FranConnect Blog

If you want to expand your restaurant franchise and reach a global audience, you must adapt your menu accordingly. Updating your menu items when you open locations in other countries is essential for your restaurant's long-term stability and success. With the right strategy and tools, you will boost your revenue and brand familiarity.

Franchise development marketing involves growing a company's sales and business through several activities, such as digital advertising or online marketing. Its purpose is to help companies increase their profits while retaining customers and reaching new audiences.

Owning a franchise is an exciting opportunity to apply your business acumen and take your career in a new direction. While many franchises come with built-in brand recognition and buying power, you will still need to grow your business and attract new potential franchisees. Defining your unique selling points is the best way to accomplish these goals.

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements offer a reliable way to reach franchisees. As a franchisor, you always seek new strategies to attract franchisees and stand out amongst other businesses. Exploring better franchisor advertising tactics can help you reach the people you need while targeting the right demographics. Discover types of PPC advertisements, the benefits of keywords and best budgeting practices for your franchise.

LinkedIn is a powerful platform for attracting new franchisees if you know how to use it. It lets you showcase your achievements, share business updates with potential partners and engage them directly on what is generally considered a “trusted platform.” The key to ensuring success on LinkedIn is to optimize your profile, and there are a few ways to do that.

Do you struggle to keep your franchisees updated, engaged, and empowered? Do you foresee the day when all your franchisees are active participants in the collective growth of your franchise system?

Do you struggle with calculating consistent, error-free royalty collection for non-financial categories? Furthermore, do your franchisees challenge every invoice because they lack transparency?

According to Franchise Direct, there’s 38,000 auto franchise units among over 100 concepts currently operating in the United States. These concepts include aftermarket parts and accessories, maintenance and repair and cosmetic and paint. We took a look at the most important KPIs in this segment of the franchise community.

We have all heard that Unit Level Economics is important in franchising but going from understanding it in theory to transforming it into action is a big step. According to QSR Magazine, “the success or failure of a franchise concept can pivot off of how well unit economics are tracked, managed, and improved.” After working with over 900 brands a common practice among them is working together with their franchisees to improve their unit-level economics: not only their top-level sales but also their bottom line. If you’re not doing this today, you will have trouble selling franchises in the future.

Summer is approaching and gyms everywhere are packed with those trying to prepare to show off their hard work. If you are in the health and fitness industry, according to research, you have two important things on your mind: the success of your clients and the contribution you are making to your community. But you cannot help your members OR your community if you are not properly tracking the health of your business.

We recently launched Franchise Scorecards and are excited to share the news! The franchise scorecards, part of FranConnect’s Operations platform, equip brands with a complete view of the health of a unit at your fingertips helping franchisees drive unit-level economics. Anyone involved with franchise field visits likely agrees that the prep work for a visit can be daunting. It seems to take hours, pulling information from different systems to end up with questionable economic insights. Additionally, comparing one unit against the average of their peers is nearly impossible without having key performance metrics identified.

The majority of restaurants are franchised. The 2012 US Economic Census numbers say: “the estimated 122,042 limited-service franchise restaurants (NAICS 722513) make up approximately 54 percent of all fast-food restaurants in the United States, nearly 70 percent of the sales of fast-food restaurants ($185.4 billion), and about 73 percent of the employment of fast-food restaurants (3.6 million).”

Capriotti's Sandwich Shop

Freddy's Frozen Custard

HOA Brands

QDOBA

Taco John's

Little Caesars Pizza

Payroll Vault

Tijuana Flats

ProSource Wholesale

While some spa and salon franchises recognize the need to measure key performance indicators (KPIs), many rely more on intuition than analyzing the numbers. And while it takes soft skills to create an inviting atmosphere, satisfied clients, and happy employees, understanding the numbers that drive your business will help your spa or salon find — and keep — its place in the market.

The franchise development website is an essential sales tool, helping brands accomplish several objectives at once: generate leads, prescreen prospects, share the brand story, and facilitate growth in target markets.

Franchise business consultants have always been critical drivers of brand success, but their role has shifted considerably over the years and continues to evolve today.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are tightly integrated with franchise business planning because business plans contain key results (KRs). KPIs are a subset of these key KRs, which the franchise uses to measure its performance.

The majority of restaurants are franchised. According to the U.S. Economic Census, an estimated 122,042 limited-service franchise restaurants make up approximately 54% of all fast-food restaurants in the United States.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to present new challenges for franchisors. Yet day by day, we are seeing an uptick in field audits despite many months of uncertainty and dependence on virtual visits. Now is a good time to dust off that old field audit questionnaire and get it ready for use. You can start by making sure your audit is the best it can be – in other words, doing an audit of your franchise audit.

The most successful brands recognize that new franchisees require dedicated support to ensure a successful launch and help them thrive during the first year of business. No matter how strong an onboarding program is, plenty of factors can lead to a rocky first year: undercapitalization, general inexperience, and a lack of well-rounded skills.

As with many business challenges, the pandemic continues to provide valuable insights that can help franchisors strengthen and improve operations — not only to drive more revenue today, but to protect themselves against future disruptions.

In education, tutoring, and children’s services, you want to teach your students good habits. But it’s also worthwhile to take a look at your own habits as a business. What habits will predict success?

“A company — and a region or territory — has a lifecycle that ages,” says Jim Sullivan in Multi-Unit Management. “Infant, youth, adult, middle age, maturity. Each stage of this growth curve brings with it different leadership, knowledge and resource needs based on a company’s maturity and growth stage.”

The role of the Franchise Business Consultant (FBC) is ever evolving and growing. However, up until recently, there has been no strategic analysis for how the franchise industry tracks and evaluates the activities of FBC’s.

Franchise Operations are emerging from a tumultuous storm. The phrase “sink or swim” has never been more relevant, with many businesses having to adapt and ride the wave of complex challenges brought on by COVID-19.

Many franchisors conduct franchise satisfaction surveys, but they are often repeats of previous surveys (perhaps with a few extra questions peppered in there for good measure) and lack unique and specific goals. As a result, the franchise satisfaction initiative can be a lot of busy work with few results. While some franchisors opt to use a professional service such as Franchise Business Review to stay current, others want to know how to improve their franchise survey process. The first step to changing how you survey is to have a goal.

Community marketing is the one thing you want to get right for your franchisees. While you may have a marketing team, branding agency, or even a vendor that updates your social media, you can never outsource it completely. There is no shortage of vendors that try to sell the magic bullet of marketing. Just like a sales professional trying to sell an “easy” weight loss program or a “fast” way to make money, they position it as a cake-walk once you make a hefty investment. The truth is, marketing is exactly like getting to a healthier weight or making a more satisfying income; it is a step-by-step journey, where you learn along the way with true rewards at the end. But it is certainly not a cake-walk — no matter how many people try to sell it that way. For a more realistic look at how you can build community marketing into your franchisees’ day-to-day processes, consider the tips below.

FranConnect works with 700 franchisors, and many are facing the same dilemma:

Education franchises employ hundreds of thousands of people across the US and around the world. According to IBISWorld, there are almost 173,000 businesses operating as tutoring or driving schools in the U.S., employing 343,451 people. As the world shifts, some of this revenue will be coming from online sources.

Franchise coaches bridge a lot of gaps, including:

Forward-thinking franchisors are now embracing Objectives and Key Results or OKR. The framework was originally developed by Andy Grove at Intel and has been used by organizations such as Google, Twitter, and LinkedIn. While the framework has documentation in the form of videos, bestselling books, and worksheets, the following three concepts will help you through their use:

Every year, we cull real-world data from hundreds of FranConnect customers to see what’s really going on in franchise development. Our annual Franchise Sales Index Report, now in its seventh year, offers unparalleled insight into everything from where leads come from, to which industry segments are thriving, to which marketing efforts are proving most effective. Last year was full of challenges and changes — but the franchising industry also saw opportunity as more people stayed home. Some segments struggled; others saw opportunity. One clear trend last year was that the overall number of deals fell, and the time to close deals lengthened. Both were to be expected amid so much uncertainty.

One of the biggest trends coming out of the end of 2021 is stay-at-home customers. People are spending more time at home than ever, affecting some industries where franchises operate powerfully.

Whether you are a growing franchise or managing a multi- brand, large corporation, you need to spend your time on what matters. You know technology can help you be more efficient and effective, but there are also old-school principles which are important to master.

As franchise owners, you know that franchisee engagement can have a material impact on the bottom line. A study of 300 brands from Franchise Business Review and InGage Consulting found that engaged franchisees are 3.7 times more profitable than non-engaged franchisees.

Salon and spa franchises represent well over a million businesses across the U.S. According to IBISWorld, there are approximately 880,000 firms operating in the hair and nail salon industry within the U.S., providing direct employment opportunities for almost 1.2 million people. The health and wellness spa industry has over 22,000 businesses employing over 365,000 people. As the economy changes, salons and spas still employ many people.

Our latest Pulse of the Franchise Industry survey finds cautious optimism is the outlook of the hour for franchisors ready to get back to better days of doing business in the months ahead.

A dirty database is a like a dirty home. When a home is messy and unorganized, it's hard to find anything. It seems to happen in an instant, too – once one item is put in the wrong place, the mess piles up. Particularly if you have kids or live with roommates, it can be difficult to keep all the dirt from coming in.

One of the biggest franchising trends for 2021 people are seeing across the franchising community is multiunit ownership. This trend is driven by a few key factors, including:

In 2018, the worldwide fitness industry saw membership grow to a record-high 183 million users, revenue totaling an estimated $94 billion, and club count exceeding 210,000 facilities, according to the IHRSA Global Report. As the global landscape shifts, we will continue to see gyms making a meaningful contribution to the economy.

As the chief operating officer of franchise brands for Neighborly, Mary Thompson is a pro at the art of fine-tuned franchising. Thompson, a franchise veteran who oversees ongoing operations within the world’s largest home services franchisor, was looking for more insight out in the field when she turned to FranConnect’s robust cloud platform to “systemize the delivery of our system.”

According to the National Restaurant Association (NRA), there are more than 1 million restaurant locations in the U.S. with 12.5 million employees. Even in these changing times, the industry is still a major employer. See some sample Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) for restaurant franchises below.

Automotive franchises make a significant impact on the economy. According to IBISWorld, there are 263,000 auto mechanic businesses running in the U.S., with industry employment counting over 500,000. Although the changing landscape is affecting these businesses, they are still making a meaningful contribution to the economy.

Today is a big day for both FranConnect and FranchiseBlast, and an even bigger day for our customers. Today, we are announcing that we have acquired FranchiseBlast, the leading provider of franchise operations software used by over 100 brands.

Unit-level profitability stems from a range of factors — but one of them is your budgeting planning and preparedness. We think it's so important we made an interactive franchise budgeting self-assessment. Are you a Reality Avoider? Or maybe you've reached the budget planning pinnacle of Titan of Business? Or, somewhere in between. We challenge you to download it, take the quiz, and see where you land.

The Most In-Demand Franchising Resources of the year In 2020, FranConnect produced more content than ever before, and it was watched, read, downloaded and shared more than ever before. As we start off 2021, we looked back over the last 12 months to see what drew the most interest from our audience.

The CARES Act passed into law March 27th includes $350 Billion allocated to low-interest and in some cases, forgivable, loans for small businesses. The loans are intended to cover payroll, benefits, leases, mortgage interest, rent and utilities. For many franchise businesses, this is a critical lifeline intended to help them navigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a lot to understand about the package - it’s 880 pages long -- and it's easy to get overwhelmed by the depth of it. But some of the best minds in the world of Franchising are working hard to make it easy to digest. So, we decided to round up some of the best resources to help get up to speed.

At FranConnect we are committed to the safety and well-being of our employees, customers, and the franchise community. As a company we have implemented remote work policies across our offices. This was a smooth transition because we already use cloud and remote-work technologies for key processes, operations, development and support. Our team is energized and adapting well to this environment. Communications between FranConnect team members and our customers will not be interrupted or affected.

Emerging-growth franchise brands with less-than-100 locations need affordable, scalable tools to focus on expansion, unit level economics, and improve efficiency. Most emerging franchise brands face similar business challenges. Their teams may be short staffed, with lean budgets, and little time to stop everything to troubleshoot issues or learn about new technology. Time is money; their needs extend to labor-saving technology and more efficient ways to manage their growing locations.

March 13, 2019 - Reston, VA - FranConnect, the leading provider of franchise management solutions, announces the hiring of Chris Sotudeh as Senior Vice President of Customer Operations. He will be in the forefront of leading FranConnect’s customer solutions, education, and advocacy programs, as well as India-based customer support operations.

The President and CEO talks about herself, leadership, and the #1 franchise management software solution.

FranConnect, the leading provider of franchise management solutions, announces the launch of Velocity Packs for emerging franchise brands with up to 100 locations. Now, the enterprise power and support of FranConnect Sky is available to emerging franchises in cost-effective bundles that can be quickly scaled and implemented across the organization.

The franchise-focused company is the only Franchise Software Supplier to make CIO Applications’ prestigious list, as voted by a distinctive editorial panel of analysts and CIOs.

(WASHINGTON, DC) – September 27, 2018 – FranConnect, the leading provider of franchise management solutions, announced the promotion of Gabby Wong to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to continue its path of market leadership and to accelerate innovation and growth of its products and services in the franchise industry. The transition of Wong to CEO will take place in mid-2019. In the interim, Wong will assume the role of President of FranConnect, where in addition to her Customer Operations responsibilities, she will lead Product Management, Strategy and Development. The Sales, Marketing, and Finance functions will transition shortly thereafter in 2019.

Newest release of FranConnect Sky, franchising’s #1 software, also includes enhanced customization and scalability for multi-brand franchise operations

Executives from Liberty Tax Service and Franworth explain their decisions to return to FranConnect after relationships with Salesforce failed to deliver on expectations

Franchising-focused company beats out multi-industry software gorillas and low-end entrants to rank first in the Online Technology Services Category

A Florida University Now Offers Business Degree with Concentration in Franchising

We're packing our bags for IFA 2018! We can't wait to visit with our awesome customers and to connect with new franchisors. If you are headed to Phoenix, we'd love to meet with you! Swing by Booth #513 to check out FranConnect Where You Work™. We've extended the power of our platform to your favorite business applications like Gmail and Outlook to make it even easier to manage your business — in fact, you can even autopopulate records in FranConnect Sky without ever logging in!

Recently, Sharon Powills at 1851 sat down for an in-depth interview with our CEO, Christopher Fountain. They discussed everything from how FranConnect is able to scale (600 brands and counting!), what we focus on (hint: it's the people first) as well as why we feel FranConnect Sky drives value for franchisors.

What is a Buyer Persona? A buyer persona is a representation of your ideal customer based on research and data from your existing customers. Creating robust, detailed buyer personas is a key component to any franchise marketing and sales strategy. It forces you to conduct comprehensive research about the types of franchisees that are successful for your organization, instead of going with gut feelings or what you simply believe to be true. Through your research, you’ll uncover a targeted approach to exactly how, where, and when you should be reaching out to your prospects. The more focused your efforts, the more qualified your leads will be, which means you’ll spend your dollars more wisely. Along with marketing efforts, your buyer personas will drive your sales approach, product development, franchisee engagement, training, and more.

When business grows fast, technology can keep you ahead of the game. by Julie Bennett Ajay Arora, A Great Clips franchisee in Kansas City, Kan., has got a lot of satisfaction from operating and expanding his hair-salon business since 1993, but as it grew he began to experience problems on days when his salons were really busy. Then, he says, customers would crowd the units’ lobbies or line up outside, stressing his stylists and sometimes discouraging other clients who also wanted a haircut that day.

Collecting and analyzing data can be a powerful business function, and the world’s most progressive companies have been investing in it for years. But the franchise world has been relatively slow to realize the power of big data -- ironic, as data has the potential to aid franchises more than other types of companies, since franchisees can benefit from unit-level metrics that let them harness the ideas and strategies that are working for fellow franchisees, while corporate can customize systems for various regions or cities.

Christopher Fountain is CEO of Reston, Virginia-based FranConnect, a provider of franchise management systems, helping franchises manage all aspects of their operations including sales, marketing, financial data collection and analysis, and more. fountain joined the company this March, after previously serving as COO of a healthcare software provider.

RESTON, VA – (May 10, 2016) – FranConnect, the leading provider of franchise management software, today announced it would host the company’s bi-annual 2016 customer conference, FranConnection’16, May 18 – 20 at Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, National Harbor in Washington D.C. The event will bring together franchise, finance and marketing leaders who will discuss:

RESTON, VA – (May 5, 2016) – FranConnect, the leading provider of franchise management software, today announced the appointments of Tom van Gorder as Executive Vice President, Global Sales and Tracey Moon as Vice President, Marketing. By ushering in new executives to its leadership team, FranConnect is investing in the company’s future. These investments will drive growth allowing the company to better serve the long term needs of its customers.

RESTON, VA – (February 19, 2016) – FranConnect, the leading provider of franchise management software, today released FranConnect Sky, a cloud-based franchise management software product that enables franchisors and their franchisees to more effectively manage, track and run their business. A software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering, FranConnect Sky enables customers to receive continuous product updates, ensuring they are always on the most up-to-date version and benefit from franchise best practices. FranConnect Sky is certified to very high cybersecurity standards, and only FranConnect Sky comes with Franchising Built-InTM – exclusive functionality and best practices for the entire franchise lifecycle.