Sarah Cook was at the MatchPoint Summit this week with speakers from 8 different countries. What was very apparent was the similar pains and fears experienced by franchisors in growing their franchise network and their different approaches to overcome them.

According to one speaker, the 3 most common human fears are:
1. Public speaking
2. Peer rejection
3. Untimely death!

And the 3 greatest regrets were:
1. “I would have spent more time doing something meaningful with my life.”
2. “I would have taken more risks.”
3. “I want to leave a legacy.”

What is great about this information is that we can use this knowledge of common fears to help franchisors make a franchise sale to the right prospect. This is then better for both the franchisor and franchisee over the long term. Some of the reasons that came up which franchisors regularly address when taking prospects through the recruitment process were:

• Scarcity element, if they don’t buy the territory, someone else will.
• Fear of loss and missing out on an opportunity.
• Fear of risk taking: working with a proven system reduces this.
• Uncertainty of leaving a job/ steady income (but with redundancy on the increase, this is not a certainty).
• Lack of small business experience.

“The biggest fear that is not very often initially mentioned but almost always rises to the surface is the fear of failure. Across the franchisors that I have met from various countries, every one of these has brought this up. I certainly know that this is one of my own biggest fears in life and as an entrepreneur, business owner – in marketing and as a Franchisor, that this absolutely hits a true note,” says Sarah.

It is not very often that anyone gets to spend quality time discussing the key fundamentals of franchise recruitment and prospect decision making, let alone with franchisors from 8 different countries! With this in mind, we wanted to share this knowledge in a bite sized article.

This topic has also been incorporated into our Franchisor Marketing Workshop on 17th June in Leeds. Feel free to contact Sam@coconutcreatives.co.uk or call 01725 511673 if you’d like to come along.