Need advice - Selling to Franchisors

We are really looking to open ourselves up to the franchise market - we have 3 under our belt now with pretty successful marketing/selling to these. We would like to make our services available to addition franchise operations.

My question is how and who would you approach with a target audience such as this. I did speak to one of the CEOs of one of our franchise clients and he said that he WOULD NOT be the one to contact - he doesn't read e-mail unless he's specifically looking for something from someone and he has "guards" that screen his phone calls for him.

We "happened" upon these clients by servicing some franchisees of these franchisors.

What we do is QuickBooks support and Merchant Services - we help out their new franchisees by giving them the QuickBooks Pro software for free with the merchant account...we also customize the software to fit their specific franchise needs as well as write SOP manuals and/or create a template data file for them...we have multiple services to fit these clients....how to I target this audience?

Thanks for any advice...

You want a list of franchisees to market to? Will lead companies sell a list like that?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas

You want a list of franchisees to market to? Will lead companies sell a list like that?

Not really looking for a list of them, I have run across a few different books that list up and coming franchises - my pain point is basically who to contact, if it's not the CEO, then who? Obviously it's a solicitation - but

as with any "sales person" we have something we think that would be of value to them - how to we get them to listen to us?

Starting at the top doesn't sound bad. What's the worst that could happen?

Are you talking about the CEO of the entire franchise? For example, the CEO of Starbuck's?
Does each individual franchise decide wht they're buying or does the corporation decide?
IMO, if it's the corporation, you need to come up with a marketing piece to send them, and then follow up with a phone call.

Susan

Quote:

Originally Posted by susana

Are you talking about the CEO of the entire franchise? For example, the CEO of Starbuck's?
Does each individual franchise decide wht they're buying or does the corporation decide?
IMO, if it's the corporation, you need to come up with a marketing piece to send them, and then follow up with a phone call.

Susan

Yes, I'm talking about the CEO of the entire franchise...most franchise stores are individually owned and operated, but the franchise still interacts a lot with the stores b/c what they have bought with the franchise is an operating system or a way to do business. If I get corporate in on my products then I have an easier sell to the franchisees.

Marketing peice followed with a phone call...okie dokie - considering this is the only idea I've received so far, it's top on my list

Brandon is there any reason you would prospect different for a franchisor than you would other prospects?

Brandon,

I sold to CEO's for years. If you want to pm me, I'd be happy to look over whatever letter/marketing piece you develop.

Susan

Quote:

Originally Posted by SpeedRacer

Brandon is there any reason you would prospect different for a franchisor than you would other prospects?

I have different services for a franchisor and reasons for doing business with me than any other prospect...sure the other prospects benefit from some of the same services I guess...but I guess my prospecting would be about the same. The only difference is a larger corporation, especially franchise operations it's harder to get to "the person" to make the sale.

Quote:

Originally Posted by susana

Brandon,

I sold to CEO's for years. If you want to pm me, I'd be happy to look over whatever letter/marketing piece you develop.

Susan

Susan, I'll take you up on that once I get a firm marketing piece/letter developed and appreciate your offer.

Need advice - Selling to Franchisors

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