Guest speakers at 2015 Best Franchise Conference

Coconut Creatives were recently guest speakers at the Smith & Henderson 2015 Best Franchise Sarah Smith and HendersonConference. Our Founding Director, Sarah Carlile, explained all about the 5 ½ marketing mistakes made by franchisors and even had a little guide to give away as a bonus!

We were delighted to be asked to speak at the event and hope that everyone who attended enjoyed finding out more about the mistakes made by franchisors and how you can avoid making the same mistakes!

The Best Franchise Conference is designed to offer advice and guidance to franchisors looking to recruit more quality franchisees and improve network performance. The guest speakers come from all sectors across the franchise industry and each and every one of them has valuable advice to give.

Other guest speakers included:

  • Dave Williams, RBS
  • Jo Stone & Tracy Townend, Puddleducks
  • David Paulson, TaxAssist Accountants
  • Matt Davies & Rod Levington, Business Doctors
  • Graeme Payne, Victoria Hobbs & Shelly Nadler, Bird & Bird
  • Chris Roberts, Franchise Finance
  • Carl Reader, Social Media Exchange
  • Martin Jones, Home Instead Care

The key note speaker was Neil Clough, a finalist on The Apprentice in 2013. Since The Apprentice, Neil has gone on to build his own highly successful sales training and recruitment business. Neil gave an inspiring talk and inspired our franchisors to go home and push their networks forwards.

The Best Franchise Awards also took place during the conference. These awards recognise the very best franchisors in the industry based on feedback from thousands of franchisees. Being recognised in these awards helps differentiate franchises from the competition and build trust with prospective franchisees.

Winners included:

  • Best Franchise (less than 25k investment) – diddi dance
  • Best Franchise (£25k-£75k investment) – EweMove
  • Best Franchise (75k plus investment!) – TaxAssist Accountants

Please contact us
to get a free copy of our 5 ½ marketing mistakes guide. We can help you avoid them!

An opportunity not to be missed…

Here at Coconut Creatives, we’re well versed in hosting and attending franchise events. That’s why we’re helping the BBIC (Barnsley Business and Innovation Centre) to host two pilot franchising events next year. We’re looking for franchisors who would like to get involved in the Yorkshire Franchise Seminars.

These seminars are offering the chance for franchisors who are looking to recruit franchisees in the Yorkshire are to get in front of an audience of prospective franchisees. The seminars will be providing prospects with information on how to get involved in franchising.

Each franchise brand will be given 3-5 minutes to present themselves and their brand to the audience with an opportunity to network with prospective franchisees throughout the event.

These pilot seminars are free to be involved with and are a great way to get to know prospects in the Yorkshire area. If you’ve got any prospects in the area, why not invite them to come along? Meeting you in an informal, no obligation environment might help their decision-making process!

We’re only looking for 6-8 franchise brands to get involved so don’t miss your chance to support and benefit from two great events!

Contact rebecca@coconutcreatives.co.uk if you’d like to get involved.

A successful show for Coconut Creatives!

As you may know, we attended the National Franchise Exhibition at the Birmingham N.E.C at the Coconut show workshopbeginning of this month. We even exhibited for the very first time!

The show was a great success for us with three speaking slots, lots of meetings and a busy stand. We’re looking forward to making contact and working with everyone we met at the show over the weekend. It’s been an exciting time at Coconut Creatives with our new, revamped team and we’re offering even more services than ever before. We’re excited to be back in the office and working our magic for our clients. We look forward to taking on even more clients soon.

We were invited to speak on one of our expert topics, Social Media on the first day of the show and we were so pleased with the results. During our Social Media seminar, our hashtag #ishouldcoco was seen by over 7,500 people!

If you missed us at the show, or if you did attend and want to find out more, why not come along to our Social Media Skills workshop on 4th November to learn more!

….and don’t forget to #ishouldcoco!!

Come and meet us!

Here at Coconut Creatives, we’re excited to be attending the National Franchise Exhibition at the Birmingham N.E.C on 2nd & 3rd October.

As well as being available on stand, we’ve been putting time aside on both days so that you can come and talk to us! Each team member attending specialises in a different area of the business so if you’re struggling with a certain part of your recruitment then let our specialist take you for a coffee and together we’ll recommend tweaks to help get you where you want to be:


Sarah Carlile, Founding DirectorIMG_2696

 

Adam Lovelock, Head of Online MarketingAdam Lovelock

  • Follow up after exhibitions ‘how to ensure you maximise the potential of the leads you receive at the show;
  • Email marketing – tips and tricks to super charge your email marketing
  • Social media for franchise recruitment – how can you find and recruit franchisees through social media?

 


Adam Knight, Head of Technology & Systemsadam knight

  • Tracking and attribution – knowing how and where people find you online is hugely important so you can accurately measure your ROI and return on time with your marketing
  • User experience – this is crucial to ensuring you do not put up barriers to the right potential franchisees finding you at the right time
  • Funnel marketing – having a clearly defined sales funnel can make the difference between a business doing well and sky rocketing.

 

Paul Clegg, Marketing Account Director Paul Clegg 

  • Recruitment process – are your prospects falling out of your process at a certain point and just not progressing further? If so, a recruitment process review is crucial to see why this is happening
  • Paul spent several years working inside the world class Mac Tools franchise recruiting 30-40 franchisees PER YEAR for 3 consecutive years UK-wide. His experience in his area is vast, book a meeting with Paul to discuss your own recruitment growth and how you can improve it.

 

 

Helen Thresh, Client Account ManagerIMG_2605

  • Market Your Franchise webinar programme – how helping your franchisees market their businesses supports your network as a whole
  • Franchise marketing workshops – if you would like to join us on one of our specialist marketing workshops then Helen’s who you need to speak to

 

 Nick Carlile, Board Director & Coconut Company Secretary

  • Glean Nick’s experiences of launching and growing the world’s first property franchise,                        Platinum NickProperty Partners
  • Talk to Nick about advanced sales strategies you could adopt which have generated him millions of pounds of investment across the franchise offering and other business ventures
  • Franchisor thinking of selling your franchised business or want to attract capital investment into your franchise? Nick’s your man for pulling together an investment plan and/ or preparing your brand for sale. Nick has generated several million £’s doing exactly this in other businesses.

 

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to pick our brains! Come and see us on Stand H240 or contact us to book a one-to-one meeting with a member of the team.

Franchisor Marketing Workshop Programme 2016

[vc_row type=”in_container” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]This year sees the 6th anniversary of our popular Coconut Workshops for franchisors! Since 2010 we’ve had 200+ franchise brands from across the franchise industry benefiting from our practical workshop programme to fine tune their franchise recruitment and marketing performance. They grow year on year and we’re really excited to share with you what 2016 has in store.

Coconut franchise recruitment workshops deliver valuable insights and ideas for the franchise brands who attend. We advise franchisors on all aspects of their franchise recruitment marketing with proven results using examples and case studies. Our workshops are designed to cover a range of up-to-the-minute, relevant topics with helpful tips and techniques that you can readily apply to your franchise back in the office.

Franchisors attend our workshops because they want to:

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  • Recruit more franchisees
  • Spend their recruitment budget in a smarter way
  • Improve their own skillsets in franchise marketing
  • Learn the latest techniques and methodologies in recruitment
  • Understand how social media can support franchise recruitment
  • Help their franchisees obtain more sales.

[/fancy-ul][vc_column_text]NEW for 2016! Our workshops have received Qualified Franchise Professional (QFP) qualified event status from the bfa! This means that you can now attend our workshop programme as part of your own QFP training.

Each day of our QFP workshops is worth 250 points and will count towards your overall QFP qualification.

Click here to book via our contact form

 

 Our 2016 workshop programme looks like this:

1st March 2016

How to Market your Franchise and Recruit for Network Growth: Day 1 – Setting a SMART approach to franchisee recruitment (250 QFP points)

Suitable for both new and seasoned franchisors this jam-packed workshop looks at how you can set a strategic approach to your marketing and recruitment. On the day we will take you through:

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  •  Current market conditions for franchisee recruitment (looking at the macro environment and how consumer behaviour changed since the 2007 crash and its effect on franchising)
  • The micro environment: franchisee profiling, industry-wide and company specific
  • The franchisee selection/sales process (learning from a decade worth of research across 200 franchise brands) looking at best practice models for building a franchisee profile
  • Discovery Days vs 121 meetings
  • Right recruitment techniques and collateral for each stage of the selection process
  • Corporate responsibility: the legal and ethical role of the franchisor
  • Relationship between recruitment selection and network quality
  • Why develop a strategic plan of action for marketing and recruitment (leading onto day 2)

[/fancy-ul][vc_column_text]2nd March 2016

How to Market your Franchise and Recruit for Network Growth: Day 2 – Franchise marketing new media: The role of social (250 QFP points)

We’re told time and time again by franchisors that they don’t fully understand how to utilise social media for marketing and franchise recruitment. On this workshop you’ll learn crucial social media skills and we’ll take you through:[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

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  • Developing an integrated marketing communications plan in franchising
  • Setting budgets, timescales and monitoring ROI
  • The roles of traditional offline media (exhibitions, magazines, newspapers, referrals)
  • New movements in the marketing and selection process
  • The roles of online new media in recruitment
  • Your franchise sales process & where social media fits to support it
  • The latest recruitment marketing techniques delivering results in the industry right now
  • How to set up, personalise and automate social media channels to save you time & money

[/fancy-ul][vc_column_text]14th April 2016

How to motivate your franchisees (250 QFP points)

Your franchise network is your most valuable brand asset, they are out there every day representing you. This workshop will help you understand what you can do to steer your network in the right direction using a wide variety of tools to educate and motivate each individual franchisee. This workshop deals with these and many other sensitive issues that are at the heart of the franchisor / franchisee relationship covering:[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

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  •  An overview of bridging the gap between franchisee knowledge and their application
  • Using tools to help your franchisees represent your brand effectively
  • Using the franchisee toolbox: the Franchise Agreement, the Operations Manual, the Marketing Manual and Franchisee Business Plan
  • Using a month-by-month support structure for your franchisees
  • Recognising and rewarding franchisee achievement
  • Leading and motivating franchisees through their life cycle (different methods for different lifecycle stages)
  • Setting KPIs & targets on an individual basis and how to monitor these
  • Understanding your leadership skills and how to use these to motivate the network
  • How you can work to best practice guidelines as a franchisor.

[/fancy-ul][vc_column_text]14th July 2016

Exhibiting and speaking effectively for franchisee recruitment

Many franchisors are attending the same shows year on year but unfortunately don’t make the most of them year on year. As a franchisor you are in a room full of other franchise brands competing for the attention and contact details of the same visitors. So being noticed as a high-quality opportunity and making the most out of your initial contact with a prospect is key to exhibiting successfully. On this workshop you will cover:[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

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  • How to plan your exhibition attendance like a military operation
  • SMART collateral to have on stand (including your perfect pitch!)
  • How to make YOUR franchise stand out from the crowd
  • How to maximise your exposure during the show
  • How to use presentations to generate more franchise enquiries at exhibitions
  • Effective follow-up tools that will turn your leads into franchisees!

[/fancy-ul][vc_column_text]11th October 2016

How to Market your Franchise and Recruit for Network Growth: Day 1 – Setting a SMART approach to franchisee recruitment (250 QFP points)

As above!

 

12th October 2016

How to Market your Franchise and Recruit for Network Growth: Day 2 – Franchise marketing new media: The role of social (250 QFP points)

As above!

 

9th November 2016

How to motivate your franchisees (250 QFP points)

As above!

 

Structure & Pricing

Coconut Table cost

We will happily offset any payments made for our Coconut Workshops should you become a Coconut retainer client within the 12 month period.

Coconut Franchisor Workshops are proudly sponsored by

RBS Logo_for_workshops

 

 

 

If you are interested in learning more about our 2016 Workshop Programme please contact us via the form below and one of our team will be in touch![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ width=”1/1″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ width=”1/1″][contact-form-7 id=”5974″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ width=”1/1″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Coconut Media shortlisted for CIPR PRide Award

Coconut Media has been shortlisted for an award at the 2013 CIPR Wessex and Channel Islands PRide PRide-2013- shortlist buttonAwards, announced today.

Coconut Media has been recognised for their outstanding work and has been nominated for Outstanding Small Consultancy. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the CIPR PRide awards, which will be held at St Mary’s Stadium, Southampton.

The CIPR PRide Awards recognise the outstanding talents and achievements of public relations practitioners across the UK’s regions and nations. They are the most prestigious and rigorous awards of their kind.

Commenting on this year’s shortlist announcement, CIPR President Sue Wolstenhome FCIPR, said:

“The CIPR PRide Awards celebrate the very best in public relations from across the UK’s regions and nations. This year’s entries were all of an incredibly high standard, highlighting the industry-leading work that is taking place right across the UK. I would like to congratulate all of those who have been shortlisted for an award; their success demonstrates their exemplary achievements in such a thriving profession, and recognises the impact they have made in their region and beyond.”

To find out how Coconut Media can help you generate great PR for your franchise why not contact us!