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Last year my father had a triple bypass. By all assessments he should have died. But he did not. A heart that had literally been energetically shut down for most of his life opened up & began to heal. It was truly miraculous to see him find love and joy in his life again. In the past 2 weeks we found him in the hospital again. While he laughed & joked, my mother prayed. The polyp they found was indeed cancerous. It was removed and the doctors gave him a clean bill of health. His doctor reminded him to live his life with joy & gratitude because he is truly blessed to still be alive. Had it not been detected now he would have been serious peril a few months down the road.
These situations led me to question what the central ingredient would be for change in a persons’ life. When confronted with a life changing event or a life altering decision, what makes a person change? Is there one central point of change that occurs? Energetically, spiritually, what shifts?
Reflecting on the past years events with my fathers’ health has taught me a great deal about the powerful force of COURAGE coupled with FORGIVENESS. Being courageous has been the factor that has literally flipped the switch in his life. It brings introspection, forgiveness, acceptance and a form of release. In such a dramatic set of circumstances it’s easy to see.
For the individual who is making choices each day the principle is the same. When you think about professional athletes and successful individuals most of them will tell you that they did what they did & have gained success by making a courageous choice or taking a courageous step. They make a choice or motion that goes against the grain. They think and look outside “the box” - which is to say, they look beyond their own limitations and fears. They are literally moving their vibration level UP & OVER with this feat - this creates change.
Did you know that vibrations levels have actually been calibrated with a logarithmic scale of 1 - 1,000? The higher the energetic vibration level, the higher the logarithm number. The lower the energetic vibration level, the lower the logarithm number. Higher levels are associated with bliss, forgiveness, trust, compassion & hope. These would be vibrations above 200. Anything below 200 corresponds to low vibration emotions such as anger, pride, guilt, hate, scorn & regret.
The break point is 200. What is a 200 vibration level? COURAGE! Yes, this is exactly where the “Map of Consciousness” (Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior by Dr. D.Hawkins) splits from low level, energy drains to high level, life changing movement. Courage comes first - even before forgiveness. Before you can even enter into forgiveness you must have the strength, the courage, to ask for forgiveness. It is the first step to change no matter if you need forgiveness (including dispelling your own fears) or simply asking the help of another human being.
Forgiveness is an introspective process first. Most humans are first & foremost their most fierce critics. Internal forgiveness for our shortcomings and failings is a critical step. To do this, we must be courageous enough to look within.
Practical Examples:
o How many times have you been afraid to interview for a job because you were intimidated? o Have you ever been in a situation where you feel guilt for something you've done or said? o How about a time when you harbored deep seeded resentment or anger towards someone?
Well, my friends, all these things: fear, intimidation, guilt, anger & resentment are all low level vibrations. To move your energy, and the folks that may be involved in your energetic web, you would need to have the courage to say “No, I’m not going to do this anymore!” or simply “I’m sorry” & move forward into the higher vibration levels of love, acceptance, reason, trust, bliss, forgiveness and illumination.
Today’s Challenge:
o Is there an area of your life where you're operating in low level vibrations? o Do you have the courage to change this situation? o Will you make the choice to live a COURAGEOUS LIFE by living beyond your self imposed fears?
Maria is a Holistic Health Counselor specializing in Energy Therapy
Equities finished mixed, in what was a fairly volatile week of trading. With
a clear absence of market moving news, stocks struggled to find direction. The
major theme was weakness in commodity and high beta tech shares. Meanwhile,
strength was actually seen in large cap tech for a change. The strength in
large caps stemmed from respectable results from Cisco Systems. More
importantly, the networking company’s management sounded the most upbeat over
business prospects in some time on the conference call. This gave investors
confidence that the long awaited IT spending pick-up was finally about to
unfold. The strength in large cap tech names also seemed to trigger relative
performance in other large cap shares. This allowed the Dow to outperform the
Nasdaq Composite and Russell 2000 by a wide margin.
In our trading we closed out one position for nice gains. We took a more
defensive posture in our trading, because of uncertainty over interest rates.
Our focus turned to industrial metal names as shorts, given that the momentum in
the group seemed to be fading. As always, we’ll be carrying a number of
positions into the week ahead that we remain comfortable with. A recap of our
performance for the week (as well as year to date) can be found at:
Much like we have seen over the past three weeks, equities struggled to make
much upside progress. Meanwhile, the downside was also limited due to hopes of
the Fed stopping their rate hikes. After last Friday’s jobs report indicated
that wage inflation could become a problem, expectations for two more rate hikes
seemed to become largely the consensus. However, with the sharp commodity
correction of recent days, the Fed could begin to tone down their hawkish talk a
bit. Furthermore, after homebuilding bellwether Toll Brothers issuing another
profit warning, if the Fed moves too fast, it could negatively impact the
housing market. With that said, hopefully the Fed will avoid over tightening.
If this is how things work out (i.e. the Fed backs off a bit on rates), we
believe the stage could be set for a very powerful move to the upside in
equities. Until further guidance is provided on the interest rate front,
equities will probably continue to remain range-bound. This definitely makes
trading more challenging. Therefore, it’s probably a good idea to keep cash
levels on the high side until some more attractive risk/reward set-ups
materialize.
All right then, that’s it for this weekend. We hope you have enjoyed this
edition of the free weekend report. Until then,
good luck in the markets!
Ray Johns is the founder and Senior Market Editor of Daytraders.com, Proudly serving day traders & short-term investors since 1996, at http://www.daytraders.com. Daytraders.com is the publishers of the award winning Morning Stock Market Report and the home of the Interne’ts finest real time trading desk. Ray has been on the forefront of trading and investing in the markets and has appeared as a guest on a number of radio and television shows including CNBC’s Market Talk. If you would like a free trail of the newsletter and the live trading desk log on to Daytraders.com. Comments and questions can be sent to marketing@TraderAide.com.
After 15 years working as a Business Analyst and an IT Specialist, the most common question I get asked by business owners is what information should I store in my customer database. Up until five years ago, I would have given them the same answers most Business Analysts would give. It wasn’t until I decided to go into business and build my own company from scratch that I really began to get a much clearer picture on what we should be storing and the real reasons why.
I am certainly a great believer that all Managing Directors should in fact be required to build a business from scratch before being allowed to manage one, because from experience, it’s a lot harder than it looks. The key to success really boils down to one thing, how good is the information you have on your customers. It’s the customer information that you will use to make decisions as to what directions to take in your business.
Okay … so what information should we store?
If we look at our basic Customer Database for a small business (and by the way if you haven’t ever seen a customer database have a look on my website and you will get a few ideas http://www.1-on-1.biz/products/crm/default.asp) the core information you want to store are things like the customers First Name, Last Name, Address, Suburb, State, Postcode, Country, Telephone Number, Email address, Date of Birth and so forth. I’ve put together a basic list below:
- First Name - Middle Name - Last Name - Date of Birth - Company Name - Telephone Number - Fax Number - Mobile Number - Email Address - Address - Postal Address - Class of Customer (A Class, B Class, C Class, D Class) - How they heard about us (eg Newspaper, Yellow Pages etc) - The Date the Customer First Contacted You - Enter the Customer Sales - What was sold - Date of Sale - Customer Notes - How many times a customer visits your website
If you are looking at buying an off the shelf customer database, you need to make sure that you can choose what information you can put into the database rather than being forced into putting dummy data in. Essentially what I mean, is that the database will let you put one or two pieces of information about the customer in, rather than having to enter every piece which you might not have. In reality you will find, and in particular on the web, that you may have to collect each piece of customer information over a period of time.
For example, if a customer visits your website, you might ask them if they would like to register for a free newsletter, to be sent by email. At this exact point, you would anticipate to get the maximum number of people giving you their details you might only ask the visitor for their First Name, Last Name and Email address. If you are interested in learning a range of techniques on how to get give customers confidence in giving you their details have a list to a set of interviews by a gentleman called Mr H. These interviews reveal some pretty switched on techniques to encourage your visitors to give you their information. To listen to these interviews visit my website at http://www.1-on-1.biz/dms.asp.
You will notice that I specified First Name and Last Name separately. There is a very good reason why I suggest this. Email marketing gurus will tell you that more people read your emails if you address the customer by their first name. By having their first and last names separately there is no chance of insulting the customer by using their last name.
Other fields like address, suburb, state, postcode, country provide very important information on helping you to work out where your visitors are coming from. They can also help you work out how to develop your products and services by helping you take into account specific regions and their cultures. For example, you may present information on a particular product to an Asian person differently than to a European. The presentation could vary dependant on the language and cultural issues.
This is also very important to consider when you are evaluating who is visiting your site. For example, if you had 50% of your traffic coming from another country then you would certainly need to consider developing your website to meet those cultural needs. If you didn’t collect your visitors’ information then you would certainly have no idea who was looking at your site.
Collecting the customers address details also gives you a lot more confidence in identifying where your customers are located. One of the reasons you may consider collecting their address details is to negotiate with your postal or freight company, the price for delivering your products to a certain region. For example, if I new that 40% of my product sales were in Thailand, I would then talk to my freight company on getting a special discount for sending a certain volume of traffic to that country. By the way, you can do this even for small volumes and by that I am talking 10 to 15 parcels a week. Just ask them, you can never tell unless you ask.
Some of the other key information you should be collecting is how they heard about you or your website. For example, if the customer found you from Google then you need to know that. If they found you from an obscure article you wrote then you need to know that. This information is going to become really important as it will help you to work out what advertising works, what doesn’t and what is most effective. For example, if you new that say a customer coming from Yahoo bought more from your store then you would definitely consider focusing your advertising dollar in that area. If you found though that visitors coming from Google’s PPC service gives you a better financial reward then you may consider investing more time in that arena.
The key thing about Customer databases is this, it’s about giving you real information that you can use to make more informed decisions. Personally, trying to run a business without a customer database is exactly the same as buying a lotto ticket.
In the database link I gave to you before (Here it is again - http://www.1-on-1.biz/products/crm/default.asp), there is a tool in it called the profit calculator or 5 ways calculator. From the few small pieces of information collected you can calculate what your profit will be. If you want to find out how this calculator works just visit the link and put your details in and you can find out how it works in the free 50 page training manual.
The other cool thing about collecting the sales information, is that you can workout what products and services are selling and when. Quite often, people will find that their businesses are seasonal. My training business is no different. My team and I know that during tax time in Australia, our training business will be quiet but after that two month period we know we will be back working extremely hard.
The other key information you should be tracking is how often someone visits your website from the first time they visit. You need to know how many visits it takes before they will enter their information into your website, and then you need to know how long it takes before they buy from you. All this information is stored in the few fields I mentioned at the start of the article.
Sales people called what I mentioned before their Sales Ratio. Essentially it tells you how many people you have to get in front of, to make those all important sales. For example -
Visitors : Newsletter Registerees : Full Registerees : Sales 10000 : 1000 : 100 : 10
So if you know that it takes 10,000 visitors to get 10 sales, then you know the more visitors you get, the more sales you get. Knowing your sales ratio, will certainly make life a lot more comfortable and easier when you make the decision to purchase advertising or work out what traffic generation techniques work for you.
I should note also that you can get different sales ratios for different media or medium types. For example, you might find your sales ratio for say traffic generation via Google PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising is more effective than another.
The bottom line is, you must be collecting this customer information. The more customer intelligence you have, the more effectively you can service your customers.
One of the tools you will want to consider getting to know is how to use Microsoft Access. This tool is fantastic for doing the calculations I mentioned before. The really cool part about Microsoft Access is that once you have created a report once, you can keep reviewing the report with the latest data without have to keep recreating the report. If you want to know how to make Microsoft Access do this visit - http://www.1-on-1.biz/products/msaccess/default.asp The Final point I would like to make, is that it doesn’t matter whether you are running an Internet Business or a Bricks and Mortar Business you must be collecting information on your customers from the day you open. Without this information you will find it virtually impossible to run your business effectively.
Although I would not consider myself a professional photographer by any means, I have been at this for a while, and have had some great teachers along the way.
In this first newsletter I would just like to share some tips regarding backlighting and how it can fool your light meter. For those super experienced photographers please bear with us, as more advanced topics will be discussed later.
Although shooting into the sun or a window with the sunlight shining in should be avoided, you are sometimes forced to take your picture under these conditions. If your not careful the light coming in from a window can fool your light meter. When taking a shot, say for example a portrait of a person with a window behind them, do a light meter reading with the meter pointed directly on the person. Get within a few feet to do the reading if you have to. After you have your correct meter reading and your aperture, and shutter speed settings are set, you can return to the disired location and take your picture.
What tends to happen sometimes if your not careful, is that your meter will pick up on the backlight, which is telling it that there is plenty of light, thus your camera shuts down the aperture, or increases the shutter speed to compensate. After you get your picture developed you will find that it is dark and underexposed due to a lack of light.
Hope this simple tip helps you improve your photography. If you are looking for more information to help with your photography skills check out the great instructional ebook Digital Photography Success. http://www.bwphotography.info/betterpictures.html
Although Digital is mentioned in the title, it has many technical techniques and pointers that will improve your photography whether it be B&W, film, or digital.
Buying a franchise should sound easy right? Indeed, however it is not so easy. Comparing different types of businesses and profitability is not easy either; in fact most franchises do not tell you how much you will actually make in the business because the over regulation in the industry and the incessant lawsuits makes it unwise to do so.
I recommend that you buy a “Franchise Guide” which lists all the franchises available or search; “Franchising” online and look to see what is available. It is best to first determine what type of business you want to start and then see if such a franchise exists in that industry sector, chances are it does.
Then you can determine if you want to buy a franchise or start from scratch. Often there are advantages to buying a franchise that make things easier, although there are also lots of stipulations and royalty fees. Of course generally they take a lot of the original guess work out of the equation as well.
There are many franchise listing type books out there and I recommend Robert Bond’s “Franchise Guide” perhaps you can find it online or at Amazon.com and compare it to the other franchise directory publications. Once you pick out a few companies you think you like, contact the companies and see what they say and determine if it is right for you. Consider this in 2006.
“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/
Once a person reaches a certain age or acquires a certain amount of work experience, he becomes eligible for retirement. Every organization should have clear-cut rules regarding retirement and it should help the employees in adjusting themselves after retirement to the new realities of life. Some organizations provide pensions for their retired employees, but more and more individuals have to provide for their own retirement.
Retirement is an important event in an employee’s life and also has an important impact on the organization where he worked for a major portion of his life. Therefore, at the time of parting, the personnel manager should arrange a special interview with the employee. He should thank the employee for his services to the organization and ask him to speak about the changes or improvements he would like to be introduced in the organization.
Retirement can be classified into three categories: compulsory retirement, forced retirement and premature retirement. While every individual retires after he reached the retirement age set by the company/ firms, forced retirement happens if an employee has violated the conditions enumerated in the service agreement. On the other hand, premature retirement happens when an employee becomes disabled in an accident or due to some disease, or is offered the option of retiring by the management before attaining the retirement age with full benefits of retirement.
It is good to plan for retirement well in advance so that you can become mentally and financially prepared for a life without a daily work routine or regular paycheck.
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On a recent vacation I had a first-hand opportunity to see how the timeshare world operates and it wasn’t a pretty picture. I’ve never been a big fan of timeshares as a real estate investment and so I decided I’d better get the low-down on what they’re all about and how consumers or vacationers get sucked in to the timeshare world. We were paying guests at a small resort that was part of a timeshare listing service, one that you could exchange your share in another timeshare property for this one. Over fifty percent of the hotel lobby was the office area for seven full-time timeshare sales people that worked the ever-changing flow of new arrivals staying at this beautiful place.
I watched the sales people for a couple of days and decided to experience the timeshare pitch, and what a pitch it was, with pressure laced throughout, to buy now. If your thinking about buying a timeshare or want the ins and outs of how to buy one, Mark Nash author of 1001 Tips for Buying and Selling a Home offers valuable tips on the reality of timeshares.
-Food and beverage are usually the sales pitch hook for timeshares. A free lunch or hotel stay is usually how you are enticed to visit a timeshare property. The old saying goes, there is no such thing as a free lunch and if you like lots of pressure to buy a timeshare now, go have the free lunch.
-Timeshare salespeople are trained to close you on the first visit. Your salesperson is to close you in ninety minutes. First you receive a property tour and then sit for a meal, over which the pitch goes into overdrive. Resist and you will be offered a stream of discounts to sign on the line today. I was first offered a $3,000 discount (called first day discount) then another for $1,000 when I wouldn’t sign. If you you didn’t bring your checkbook you can put 10 percent on a credit card and finance the rest at 10 1/2 percent interest rates through their in-house financing company.
-Trading your week is considered the future vacation lure. My sales representative told me the biggest reason to purchase was the flexibility to trade the location I purchased for one at another of this large companies timeshare properties around the world. But to do that I had to pay $99-$199 in administrative fees to trade my timeshare week. This was a major revenue source for the timeshare company.
-Buy in the right property to increase the chances of trading your share. The problem with most timeshare trading is you have to purchase in a high demand property to trade into another high demand property. I learned that there is a surplus of timeshares in Orlando, so those people have a difficult time trading for a week anywhere. Where I stayed, it was a five-star timeshare, and one week at peak (mid-winter) season for a two bedroom, two bath was $35,380 for 98 years, plus assessments.
-Assessments can be a larger hidden cost than you think. Your timeshare ownership is tied directly to the resort property you purchase in. If it’s an older building the higher the assessments. Where I looked it was a new property,and the assessment was $554 annually, but over 98 years that property will require quite a bit of repairs and renovations. What’s the point of diminishing returns when buildings need a new roof or a major hurricane blows through? Those costs might come sooner than you think even if you bought in a brand new property.
-Timeshares are not a real estate investment. No matter which way you look at the numbers and the way you hold your ownership interest, you are really pre-paying for future vacations. Many timeshares are difficult to sell and are usually heavily discounted at resale and sometimes require paying a commission to whoever is brokering your timeshare.
-Consider fractional ownership. If you want a deed and title to your vacation property investigate what s called fractional ownership. This recent improvement on timeshares allows you to own an actual percentage interest in a designated unit.
Mark Nash’s fourth real estate book, “1001 Tips for Buying and Selling a Home” (2005), and working as a real estate broker in Chicago are the foundation for his consumer-centric real estate perspective which has been featured on ABC-TV, CBS The Early Show, Bloomberg TV, CNN-TV, Chicago Sun Times & Tribune, Fidelity Investor’s Weekly, Dow Jones Market Watch, MSNBC.com, The New York Times, Realty Times, Universal Press Syndicate and USA Today.
In the first part of this article I put forward 7 questions that I believed were important to ask of your potential cleaning company. In this article I will explain the relevance of the first two questions and the answers you get to you as a business.
When the top 150 Cleaning Companies in the UK were asked this question the answer came back as 73%. That means that within a 12 month period 73% of their cleaning staff have left and been replaced. What is the relevance of this figure to you? If the figure you get back is higher than about 25% it is likely that if you engage this firm then you are unlikely to have the same cleaners for very long. You will have a constant stream of new cleaners. This is not good for building up a working relationship or continuity. Worse still might be the answer ‘I don’t know exactly’ because this probably means they are trying to avoid giving you an insight into the correct figure. They can of course lie!
Cleaners might simply be hired to cover a particular clean, shown what to do and left to get on with it. Verifiable means that the company has a recognised training scheme which is documented and you can see the date and times training of your staff has taken place. Is training necessary? You might think not. Everybody should know how to clean because we all do it! Commercial cleaning is not like cleaning at home. The cleaner has a time limit in which tasks must be completed. They must be trained in how to carry out those tasks as quickly and efficiently as possible. Secondly not all the tasks will be assigned to every cleaning slot. Some tasks might for example be designated as weekly in the cleaning schedule or even monthly, for example cob webbing. However the staff must be trained that if they see a cobweb they remove it then and there and not wait until the schedule allows them to do it! This may sound petty and common sense but not all cleaners are capable of working outside their little boxes and schedules without proper training.
To you as a business it is actually quite important that your cleaners are capable of doing things as and when needed and not necessarily waiting for the appointed time on the schedule to come around. So ask the question and then probe a little deeper into the cleaning companies view on cleaning schedules.
David Andrew Smith has been working for many years in the cleaning industry and is the owner of http://www.wesparkle.co.uk, general cleaners and also the owner of http://www.stonecareuk.net who are specialists in natural stone care and maintenance of such natural stone as marble, granite and limestone
If you have to name that one particular thing which keeps the globe moving in the modern world, it is going to be nothing other than currency. Currency is the trademark of every country. Buying and selling of foreign currencies, better known as forex trading, poses a good business opportunity. In today’s world of ecommerce and fast cash, online forex trading holds special significance. This allows easy trading from anywhere in the world within seconds. You can sit back at home and take this up as a lucrative business option. The global trading operates through Sydney, Tokyo, London, Frankfurt and New York.
With the growing demands of the tourism industry, the relevance of forex has increased. Online forex trading renders immense help to foreign tourists in alien countries. The fastness of the online systems allows them to enjoy hassle-free travel plans without worrying about local currency. Since the forex trading market operates 24 hours, the market shows high degrees of liquidity ensuring price stability. This is because financial institutions like banks influence the liquidity positively. However, all is not golden with this market. Like any other business, this trade has its own ups and downs. While trading you need to be careful about both trading, rising and falling prices.
Online forex trading might look simple on the surface level, but in reality it is not. You need to be conscious about every step. The terms and conditions are normally case and client specific. Since the pricing is much lower than the banks or other brokers, the forex trading service is rising in popularity. Dealers are required to put in continuous efforts and provide continuous support to clarify doubts of the clients. The pre-condition of such trading is accurate analysis, estimation and research for higher level of success. So, trade with joy and keep earning.
The “BYOB!” Myth
Imagine this television commercial: a bunch of teenage kids in a house, eating junk food, playing video games with rap music blasting. The narrator says: “Hey kids: tired of listening to your parents? Why not do whatever YOU want to do! Join the Army!”
Ludicrous, right? (Imagine the kids’ surprise when their hair gets buzzed off, they’re issued identical uniforms and that whole “reveille thing” is explained for the first time.) No one in their right mind would advertise so foolishly, would they?
That would be like recruiting a franchisee, one who must faithfully comply with a system of rigid rules and guidelines, with ads that say :
“Entrepreneurs Wanted!”
“Imagine the freedom! Imagine the opportunity!”
“Promote yourself to President!”
I call it the OYOB! (Own your own business!) and BYOB! (Be your own boss!) marketing myth. To see if you’ve been infected, check your own marketing materials for these tell-tale phrases: “Own your own business!” “Be your own boss!” “Achieve financial freedom!” “Fire your boss!” “Take control of your life!” or similar variations.
It’s not easy to avoid. Believe me, I know. I’ve probably written more franchise brochures than anyone on the planet, and it’s hard work to avoid the easy slogans. But make no mistake: falling into the BYOB! trap is one of the most dangerous mistakes franchisors make. And it’s the cause of much of the conflict in franchisor/franchisee relations.
Many franchisors attract prospects with the promise of freeing them from oppression and giving them the chance to gain control. There’s only one problem: Franchise systems are built on adherence, not independence. Franchisors want implementers, not rebels. They often recruit individuals who are yearning to break free from their harness, but as soon as the contract is signed the franchisor expects them to docilely slip into their harness.
Requiring conformity, adherence to an established system and a shared identity is not a bad thing. That’s what gives franchising its power. So why do franchisors often attract the wrong people by setting the wrong expectations?
The mything link
Why, you may ask, do we sell the opportunity to join a conformist system via a dream of individualism? Why have we, as an industry, perpetuated the link between BYOB! and franchise ownership?
First, because it’s an easy sell. It makes your ad copy pop. The dream of being freed from day-to-day tyranny is a powerful one. Telling one’s boss to take this job and shove it is the real American Dream. It’s Easy Rider. It’s Thelma & Louise. It’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Unfortunately, it promises about the same outcome.
Second, too few franchisors have actually given much thought to their franchise marketing message. They tend to just say what everyone else says: B.Y.O.B.! Many commission marketing research and branding platforms at the consumer level; more need to create a thoughtful strategy and platform for their franchise brand.
The third reason for the prevalence of the myth is the influence of commissioned franchise salespeople and brokers who are compensated for short term sales, not the long-term franchisee performance or satisfaction. By the time the franchisees start storming the castle, the commissions are spent and the salespeople are long gone.
Another reason for this myth could be that many who founded and lead franchise companies are, indeed, entrepreneurs and project their own values onto the franchise prospect. They assume that what would motivate them would motivate a prospect. But the fact is that few founders could survive very long as franchisees of their own systems. Those who are looking primarily for implementers should not seek entrepreneurs. One franchisor per system is enough (and, according to some, still one too many).
Be all that you can be… with our franchise.
The Army’s effective recruitment advertising does not say “Be your own boss,” or “Do what you want.” It says “Be all that you can be,” and, more recently, “Be an Army of One.” It appeals to the individual’s self-interest: Communicating what the prospect will gain, what he or she will learn, how joining the Army will make him or her look to others and feel about his or herself. But it sells the benefit of being part of something greater than oneself, of being disciplined and following directions. Above all, there is a regard for the brand, the team, even the rules themselves and the benefits they provide.
Ultimately, the importance of avoiding the BYOB! myth goes beyond effective recruitment and setting realistic expectations. Its importance goes directly to establishing and preserving the trust between franchisor and franchisee that is critical to their mutual success. As Peter Birkeland states at the end of his recent book “Franchising Dreams,” establishing high levels of trust with franchisees is the most critical problem for franchisors. “For those who cannot achieve that,” states Birkeland, “The problem of control is a never-ending battle of wills.”
How franchisor’s can avoid the B.Y.O.B.! myth
1. Develop a franchise brand positioning platform. Recognize that your franchise is a separate (though interrelated) brand from your consumer brand, and develop a franchise brand development platform. The platform is generally a document of 10-20 pages that commits to paper the brand identity of the franchise program, specifics of the target franchise prospect, enumerates the benefits of the franchise program in terms that relate to the prospect, and includes a 25-50 word description of the franchise program that everyone in your organization, franchisees included, should eventually be able to recite from memory.
2. Be sure your marketing communicates the franchise brand position. From your lead generation materials (print ads, postcards, in-store messages, mini-brochures, digital brochures, website) to your follow-up materials (franchise brochures, videotapes, email messages, eBrochures), personal interactions and even the portrayal of franchisees in consumer advertising should be consistent with the Franchise Brand positioning.
3. Get your salespeople and brokers on-board. Experienced, reputable salespeople and brokers can be useful in generating interest and following up, but you must be careful that the prospects they bring you - and the prospects you sign - match your profile, are adequately capitalized, have a clear understanding of the franchisor/franchisee relationship and have realistic expectations.
4. Be honest. In franchise sales, honesty truly is the best policy. The prospects who respond to dreams of freedom and easy money are the ones you will spend the most time and money dealing with. Smart franchisors want smart franchisees. And smart franchisees respond to the truth. If you’re still working toward excellence, tell them where you are in the process. Then keep working toward it.
5. Re-sell your current franchisees. To calculate how many times you need to re-sell franchise owners, add up every royalty check they’ll write and add 1. Continue to promote and reinforce your vision of the franchisee/franchisor relationship internally, and try to positively help those who are the farthest from buy-in in selling their franchise or exiting the system.
Sean Kelly is founder and President of IdeaFarm, a leading franchise marketing and brand development company. He is also the founder of FranchiseMarketing.com. For more information visit http://www.ideafarm.NET, or reach him at seankelly@ideafarm.NET.