Why a franchise business tour is a ‘must-have’ video for your franchise recruitment strategy
We do a lot of the franchise store / business tour type videos.
We encourage every brand to do one – but why are they so important and what role do they play?
Our first franchise tours
I guess my original main motivator to really push franchise brands to do behind the scenes business tours was two-fold.
Firstly, I’ve always wanted to show and explain to potential franchise owners what I see – the literal behind the scenes of what makes up the business operations side of many of the franchise businesses in the Australian marketplace.
Secondly, I have always been inspired by the words of Don Meij, the man largely behind the enormous success of Domino’s in the Australian and many global markets.
Proudly for me, Don was our first cover story way back in around 2011 when we were just a start-up franchise magazine (franchise buyer magazine at the time). In interviewing for the story at the time, he said some things about franchise prospects who enquire about the business that really resonated with me.
His perspective was that many people when they enquired about a Domino’s had only ever seen the business from the consumer side. That they hadn’t seen the nitty gritty of the production, the ingredients filled walk-in refrigeration, the make bench, the staff shift juggle and so on.
He thought it very important that you bridge that knowledge gap very quickly in order to find the right fit franchise partners.
This thinking launched the first kernel of an idea of mine to create our own franchise business video tours back in 2013 when I grabbed my shaky camera with no video skills at all, and went on the road to describe a franchise business.
You can see these early pieces below – we all have to start somewhere!
Note – combined, these two tours currently have over 10,000 views on YouTube!
So let’s get back to why you must do a franchise business tour video.
They are easy to create
Of all the videos we do, I think these are likely the easiest ones of all to create. The reason for this is because even for the nervous person on camera, they are simply approached with a sort of ‘behind-the-scenes’ style to them…
You can’t be wrong, as you are not ‘teaching’ something. You are just showing someone who has no idea about it, through your business.
You can do that, you can show-and-tell someone through your business like you have probably done hundreds of times before!
And yes, I host some of the videos for brands as required, but I really do prefer a franchise brand presenting its offer to the market to be the face of it themselves, while we help and coach you through it.
That is always my advice and preference.
It makes your business more ‘accessible’
For people to want to invest in your business, they need to believe that they are capable of operating it.
I broadly describe it as you want people to be thinking, “Yeah, I could do that.”
Showing a behind the scenes style tour and in it you are simply showing and explaining how the business operates, people will very quickly decide if they think they can OR want to run a business like that.
It de-mystifies your business
Closely aligned with making your business accessible, you want to clear up any elements of your business that people might find a bit of a mystery.
People don’t want to invest their hard-earned into a mystery, so make sure people know the broader in’s and outs to ensure you are not missing prospects and possible franchise partners by people ignoring your offer because they don’t initially understand it.
It allows people to self-select
They make a call when they see and understand a little more about your business ‘Is it for me?’
This helps bring you more ‘qualified’ leads which means you are spending less time talking to, or processing enquiries that are not suitable, as you’d prefer them to know this before making an enquiry!
You are selling while showing your franchise
A great franchise business tour is a behind the scenes look at your franchise. It’s informative, and it is showing people an angle on your business that they did not previously know or see.
But what a good tour should also do is to subtly introduce some of your key value propositions.
In the Pizza Hut franchise tour we did, CEO, Phil Reed, welcomed the audience and delivered some key numbers, and then he handed over to an ops expert, Nathan Tillett for the remainder of the tour.
A key message they wanted to get across, was to reinforce the move away from any thinking that Pizza Hut was at all dine-in focused.
There you have it, that’s why it makes total sense to do a franchise business tour video.
So why haven’t you done one yet?
Reach out if you are ready to talk about producing a tour for you and your franchise 🙂
