FRANCHISING TEAM

An article about what a franchising department should be like and what composition of a franchising team is optimal.
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To develop a franchise network, of course, you need a team. In this article we will talk about who is included in the franchising department, list the main team specialists, and dwell in more detail on their competencies, functions and tasks within the franchise sales process.

We have already written about the franchise sales funnel and franchise sales scripts. In the article we will talk about the main characters who promote this funnel and, in fact, use these scripts.

In order to correctly determine the required composition of a franchise team, you must first understand what functions this team should perform.


Franchise team functions

1) Sell a franchise. The team carries out franchise sales: holds meetings, signs contracts, processes applications. Sales managers process all incoming requests to the franchise management company. The scale of development of a franchise project largely depends on the success of sales and conversion.

2) Open franchise properties. After the sale, signing of the commercial concession agreement and making the main franchise payments, the process of opening the facility begins. It includes: selection of premises and personnel, repair work, design and everything that is needed for the business to be ready to provide the service at the required level of quality.

3) Accompany the franchisee. The common goal of both the franchisee and the franchisor is to break even as quickly as possible and continue to open new locations.Making a sale is not enough, you also need to teach franchisees how to make money with your model, brand and product.When someone talks about a successful franchise, they usually mean a strong franchise in terms of well-established support for partners.
More details about the operation of these three franchising blocks are described in the article on our website: “Spinner Method”.
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Franchise team composition

We briefly looked at the functions and tasks of the team. Now let us introduce you directly to the characters in the franchise team.

Franchise Sales Manager

This employee's task is to convert leads into signed contracts. The more efficient the employee, the higher the conversion rate. They negotiate, keep track of all clients in the CRM system, and move the deal through the sales funnel to success

Usually, sales people come to marketing with feedback from the market to understand how else they can competently promote the franchise to increase interest and the number of applications.

Sometimes the top managers of the company take over the sales, and this can also work.

If you have a lot of applications and a lot of managers, one of them can be promoted to the position of Sales Director or Franchising Director. This position should be occupied by the most experienced and successful salesperson who, using their experience and knowledge, can lead the entire team to success.

Franchise marketer


The functions of a franchise marketer can be conditionally divided into three blocks:

Lead generation - working with online marketing channels and generating leads. This block usually includes working with Yandex Direct, Google Adwords, Facebook and Instagram targeting, and other advertising platforms. The performance metrics for this area are: reducing the cost of a lead, increasing the number of applications for buying a franchise, and connecting new channels.
You can read more about lead generation in a separate article.

Content marketing - covering the activities of the franchise, publishing franchise news, involving potential franchisees and consumers of the final product in the life of the franchise and brand.

Brand marketing - ensuring that the entire network complies with brand standards, maintaining uniformity of the network, and complying with the brand book.

The listed blocks include a significant amount of work and can be divided between several marketers. It all depends on the size of the network and the staff that the network can afford.

Naturally, some of the work can be outsourced to freelancers and third-party contractors. For example, the lead generation block can be transferred to an agency that specializes in running advertising campaigns.
Franchise lawyer
The lawyer is engaged in the coordination and adjustment of the commercial concession agreement. Any agreements between the parties to the concession agreement must be recorded as an annex to the agreement. Therefore, a lawyer is usually present at all important negotiations and in all significant correspondence.

The lawyer keeps the team from taking risky actions and anticipates possible difficulties that await a partnership with an unsuitable franchisee, or agreeing on the wrong clauses in the contract.
Franchise accountant
Accountant - immediately after signing the concession agreement and paying the lump sum fee, permanent financial relations begin between the founder and the partner: supplies, payment of royalties, fines, consulting services, marketing fees, and so on. They must be correctly accounted for by the accountant.
Engineer
An opening specialist leads the opening of franchise outlets, designing and giving recommendations on technical issues. This is a person with an engineering background. He knows how to technically make a discovery, which suppliers are best to work with, how to solve possible problems with repairs and equipment. Ultimately, his main task is to open a franchise outlet in the shortest possible time, so that later the outlet can operate smoothly.
Open command
Ideally, if the opening of a franchise outlet is not only carried out by an engineer, but an entire opening team is formed. In a restaurant, for example, the opening team may include: a manager, a chef, HR, who will not only help with the opening, but will also accompany the operation of the facility for the first month or two.
Account
or, as he is also called, a support manager - accepts work with the franchisee after the opening has passed.
The task of this employee is to ensure the fastest return on investment for the partner. Usually, before opening a point, there is a payback plan and the accompanying person must help the partner achieve results according to this plan. If in any month the enterprise lags behind the given trend, the support manager must get involved as much as possible, delve into the reasons for the drawdown and eliminate it as quickly as possible. If there are no such managers in the team or not enough of them, the so-called abandonment of partners manifests itself, when franchisees are left alone with their problems and franchise employees appear only once a month when they need to receive royalties. This is a direct path to disintegration.
Inspector
A quality inspector is an employee required to determine compliance with network standards. It is the inspector who checks all franchise points.
The main rule of any inspection is that at least 10 violations must be identified. Good inspector work requires a thorough knowledge of company standards and careful examination of all aspects of the business.
This list may be subject to change taking into account the organizational structure of your organization; the given composition of the franchising team seems optimal.