagine the scene ….. new franchise owner sitting in their new office (or home office if they’re trying to keep costs down)….telephone in front of them………sitting there waiting for it to ring…….sitting there…….waiting………waiting………they play with their emails……..still waiting……..
Suddenly it hits them – WHAM! The phone is not ringing – they need to “prospect” for new business!
Cold Calling anyone? Nope, didn’t think so! Call into some businesses face-to-face? Don’t fancy that either!
So what’s the alternative? Bit of advertising? Have some flyers printed? Sign up for some random networking events in hope you get some referrals?
Sooner or later the new franchisee comes to the realisation that they need to bring new business in. They need to do some sort of “pro-active” selling.
So they pick up the phone and call a few leads (or if they’re really brave, some “cold” prospects). However they’re feeling a little bit down about doing it, so they get knocked back at objections easily, fail to get through gatekeepers and when they do, the decision maker doesn’t see value in meeting with them, or even discussing their offering!
Feeling even more depressed, they make a few more calls, but really they’re going through the motions and their heart isn’t really in it.
They feel as though the franchisor has “deceived” them, and often say things like “they never told me it would be this hard to get appointments/get business/find new clients”, “if only it wasn’t such a competitive market”, “I’m not cut out for this sales stuff!”
In this situation, one of 3 things will typically happen…
1) They get lucky and land a client that gives them a lot of business, refers them to others and “saves their bacon” – but this better happen within the first 3 months of taking on the franchise or you’re in trouble.
2) They give up, or give back the franchise and wonder what on earth they are going to do next.
3) They take some training and get good at selling (fast!) or they get someone else to do it.
So many times (especially in networking) I see new franchisees either giving up or giving back their franchise 6 months later, because they couldn’t bring in the new business.
In summary, the big lesson in this article is – if you’re going to take on a franchise (or you’ve already bought one) in which you need to get new clients, learn how to sell – and fast!
