Every year we attend the International Franchise Association (IFA) Conference. It’s an exciting event filled with networking, education and amazing speakers. However, the primary reason why we attend and spend our time and expense is because we work for our Members. It’s important for us to constantly be pushing our industry to new success, and the people at this event help make that happen.
This year we sent our Top Producer (2014) & Franchise Training Institute (FTI) Trainer Al Lesko and our Franchisor Development Specialist Alicyn Taft. Our goal is always to spread the word of the value Franchise Brokers bring to their development process. Franchisors who attend this event are constantly looking for ways to grow their brands and be exposed to people looking to own their own business. This is why we never miss this event! We know we our company can help them and help our brokers. As an association our franchise consultant members reach about 250,000 potential franchise candidates in a single year. In addition, because our members are so well trained they are not only bringing the concepts LEADS. They are bringing them BUYERS!
Our process is not a numbers game that throws their leads against a wall of several franchises and hoping that one of them sticks. We train our Franchise Brokers to serve as true consultants who are actively engaged in their candidates success. In short, we generate buyers not leads.
Over the years this process has significantly made a difference to our broker and franhisor members. Our reputation preceded us this year at IFA. Our neighboring booths were so impressed with our turn out that they kept coming up to us and asking us what our secret was! They even thought that, perhaps, we had scheduled appointments ahead of time. The simple truth to this is that people will come if you can help their business succeed.
The excitement we generated was not the only proof of this. We actually had franchisor and vendor members of our association bringing other franchisors over to our booth!
A lot of the questions we received from franchisors was “how can I get in front of your brokers and have a voice.” They didn’t want to be just another listing up on a wall of logos. They also spoke of how they knew they needed the brokers attention, but how were we going to give them the support to reach them. Some of them had worked with other broker networks, and either wern’t impressed with the services the brokers provided or felt all networks were the same.
Seeing is believing, so we showed them the key factors that set our Association apart. At every level, the FBA helps to quantify and expose the points that make a franchise special. We then expose those qualities not only on our site, but across the internet on all our brokers websites. We don’t stop there…because more is needed to have your voice resonate with a broker. They have to KNOW your business to be able to represent it. To do this, we go beyond webinars and open up groups, social environments, mastermind calls, personal introductions and ultimately just listen to our members.