Grow From Here

This is a Guest post from Paul Segreto – Franchisessentials, originally posted at http://franchisessentials.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/controlling-brand-trademark-within-social-media-what-to-do-if-franchisees-got-there-first/

I was recently asked to share my point of view on how a franchise brand can — or even should — wrest control of their brand on social media destinations when franchise holders have been early entrants.

Here are my initial thoughts:

As is typical in most franchise agreements, there’s most likely a clause regarding use of the brand name and trademark. It may need some interpretation to Web 2.0 usage, but there should be no problem applying the language in this regard. Also, online branding falls into marketing, and ultimately, advertising. I’m certain franchise agreements provide typical clauses that prohibit franchisees from utilizing non-authorized ads, etc.

All that being said, it’s always best to convince rather than demand. If the organization is large, it may be more effective to work through advertising cooperatives and franchisee advisory councils in pushing anything regarding social media. One strategy could see the franchisor contributing financially to a social media strategy. (Much cheaper than legal expense to enforce clauses in franchise agreement; not to mention “expense” of diminished morale) As incentive to initiate the same, franchisees would need to voluntarily relinquish their online identities so the parent company may establish one facebook page, one twitter id and one website.

I would recommend developing a template for franchisees to use that would piggyback off the national identity. For example, if corporate identity is Zippy Lube, the franchisee could use Zippy Lube NY or Zippy Lube NY 101 or Zippy Lube Jamaica NY and so on. Each franchisee could have their own web page linked to company website. It’s important to maintain uniformity and a sense of organization when attached to company brand or when linked together.

Please share your thoughts below. Thank you.

Katryn Best Practices, Communication, Franchise

For those who enjoy reading the franchisor spotlights, have a look at Franchisor Spotlight: Judy Brooks from Blow Dry Bar – Business Wisdom on The Next Women – a business magazine for female internet heroes. 

It’s an interview I did with Judy Brooks from the Blow Dry Bar, talking about how she has grown Blo and her personal learnings along the way as well as her advice for people considering franchising.

A short excerpt:

Growing her company has come from growing the brand and building a strong community, where customers know that they have something in common with the person sitting next to them, whether they ever speak together or not.  Her brand is built down to the smallest detail; calling new staff ‘hair cadets’, fit out details for the premises, playing on the name ‘Blo’ and teaching new staff to honour the fact that customers chose to spend their money with Blo.  Her staff tend to be young and very plugged in – Blo is active online with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and online bookings.  Read More

The Next Women is also a great place to find articles about women in business and women involved with interesting technology – both start-ups and established companies.

Katryn Best Practices, Business Growth, Franchise, Franchisor Spotlight

Top Ten Tips to increase online community interactions

Have you set up an online community that isn’t getting the traffic you are looking for? Online communities can be set up very quickly based on a vision that seems compelling.

‘Build it and they will come’ is one of the most misleading phrases out there when it comes to creating an online community that takes on a life of its own and accomplishes the goals that caused it to be created.

Like any marketing tool, online communities can be hugely effective if you have value to offer that your potential community members also value, and if you are able to spread the word. But getting to the critical mass tipping point is not always simple. Many sites about online communities are full of suggestions about which tool or software package to use. Don’t get distracted. You can have the best software package in the world, but if you don’t get interaction happening, your online community will not grow.

People are swamped by online communities they can join. They may already belong to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Ning communities or other special groups. There are thousands of specialized communities they can pick from and join.

Open Box has developed a number of online communities, and works with customers to design, build and then draw traffic to their sites. Here are our top ten tips to help increase the interactions in your online community.

1.  Offer something that is of high value TO YOUR MEMBERS. It is very easy to offer something that you consider to be of high value – the most important thing is to know what your potential members see as being of high value – these two can be very different and you must know what they see as valuable. If you don’t know the answer to this, don’t read any further until you do – none of the following tips will help.
2.  Have a tightly targeted community – don’t try to be all things to all people – do one thing extremely well and have a simple message that tells people exactly what your community has to offer them
3.  Seed the community – get a core group of people who are both interesting and experts in the field who will start interesting conversations and get interesting posts going to kick-start the conversation
4.  Try arm twisting and bribery – the key goal is to get to critical mass – where you have enough members and conversation that when new people come they see the community as alive and interacting – then they will want to join and interact themselves. Find people you know who will comment on the early posts and/or start discussions – ideally people who also know each other will get the ball rolling
5.  Reward interactions – make sure that people who do post are getting replies and that a positive feedback loop is being established
6.  Quality not quantity – it will be of greater benefit to you to have three conversations going that are passionate and involved than 50 that each have one or two posts. Map out a strategy for those first conversations (be they in forums, articles, feedback forums or others) then implement
7.  Know what people are doing – use analytics tools to see where people are going, what they are doing, and especially where they are leaving the site. Where they are going means you have done something right – where they are leaving is a place that you may want to make some changes.
8.  Try rapid small changes and measure the effect – this tip ties in with #7 – make numerous small changes and always track the effects. If you add a new or bigger button, do you get more response? How about if you change the wording? One site we worked with was free, but simply adding ‘it’s all free’ above the ‘register’ button increased the number of sign-ups significantly.
9.  Find passionate people – people who are passionate about the subject of your community will make the best contributors. Find them through twitter, through their blogs, through other online conversations. Get in conversation with them and find out what might draw them to your community. These are the people who will post, reply, and tell others about this great new site they have found.
10.  Ask for help – people love to help, so posting questions asking for help / advice / input is a great way to get the conversation going, especially once you’ve found your passionate people in tip #9.

Non tip: Being controversial is often advised as a way to get people talking about you. If you try it and it works, let us know in the comments, and maybe it will be in the next top 10 list!

Katryn Best Practices, Communication, Tips

Enterprising Moms Network.com

They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and in the case of Kelley Scarsbrook that age old expression holds doubly true. I’ve recently had the pleasure of working with Kelley who developed her own franchise, the Enterprising Moms Network. The Enterprising Moms Network offers a place for mothers who are also entrepreneurs to come together and talk about their questions, issues and challenges and be reminded that it is possible to be both a good mom and a good entrepreneur. Kelley Scarsbrook, the founder, is a columnist, entrepreneur, blogger & a mom.

I talked with Kelley about how she got going, her franchise experience, and some of the factors in her success.

Katryn: When did you start Enterprising Moms?

Kelley: I started in Oct 2007.

Katryn: What prompted you to start your own franchise?

Kelley: Back when I left the work force full-time & became a stay-at-home mother, there were no job share or part-time opportunites for me. I started the Mom At Home blog and received lots of emails asking how I got the blog going and ran a business as a stay-at-home mother. I discovered there was nothing out there to support mothers who also want to run businesses. I knew having a secondary income (which almost every family today needs) was important for many women. There are a lot of women who are smart & intelligent but don’t see the options available to them. They have business ideas, but no network to help them get to the next level.

I started small workshops on how to have home-based business for women. It started with really small workshops & seminars, with ten women in a room. Eventually those workshops evolved and grew. I then hosted a luncheon with Sandra Wilson (she had just sold Robeez). Everyone wanted to hear how she did it, how she built her business & eventually sold it for many millions.

The luncheons evolved into events to celebrate women who have done it – made a viable business for themselves. The first event was about celebrating moms in business. It was not a tradeshow, but an educational opportunity. I saw a need for ongoing support for Moms in business.

Katryn: How did you get into franchising?

Kelley: I knew that other women needed/wanted this. I initially I took on the expansion myself, opening in Richmond, & the North Shore, then thought it was ridiculous to think that I can be everywhere. It was supposed to be a side thing but it was taking all my time. I asked members about who might want to run their own chapter. From there, franchising was an opportunity to get it out to other communities.

Katryn: What are/were your franchise development challenges?

Kelley: There were all the details involved with setting it up, the things I never would have thought about. I had to create the manual & the book – writing out the training manual – putting all my brain into it – how I run meetings, what my thought process is & putting that all into words so someone else could pick the book up, read it and run with it. The hardest part of the work is getting people to understand. One of biggest stereotypes to get over was that people assumed the Enterprising Moms Network was about mom topics only. The second obstacle is the type of mom people picture – eg. moms knitting at home. We are business women who happen to be mothers. We have all different levels of successes, and people are always surprised by the profiles of our members. People tend to assume franchising is a hands-off business, but if anything, it’s more time consuming because you have to train & oversee the business. For anyone considering franchising, definitely speak to people in that world to get a full grasp of what is involved.

Katryn: What has been the most exciting part for you?

Kelley: Seeing it catch on. Seeing people understand what it’s about and who are as passionate about it as I am. It was great to connect with other women who “get it”. Building the Enterprising Moms Network has been a bit llike a wheel – you push and push to get it to turn, then it eventually begins to turn on its own and gathers momentum.

Katryn: What were your best resources?

Kelley: Small Business BC (http://www.smallbusinessBC.ca) is a huge, tremendous resource. They have a lot of great programs.
Talk with franchise lawyers or consultants and get some insight first before you take the plunge. Get information & learn about what it means to be a franchisor and the amount of work involved.

Connecting with Kelley Scarsbrook

The Stay At Home Mother is where it all started, and I continue to post information and stay in touch with people there. I am new to Twitter, and am just learning all the lingo and educating myself slowly on how Twitter works. I can also be contacted directly through the Enterprising Moms Network website.

Our next event is the 2009 Business Conference “Get the Word Out!”, Saturday, June 13th, 2009 – 11:00 – 5:00pm. The Conference is an inspirational Event that supports and educates mom entrepreneurs.

Katryn Business Growth, Franchise, Franchisor Spotlight

Online Coupons Bringing In New Customers

CBC had an interesting interview recently related to the recent increases in online coupon usage.  They’re in huge demand these days and websites like Red Hot Deals are doing a booming business.  Online coupons can be a great way to attract customers and bring new people in to your location.   People are looking for ways to save money these days, and many are open to trying new suppliers/companies if they can get lower prices.  Coupons can be a great way to entice new customers, and the cost can be extremely low (close to non-existant) if you use online coupons.

Using the internet to distribute online coupons for some retailers has led to a reduction in catalouge production/distribution, saving both the consumer & the supplier money, not to mention lowering environmental impact by reducing paper waste.

Statistics on Online Coupon Usage:

Many retail franchises have traditionally used coupons to bring in new clients, and according to a site called Prospectiv, “Tough times are seeing more people using coupons – 72% of consumers are using more coupons than they did six months ago and three quarters say the state of the economy is the reason for doing so”.  This is strong evidence that using online coupons to promote your product(s) or service(s) is a sound marketing strategy.  When times change and new trends on consumer spending practices surface, they often become the norm for the long term rather just surfacing as a “fad”.

Prospectiv also quotes the following survey stats from polling 1,386 consumers, (August 2008): 

• 80% said they would be very likely or likely to increase their use of coupons if they could be tailored to their interests and delivered online.

• 87% of shoppers said they would be more likely to shop at a retailer that offered coupons.

• And the good news for newspapers: 47% found print and online coupons equally convenient, while just 9% reported online coupons were most convenient.

An article on how to market your coupons can be found at TamingTheBeast.net, where ideas such as; raising standard prices; offering a coupon sign up registry on your site; submitting your coupons to online coupon sites & setting up an affiliate program are discussed.

Creating Your Own Online & Print Coupons:

Other options are to create your own coupon(s) using websites such as MerchantCircle.com (for a fee, their service is to assist you with online advertising), or CouponsReady.com  (design your own coupon for your business website, or print distribution).  Each charges a fee for their service, but make the process of online coupon creation a relatively simple process.  Even better, you can set coupons up for free using Google Coupons.

Get set up with Coupons in 10 minutes or Less With Google:

If you’re not already set up on Google Maps, do that first (5 minutes).  Then go to www.google.com/local/add to create an online coupon for your company.

Google Coupons

Katryn Best Practices, Business Growth, Communication, Franchise, Technology, Tips advertising, clients, consumers, creating, Design, distribute, economy, franchises, Google Coupons, Google Maps, ideas, marketing, new, offiliate, online coupons, polling, prices, print, product, promote, retailers, service, statistics, strategy, submitting, trends, usage

There are lots of blogs out there about franchising & particularly about how to buy or select a franchise.  When I started looking for blogs for franchisors, I had a very hard time finding good blogs with valuable information specifically for franchisors.  I tried Google searches, etc and kept coming up with blogs for franchisees.

Thanks to Twitter, I have come across a number of blogs providing high value information specifically for franchisors.

Top Five Blogs for Franchisors

Note: these are listed alphabetically not in order of preference – they’re all worth following!

1.  “CrappyToGood” by Christian Faulconer.

Christian Faulconer is the CEO of Franchise Foundry which focuses on helping new concepts with high growth potential.  Christian provides business advice and talks about how to achieve growth through franchising.  Nice short posts, thought-provoking…

Sample posts:

• Trust is the New Competitive Advantage
• Failure Is Not An Option, It’s a Requirement

2.  “Expert Franchise Guide” by Shelley Pearson. 

Shelley Pearson is working to solve one of small business owners’ biggest operational obstacles: access to decisive, experienced and cost effective franchise business guidance.   Shelley is also the developer of the Expert Franchise Guide. She aims to develop a progressive network of ethical franchisors who work together to improve the industry’s best business practices.

Sample posts:

• Economy Slowing… Franchising Hotting Up
• Where Government can help small business

3.  “Franchise Essentials” by Paul Segreto.

Paul Segreto is the Founder and President of FranchisEssentials.  He is a franchising veteran – for over twenty years he has exclusively served the franchise industry as a consultant and coach, senior-level corporate executive, activist, multi-unit franchisee and area developer.  Paul has a great collection of resources and sources of information on his blog, as well as his useful and informed posts that cover a variety of viewpoints with dexterity.

Sample posts:

• Franchise Growth – Are Concessions and Discounts Necessary
• Franchise Success & Web 2.0 

4.  “Franchise King” by Joel Libava

Joel Libava is a franchise consultant, so you might think his blog would fall under the category I first mentioned – blogs for franchisees.  It does.  But his blog made this list because it also offers a wide variety of information that can be useful to franchisors.  Look especially for information on social media marketing and check out his business advice links.  Follow trends in franchising and keep a finger on the pulse of a wide variety of information.

Sample posts:

• Using Franchise Brokers and Consultants
  Do You Know Anybody That is Financially Stressed?  Here’s A Way To Help Them 

5.  GrowFromHere by Katryn Harris

No modesty here; this list is not complete without this blog itself!  Depending what you are looking for, you can find technology tips, business strategy posts, book reviews, and even some fun stuff…  Suggest new topics you would like to see anytime, and post a comment if you know other good blogs for franchisors.  Let’s grow the list!

Katryn Best Practices, Communication, Time Savers

So You Want To Franchise Your Business by Harold Kestenbaum and Adina M Genn, 2008

This book  is jam-packed with ideas, suggestions, reminders and information.  It is invaluable for anyone who is thinking about franchising their business.  As a sidenote, I have been interviewing a number of franchisors about their experiences recently, and the most common advice they have for someone thinking about franchising is ‘know what you’re getting in to’ or ‘do your homework about franchising’ or some variant thereon, so this book is a great resource to help you do just that.

So You Want to Franchise Your Business contains four main sections, a useful add-on; guidelines for an operations manual, and lots of good stories – both success stories from franchisors and also warnings from franchisors who got some thing wrong.  The four sections are

1. Why Franchise?
2. Moving Forward (information about advisors, operations and so on)
3. Rolling It Out
4. Keeping it Going

I found Part 1 to be the most valuable.  As I kept reading, I realized I was mentally accumulating a huge to-do list, and it started to feel a bit overwhelming.  This is not a book to try and read in one sitting.  But do read it.

This is clearly written by people who have been through the wars (or, if they haven’t, have spent a lot of time with people who’ve been there!).  I was struck by the phrase ‘you get what you pay for’ – one franchisor I spoke with a couple of days ago was telling me what a disaster one particular attempt to do things with few resources had been for her in her early days.  There is also a good exploration of what makes a succesful operations manual (including a sample table of contents) and a whole chapter on exit strategies.  The exploration of what makes a suitable franchisee is also a nice combination of theory (fit, skills, attitude, funding) and practical (review committee, discovery day, earnings claims, etc).

Technology – Integrated Throughout

I have read a lot of books about franchising, and since I run a company that uses technology to help build businesses, I am always curious whether technology is even mentioned.  Often not.  With So You Want To Franchise Your Business, I was intrigued to find ways to benefit from technology running through the various sections:

• Chapter 6 talked about website and marketing tools, including how to provide branded sites to franchisees
• Chapter 8 talked about training tools and how beneficial automated or online training programs can be
• Chapter 9 was all about the website, including how it can support and strengthen branding, sales, quality assurance and lead generation
• Chapter 10 talked about advertising, building buzz online, internet marketing, public relations and electronic coupons
• Chapter 11 talked about online support; including internet training, the convenience of web access, the advantages of a strong audit trail, the benefits of communications tools and how to advance your branding.

This type of integration of technology into core business strategy can be a huge competitive advantage for franchises that see the value and implement it.  One franchisor said to me that technology had been her source of greatest expense & irritation, but had also provided opportunities for revenue and company growth that she would never have had otherwise.  So thank you to the two authors for including the technology thread in their exploration of how best to franchise your business.  And guess what?  You can find Adina Genn online via twitter at http://twitter.com/AdinaGenn (no real surprise there, right?).

Words of Wisdom/Quotes:

“For starters, not every business is franchisable.” (p. 10)

“Most franchisors agree that moving into the business of selling franchises is a tough transition….  So the more you know about the difficulties, the better equiped you may be at overcoming the challenges ahead.” (p. 21)

“If you have franchisees but do not have the appropriate infrastructure to handle them, it can lead to disaster.” (p. 34)

Past Book Reviews

Outliers by Malcom Gladwell

The Franchise E-Factor by Greg Nathan

What No One Ever Tells You About Franchising by Jan Norman

Katryn Book Review, Franchise, Technology

There are lots of online technical tools out there. I’m not a fan of tools that just let me play with technology, but the ones that actually forward business purposes are the gems. One good one (and free) is the Press Release Grader from HubSpot. Improve the quality of Press Releases that you send out & make them more effective by getting direct useful feedback before you release them.

“HubSpot’s Press Release Grader evaluates your press release and provides a marketing effectiveness score. This score is based upon basic factors from public relations experts including the language and content of the release, plus advanced factors from Internet marketing experts such as links and search engine optimization characteristics.” (from the Press release grader website).

To test the press release grader, I submitted a sample press release. The results were returned instantaneously, with a follow up email of the full report. The first screen returns a clear and concise analysis along with suggestions on how to improve the press release.

Main page

Some of the suggestions made on how to improve our press release were:

· The anchor text of the link did not seem to match any words in the page title of the target page. For Search Engine Optimization (SEO), use keywords in the anchor text that describe the page being linked to

· Press releases should contain 3 or more links to get the maximum SEO benefit.

· A standard practice when authoring press releases is to include an About section at the bottom of the release. Following this convention makes it easier for those interested in information about the organization mentioned in the release to find it.

· For a press release to have maximum value from a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) perspective, it should contain a hyperlink to the main website of the company.

· It is a standard practice of press releases to include special text at the end of the body of the release. This is usually ### (three pound signs) at the end of the text. This can be either ### or -30-. This special text is used by press release submission software to recognize where the official release ends.

· It is usually a good idea to get a link to your website earlier in the release than I had done in my sample

· (Love this one): This content contains 0 words that are considered gobbledygook (they are overused and lack specific meaning).

The report also offered two additional resources to assist with writing a press release: Which of these rookie mistakes are you making? and a link to join the Pro Marketers Group on LinkedIn

Even though my “grade” came back at a respectable 78/100, it is good to know which tweaks would make it even more effective. After all, the whole point of sending out press releases is to have them be noticed & generating PR for your business.  Five more minutes to know I’m not wasting my time sending it out is definitely a winner.

Past Technical Tips

Keyword Analysis Tool – Write Content that Works for You

Google Keywords Selector – Help the Right Customers Find You

Google Maps – Let Customers Find You

Google Alerts – Keep an eye on the Competition

Katryn Technology, Time Savers, Tips

Magpie Heaven

If Twitter is anything, it is lots of information in a fast moving environment.  Picture a revolving door in a busy shopping mall; as varied as the folks who pass through it and constantly changing.  Other adjectives: interesting, colourful, amusing, random & enlightening.  It’s a lot of fun to see what’s coming through the ‘tweetvine’ & to follow the various links.  It makes me feel a little bit like a magpie with piles of neat shiny objects to go after.  The challenge for me is that I don’t have ‘extra’ time.  My time is tightly allocated and very much in demand.  So how do I get the best use out of Twitter?  There needs to be a balance between the magpie attraction and the usefulness/direct relevance of the information I find.  Like any social networking site, I need to keep track of my time by quickly valuing the links and contacts I encounter.

Building relationships

Twitter has been a fascinating way to make initial contact with a large number of people that have similar business values/interests.  I can see their tweets (and they see mine) and we can both decide whether;

 a) the other person is someone I want to know, and

b) whether they have value to offer.

Then we can get in touch.  So far, people I’ve ‘met’ on twitter, I’ve followed up with by email, Linked In, their websites, etc.  The trick here is to ensure that I am the opposite of the magpie.  I need to make sure I am collecting only that shiny bits that are valuable at the end of the day and not just picking up connections and contacts that may be fun but distracting.

Automatic Refollow

With Twitter, you can set up your account to automatically refollow any other peep who choses to follow you.  Alternatively, you may prefer to opt out of this as some people treat twitter like a popularity contest; gathering up as many followers as they can, rather than as a B2B social networking environment.  There are two avenues of thought on this and it depends on your purpose for being on Twitter.  If you choose the automatic refollow, you need to later review the followers to make sure they have your interests at heart (similar purpose), otherwise your ‘tweetstream’ will be overloaded with useless & time wasting micro-blog posts.  Which do you choose?

So Far

Time spent to date:  roughly 21 hours (time is decreasing now that I ‘get it’)

Questions I have:

 1) Do people really try to keep up with all the flow of information? 

2) What are the best third party tools to use with Twitter to save time?

3) What’s with the ego thing of checking how many followers I have?

ROI:  Introductions & connections have proven to be advantagous.  I have useful information to send prospects, have been introduced to HARO, and have located a network of international experts in a variety of fields.  So far so good.  Time will tell if the usefulness of this ‘tweetvine’ takes root or fades out like a spring annual in my garden.

Katryn Communication, Twitter Experiment

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, 2008

I have enjoyed each of Gladwell’s books, but was surprised by Outliers.  What I had heard about it was that he said one needs 10,000 hours of practice to get to an expert level in any field.  That would seem to reinforce the common idea that if one just works hard enough, then success will come.

Instead, my take away from Outliers was that he is saying success is not a matter of personal effort but rather a combination of a variety of social/cultural/historical factors as well as personal effort.

Take Aways / Practical Applications

One of the questions I took away from Outliers is how we can use the various factors that Gladwell has identified as leading to success and use them to increase the chances for success within a business or franchise.  If the late nineteen hundreds were the perfect time for Jewish immigrants to New York who had skills in sewing/garment making and 1953-57 were the perfect years for great programming/computer gurus to be born, then what are the factors today that we can take advantage of? 

I do wonder if internet marketing is today’s equivalent of garment making in New York in the 1930s.  If so, then that’s a great place to put effort since the payoff has a greater chance of success than (for example) traditional media marketing.  What are the other areas that in 50 years looking back will have been the ‘right’ places to put effort today?  It’s certainly worth some thought.

On the human level, Gladwell talks about a combination of factors that can lead to success, from the time of year an athlete is born to the ability to stay with problem solving for an extended period of time to learning that putting in effort will pay off to cultural differences that lead to different outcomes from the same event.  Again, I think it’s well worth looking at our businesses and our clients’ businesses with that in mind.  What are the factors that we need in employees in different roles?  What are the power differential attitudes that will lead to success for a franchisor and franchisees?  And how do we build those considerations into our selection and training processes?  Then add in Nathan Greg’s great books about strengthening franchise relationships (see my previous review about The Franchise E-Factor) and we have greatly increased the chances of building a strong and succesful franchise or business.

Great quotes:

“the values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are.” (p. 11)

 “These three things – autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward are the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying…and that’s worth more to most of us than money.” (pp 149-150)

 “No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich.” (chinese proverb – p. 249)

Past Book Reviews

The Franchise E-Factor by Greg Nathan

What No One Ever Tells You About Franchising by Jan Norman

Katryn Book Review