Amazing Insights on Franchisee Lead Generation

One of our FranchiseLab clients recently asked if we could put them in touch with franchisors who are performing well in generating quality franchisee leads.

The first person I thought of was Joel Kleber, CMO of the Jim's Group, who currently have nearly 5,000 franchisees. I forwarded the client's request to Joel and his email response was so generous and so useful, that we asked if he would be happy for us to share it in this Positive Franchising Update. True to Joel's kind nature, he agreed unreservedly. (By the way, this open sharing of best practice tips is another example of Responsible Franchising and how we can continue to improve as a sector).

If you want to boost your new franchisee enquiry rate, do yourself a favour and carefully read this extract from Joel's email below.

Joel's tips for generating quality leads

I have been the CMO of Jim's Group for the last 5 years and when I started, the best thing we did was employ an in-house videographer to create new video content for our social media accounts on a daily basis. (Check out @jimsgroup on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and our podcast www.jimspodcast.com).

We also have a separate personal brand account for Jim Penman which generates us inbound franchise enquiries via his personal brand.

Our strategy is simple. Daily video content that tries to be as transparent as possible with our franchise system - including the good and the bad.

We don't outsource any recruitment. We do it all in-house and try to drive people to our YouTube and podcast content. When we get them there, the franchise sells itself. I know this, as we have around 100 to 140 new franchisees in our training every 3 weeks and I ask many of them what they watched and how much they watched.

The answer is always the same. They watch all the videos on the YouTube channel.

We also use a lot of short-form video content to 'plant the seed' and funnel people into our longer-form content. Create content that generates inbound leads or at least helps your enquiry along the journey by allowing them to consume video content at their own pace.

It's a small thing, but the recency of your franchisee interviews and content matters. For this reason, we post multiple times per day with short-form and long-form to our YouTube channel. It's deliberately not overproduced or overly polished either.

Our YouTube channel is our best sales/BDM tool. People who consume the content are far better prospects and already feel as though they know us before even enquiring with our franchisor team.

Most franchise brands I see, do a couple of well-produced videos and nothing more. We have done the opposite. We do a lot of mid-range videos daily and post daily multiple times to our social accounts with different types of content about being a franchisee.

I don't think it matters if a franchise is $10k or $300k. People spend a lot of time on at least one social media platform, which is why we invest in getting daily content into all the platforms we can.

Another option that I think all franchise businesses should use is to hire a content creator and create content daily that is unique and transparent about the great system they have. Any good fresh university media student is capable of this if they have a good marketing manager to work with.

We are in an attention economy and all franchise brands are competing for the attention of prospects. Gone are the days of the 'infopack' in my opinion. Digital content is the new 'infopack' and you want a lot of it, that feels authentic, is not overly salesy and tells a relatable story of your franchisees.

Thanks again Joel Kleber for your generosity in allowing us to share these insights.