Franchisors: How a CRM Can Help You Manage Franchise Sales More Efficiently

A franchise CRM can be a powerful tool for franchisors to manage their franchise sales, and it doesn't have to be complicated! A franchise sales pipeline usually has many more steps than a sales pipeline in other industries. Having a CRM system that understands franchising or has pre-built workflows to streamline your sales process will help you tremendously.

In this blog post, we'll explore how a franchise CRM can help you keep tabs on your franchisees.

How a CRM Can Help with Franchise Lead Management

Managing your franchise leads is a big task. Not only do you need to follow up with leads promptly, but you also have to track the progress as they move through your franchise sales pipeline.

With a CRM, your franchise lead management tasks are made easier because they do most of the routine work. It also provides a helicopter view of where each lead is at in your sales process.

You can use marketing automation to follow up with every new franchise lead automatically. For example, each new lead that requests information about your franchise opportunity can get a personalized email and text message sent out immediately, or if you want it to seem more authentic, you can add a slight delay.

Having automation like this ensures that no franchise leads are slipping through the cracks!

Managing Your Franchise Sales Pipeline

Here are a few of the many stages you might want to track in your pipeline:

• New franchise leads that haven't been qualified yet
• Qualification call
• Presentation meetings
• Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) delivery
• Franchise Discovery Day

Having a visual overview of these different stages will make your sales team's life much easier.

I would also suggest using a Lead Temperature rating for each of your potential franchisees so you can focus more time on the leads that are most likely to convert.

Pro Tip: 10 Strategies Franchisors Use to Fill their Sales Pipeline

Here's a quick video overview of how you can utilize Pulse's customized project boards to manage your franchise leads:

Here at Pulse, we have pre-built workflows for managing your franchise sales process, and we can help customize them to fit your needs, which will save you countless hours trying to get all of this set up on your own.

Tracking Your Communication History in One Place

Another advantage of using a CRM to manage franchise sales is keeping your communication history in one place.

If you have a CRM, you can keep track of your email communication, text message history, and all notes about your communication with potential franchisees.

Having this information in one place will make life much easier for your sales reps and allow them to respond quickly to questions that might arise through the sales process. It will also show any discrepancies in what was communicated or promised to each party, which could lead to problems down the line.

Pro Tip: The Power of Using Franchise Management Software with Sales and Marketing Automation

Leveraging Marketing Automation to Increase Efficiency

Being a franchisor can be challenging because you're juggling so many tasks, and that's where marketing automation can become your best friend in the sales process.

With marketing automation, you can leverage many different features to save time and increase conversion rates. Here are a few advantages of using marketing automation:

• You can automate your sales efforts by creating customized emails and campaigns that don't require constant input from you.
• Marketing Automation helps with the lead nurturing process, which increases the conversion rates of prospects interested in owning a franchise business.
• You can save time by automating specific tasks.
• Automation helps you stay on top of your game and ensures you do not miss any opportunities for sales or marketing.
• The best part about marketing automation is that it doesn't take any extra staffing or resources to implement.

I would also recommend checking out this blog post on why you should track your email engagement. Tracking the engagement activity of your leads will help you follow some of the best practices of email marketing. It will also increase the performance of your overall sales and marketing strategies.

Keeping Your Data on Your Franchise Leads in One Central Location

Keeping data on your franchise leads in one central location is an essential part of the sales process. Without a CRM, you are left to your own devices, and you will likely have data scattered across multiple applications. This is inefficient and leaves you vulnerable to errors in the information, which can provide false information on your sales reports.

Accurate data is a crucial part of any effective sales and marketing strategy!

Build Stronger Relationships with Your Franchise Leads

You'll be able to build stronger relationships by harnessing the power of marketing automation, a systematic process for your sales team to follow, and a well-organized CRM platform.

This strong relationship helps build trust with the person interested in buying your franchise business, making you stand out from your competition.

Real-Time Reporting on Your Marketing and Sales Efforts

As leads come in through your social media channels or your website, the CRM will automatically assign the lead source for future reporting. Then as they progress through the different stages, you'll know where they are in the process at all times.

The CRM will also provide data on how your marketing efforts have been performing and help you determine what is working and not working for future campaigns.

When you have insights like this, it will allow you to put more money into the efforts that are performing well and less into ones that aren't.

The CRM will also help you track your franchise sales pipeline, providing real-time reporting of how many leads have been assigned at each stage in their journey to becoming a new franchise buyer.

Here are few reports we would recommend having in your CRM platform:

• Total Number of Leads Per Month
• Total Number of Leads per Marketing Channel
• Cost per Lead per Marketing Channel
• Lead to Franchise Buyer Conversion Rates per Marketing Channel
• Cost to Acquire a New Franchise
• Closing Rates by Sales Rep
• Overall Averages

This information is essential to be able to make decisions about your marketing strategy to optimize future campaigns.

Other Factors to Consider When Choosing Your CRM

There are many other functions that a CRM can help you with other than improving your sales and marketing efforts.

It would be best if you considered choosing a CRM that also has franchise management capabilities included. Having these features will allow you to move the franchise leads directly into your franchise onboarding process once they have purchased a new franchise.

Keeping everything in one platform like this will save a ton of time and reduce overall costs.

It's also imperative to think through your CRM architecture before implementing a CRM system. Otherwise, things can get unorganized quickly.

Conclusion

If you're a franchisor, a good CRM can be the difference between a successful franchise system and one that is struggling.

There are many different factors to consider when choosing the right CRM. Hopefully, this article sheds light on areas you should consider when evaluating CRM software for your franchise system.

Here at Pulse, we've created partnerships with some leading experts in the franchising space to provide a franchising collective that will support your franchise system in many different ways. Reach out today if you would like more info on Pulse for Franchises.