It’s not enough to run a successful franchise business: If you want to grow to meet the demands and potential of your market, you have to accurately evaluate your company’s performance each year. Going through that process is the only way you will be able to effectively plan for the upcoming year – and see an uptick in your franchise sales growth.
Consider the following areas as you assess the health and vitality of your franchise growth initiative this year:
Did you meet your sales goals?
Look back on the growth goals you set for your franchise brand at the start of 2016. Did you meet them, exceed them or fall short? Reflect on where your brand was when you set that goal and compare it to your current status and available resources. Is it realistic to raise the bar for 2017? Perhaps it’s smarter to lower your number of target units and focus your funds and attention on other initiatives. Take your time to consider all factors to set reasonable franchise sales goal for the year ahead.
Did you break into your target markets?
Reflect on any promising markets you identified at the start of this year. Has your franchise brand made measurable strides toward entering those areas? Now is the time to determine whether you would like to scale back on the number of target markets or add to that number. That decision relies on a number of factors – including available capital, human resources, market potential and more. Let Franchise Dynamics know if and when you’re ready to take this step – we can help you conduct a sales market opportunity analysis to help you identify your brand’s next big growth area.
Is your franchise sales team motivated?
No franchise business can grow if the franchise sales team isn’t consistently evaluated for performance and expertise. Two ways to get a handle on that aspect of your business is through examining job satisfaction and the training levels of your sales team. Does your team have extensive experience with navigating and closing a franchise sale, in particular? What is your team’s close rate? How do they handle each stage of the sales process? How thorough are they when it comes to the art of following up? Evaluate this aspect of your franchise business carefully and seek franchise sales consulting and/or franchise sales training as necessary.
How did you allocate your franchise sales budget?
Finally, in order to put together a comprehensive end-of-year review, it’s vital that you examine your franchise sales efforts purely on financial terms. How much of your funds did you allocate toward franchise lead generation? How much did you spend on marketing collateral? Did you attend any franchise trade shows? And, what was the return on those investments? Carefully assessing these factors will help you to set a feasible franchise sales budget that’s tailored for your 2017 goals.
Conducting an extensive franchise sales growth evaluation each year is crucial to the growth and development of your franchise brand. Franchise Dynamics offers a number of franchise sales consulting and training services to help companies maintain a competitive edge. Contact our team of consultants to learn more.