Hand in hand with specialist publications and web sites, franchise exhibitions are a helpful addition to your franchise analysis arsenal. In spite of everything, when else will you get the prospect to satisfy and evaluate the top workplace groups of so many franchise manufacturers in such a brief area of time?
Though franchisor attendance of exhibitions is on the decline as franchisors change their funding towards internet and print-based recruitment drives (solely 21 per cent of franchisors fee franchise exhibitions as essentially the most helpful methodology of recruiting franchisees in keeping with the 2005 NatWest/British Franchise Affiliation UK Franchise Survey), the forthcoming Nationwide Franchise Exhibition (Seventh-Eighth October on the NEC, Birmingham) nonetheless expects to attract in extra of 250 manufacturers. These firms function in fields as various as fast service eating places, excessive avenue retail, well being & health, lettings & property company, driver rent company and home & industrial cleaning.
Every of those manufacturers can be spending hundreds of kilos to set out their stall to potential franchisees. Along with the price of reserving exhibition stand area, exhibitors have invested capital in making a extremely vibrant and branded stand, devoted time, travelling and lodge bills to transferring themselves and their workers to the occasion for its length and probably commissioned a promotional marketing campaign within the nationwide and franchise press to publicise their involvement. All this funding creates a extremely charged and aggressive promoting ambiance, with the onus on the workers manning the stands to realize the franchisor’s bold targets for the variety of prospects conversed with and registered for additional contact.
This pressured atmosphere will be intimidating, so take note your objectives: to establish various promising alternatives that deserve additional investigation after the occasion and to satisfy and achieve an impression of the administration of these franchises, all of the whereas retaining a stage of detachment ample to keep away from being swept up within the hype and enthusiasm. Franchise exhibitions must be handled as a part of your franchise analysis, not the entire, and clever guests will put aside an entire day to go to as many stands and discuss to as many franchisors as doable. By approaching the occasion with a method, maybe sitting down with a duplicate of the expo catalogue if you arrive and figuring out your ‘should sees’, you will have a greater probability of coming away from the occasion happy that you’ve gained an correct image of the vary of alternatives you need to discover. A full calendar of UK and worldwide franchise exhibitions has been compiled by the franchise consultancy FDS and is obtainable on their web site: http://www.franchise-group.com/exhibition_calendar.htm
THE TWO-WAY INTERVIEW
Conferences between franchisors and potential franchisees are sometimes described as two-way interviews, and that is the easiest way to method franchisor exhibitors. You’re each gauging one another’s potential as a companion in a franchise relationship, and it’s essential to try to keep up a balanced method to the assembly.
On the one hand, you are trying to discern the small print of the franchise and the philosophy of the administration staff out of your assembly, which is probably not with a member of the administration. Arm your self with an inventory of questions earlier than the occasion to make sure you profit from this chance – a wonderful crib listing of questions is The Franchise Journal’s Franchise Steerage Guidelines.
On the opposite, the individual you might be speaking to is charged with evaluating you. Do you may have the capital funding that you just declare? Do you may have what it takes to function the franchised enterprise, and conform to the company values of the idea? Are you able to making the choice to take a position or unlikely to commit? It’s doable they could misinterpret your intentions and never class you as a real prospect, wherein case they will be fast to ask you to fill in a registration card for doable follow-up after the exhibition and search to dedicate their time to assembly with extra promising stand guests. In case your curiosity within the alternative is honest, make this clear and request that you just obtain the eye your severe curiosity deserves.
BFA ACCREDITATION
Many exhibitions reassure guests that each one exhibitors are vetted by the British Franchise Affiliation (www.thebfa.org). Nevertheless, firms that signal as much as take part within the occasion too late for the correct checks to be made can be classed as ‘Accreditation Pending’, whereas ‘Provisional Itemizing’ standing is conferred upon franchises which will nonetheless be on the pilot stage.
Make your self conscious of the degrees of BFA accreditation (see box, proper), and the extent of accreditation of every model you communicate to, however do not depend on this standing to the detriment of your individual analysis 프랜차이즈.
The BFA itself recommends that “you continue to have the duty to undertake your individual analysis on the substance of the proposition and your suitability for it…it isn’t an alternative choice to your individual analysis.”
SEMINARS
Most exhibitions run accompanying seminars to coach guests. Topics equivalent to ‘An introduction to franchising’ and ‘Methods to franchise your online business’ are coated, normally lasting the perfect a part of an hour. It’s as much as you to resolve how your time is finest spent, though anybody who has learn greater than a few editions of The Franchise Journal will be taught little new data.
KEEP YOUR CHEQUEBOOK CLOSED
Most franchisors view the return on their funding as a major quantity of registered curiosity of their alternative – an inventory of leads on which to comply with up, with a proportion ‘changing’ by investing within the franchise.
Actually no franchisor must be searching for to signal franchisees up on the exhibition ground, and it’s best to think about any try and get you to signal a franchise contract or sign of intent doc as a extremely doubtful practise – one which may sign a franchisor eager to keep away from an excessive amount of investigation into its monitor report, or one that’s determined for the franchise price to shore up a dodgy monetary state of affairs.
COOL OFF
Approached correctly, franchise exhibitions characterize precious and even enjoyable alternatives to realize entry to the individuals concerned with the franchises out there and safe the knowledge you have to correctly think about the chance being introduced. By the tip of the day you will be returning residence with a few plastic bags stuffed with brochures and promotional literature, which you’ll be able to learn via throughout your cooling off interval. Mixed with the analysis you may have carried out on the web and thru studying The Franchise Journal (www.thefranchisemagazine.internet), it’s best to now have sufficient data to start figuring out the alternatives that almost all curiosity you.
