How to... Maximise the potential of your franchise
Struggling to figure out how to maximise the true potential of your franchise?
It’s key that you fully understand the use of franchise territory intelligence, franchise mapping software and franchise demographics data. Understanding this data will ultimately help you grow your franchise throughout the UK and maximising true profits for the entire franchise network.
Even if some franchise territories have already been allocated trough a franchise agreement, optimising the remaining geographical territory - using the right mapping and demographic data to develop carefully balanced regions - can bring in substantial extra income.
Key Franchise territory areas to consider -
- • Franchise boundary adjustment and balancing of new franchise territories. This will ultimately help you sell additional franchise areas.
- • To set the franchise territory status (available, under offer, sold or franchise resale). This gives prospective franchisees an up-to-date snapshot of the franchise territories availability and helps you award your franchises faster and more efficiently.
- • Paper-based territory designs, turned into web based systems, designed to improve the overall franchise sales and franchise recruitment process and the way leads are allocated to franchisees.
- • Custom franchisee packs - the territory map (ready to print pdf), postcode-to territory allocation data sheet, wall maps, prospect data, marketing statistics, all for you to include in your legal franchise owner documentation and offer. This acts as part of the franchise package that you will present to your prospective franchisee.
- • Profiling and analysis of the marketing potential within the mapped franchise territory, when considering new geographical areas for potential franchise sales. This will also help you, to help your existing franchisees to optimise their allocated franchise territories.
- • This franchise data will help you create additional franchise territories within new locations.
- • You will be in a position as a franchisor to help restructure those franchisees that may be underperforming, either reduce the territory if they’re deemed to not be actively pursuing sales and allow someone else to pursue the potential of that franchise territory. Or, it will allow you to restructure (enlarge) the franchise territory if it’s a case of the franchisee exhausting the territory without success.
- • This then moves on nicely to you as the franchisor being in a position where you can help your franchisees obtain additional sales and leads.
How franchisors decide to divide their franchise network into territories is contingent upon their franchise business and the market in which they operate within. Some franchises are assigned by geographic territory lines, whereas others are decided by population size. Some take a more in-depth look at the demographics of a region to deduce whether or not it contains enough suitable customers, and some are even built around the franchisee rather than the reverse.
Many, but not all, franchisors will offer an “exclusive franchise territory” to their prospective franchisees as part of the rights given under the franchise agreement contract that they will sign. The reason behind this is to assure the prospective franchisee that they will have a specific area in which they can market and run their franchise business under the franchise brand without any competition from another franchisee or even the franchise company itself.
Having an exclusive franchise territory doesn’t automatically result in success, just take a look at high streets within city centres where there will be multiple fast food outlets all operating within the same area. The demand has been carefully calculated through the mapping to justify the offering of none exclusive franchise territories.