Grow From Here

That’s the horned devil’s greeting on the website of Hell Pizza.  With its first Canadian location, in North Vancouver, the chain continues its ghoulish global spread.

Word has spread to pizza lovers everywhere, creating a cult-like following.

Cutting edge in concept, marketing and advertising, with a wildly creative menu, Hell Pizza is one franchise to watch out for.

The eatery began in Wellington, New Zealand in 1996, and quickly expanded to 63 locations in that country and 3 in Australia, before setting up shop in London, Dublin and now New Delhi, India.  The brainchild of Warren Powell, Callum Davies and Stu McMullin, they sold the New Zealand Master Franchise rights to Tasman Foods for a whopping $15 million NZ.  The trio then bought the rights back in 2009.

What are their secrets?

The darkly satirical and wickedly fun underworld theme is used throughout their menu and marketing campaigns.  The pizza boxes contain a coffin-like cut-out “for your remains,” the box reminding customers to “dispose of the evidence.”  The phone number is 1-888-HELL-911.  An after-hours message kindly requests that you “go to Hell.”

Pizzas choices are infinite, and devilishly named.  The ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ items include a lustful meat-laden pie slashed with your choice of sauce, a greedy double-cheese and double-ham option, and a proudly vegetarian creation.   Gore-Met offerings include seafood rich ‘Underworld’, a ‘Sinister’ Mexican variety, and a cream-cheese apricot sauced ‘Grimm.’   Fiery chili-toppers include ‘Forked Tongue’ and ‘Ring of Fire’ for those not faint of heart.

Besides the vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free ‘hell-thy’ options there are many other fresh ideas.  The menu prices include taxes, making bill time surprise free.  They have further added value by offering online orders in addition to delivery.

Some think that the franchise may have gone too far, but it seems to have worked wonders for them.  Besides, they are selling pizza- not plasma- so it’s okay to have a little fun.

Is it time for your franchise concept to incorporate some of new, fiendishly good ideas?  Maybe it’s time to add a little –gasp- playfulness into your franchise.   Perhaps a free-flowing brainstorming session is in order.   And if you decide to order a pizza for the party, I’d recommend Hell Pizza.  If you chose a different pizza palace – beware!  Who knows what in Hades might happen to you…

Business Growth, Franchise, Franchisor Spotlight, Fun creative, franchise concept, Hell Pizza, marketing campaigns, pizza, strategy

Selling a franchise is – by definition – selling a system of operations, sales, production and delivery that will make money for the buyer.

One often unspoken assumption by franchisees is that you will provide them with ‘best practices’ and will continue to provide them with improvements to procedures and operations.

The franchisee expects to acquire a system of operations, sales, production and delivery that will generate profits; and they expect it to be continually updated.

A big part of the value of a franchise is having a group of intelligent invested people who are constantly trying out new things and learning from their experiences.  Since the learning that arises from this is carried out in disparate locations, the challenge becomes how the franchisor can gather, collate, distribute and continually update these found improvements to all the franchisees.

Why this is so important

• When this does not happen, the learning process comes to a grinding halt and the newly acquired data is lost.
• But when it does happen, the competitive advantage of this franchise will go through the roof!

Sir Isaac Newton said:  “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”  (Letter to Robert Hooke, 1675)   This quote speaks to any successful franchisor who learns from his franchisees.

Set up systems for people to:

• See what has been done before, what worked and what didn’t
• Easily track what they are trying, and filter results for fellow franchisees
• Easily generate graphs to see trends, leading indicators, etc.
• Learn from you about franchise-wide best practices that have been discovered
• Have a place for updated best practices, and a forum for questions and conversation

Distributing continual improvements further benefits you as it is proof of all the ongoing advancements, upgrades and value that you are providing.

It helps to justify your royalties even before the franchisee asks the question,“What have you done for me today?”

Best Practices, Business Growth, Communication, Focus, Franchise advertising, Best Practices, investors, marketing, product, selling franchises, strategy, support development

Have you ever said that keeping franchisees happy is like herding cats?

The biggest impediment to franchise growth, as you likely know, is unhappy franchisees. Even if you have leads, you won’t be able to close them if the existing zees are unhappy.  Don’t worry; no one’s franchise operations are perfect!   Let’s look at how to improve this area.

While you are working to improve operations (or trying to find the time to do so…) good communication will go a long way to improving franchisee satisfaction. If you can quickly and easily share information with your franchisees and get useful feedback from them, then you will either:

• get good franchisee validation when new prospects are in the  funnel, or
• know why you’re having trouble with franchisee validation

Sometimes when I’m discussing communication with franchisors, I hear:  “The last thing I want is more complaints – then I have to deal with them!”

The trade-off is that allowing franchisees to express their thoughts and feelings often alleviates the emotional impact on them, and it deflates the problems.

You may be very pleasantly surprised by positive feedback that comes through these free-flowing communication channels.  This positive information can validate you as it confirms what you are doing right.  It can further be used to strengthen marketing materials.

You would be surprised how easy it is to set up a system that allows people to share their thoughts, comments and questions without taking up a lot of your time or energy. 

One great way to do this through the use of an employee ‘Intranet’ - a place where franchisees can have an online conversation with you (and ideally with each other) in a protected environment.  This system also allows you to review the exchanges at your leisure, and to share information with them simply and easily.

Managing these communications so that you don’t end up with online gripe sessions (which only further inflame people) is a huge issue in itself.  But that’s a topic for another post!

Does the idea of an Intranet feel overwhelming to you?  You’d be surprised by how easy we can make the process.   Contact us at online@openboxinc.com and a 15 minute demo will show you how you can get started easily.

Business Growth, Communication, Franchise, Technology franchisor, good communication, happy franchisees, Intranet, strategy

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

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