Building franchise network sales though social media – Training staff

Education, Education, Education

#socialconfusion is often the situation business people and their colleagues find themselves when it comes to social media.

There is no exception in the uk franchise industry and indeed the issue can be compounded as there is often a large network of self-employed entrepreneurs who may have to be Jack of all trades in his or her business (#womeninfranchising) and the skills to be the master of a very few often not including internet marketing. The franchisee looks to the franchise to provide guidance in all areas and quite rightly should expect to be lead when it comes to the main platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

It's Easy as 1,2,3.

There are 3 key stages and elements to training staff and / or franchisees or indeed all stakeholders in your franchise business:

1. Set-up and Understanding the Basics
2. Relevant Content Creation
3. Effective Engaging Networking

Social media will not work without successfully implementing each stage in order. Each stage also requires a lot of planning and hard work however the results can change the future prospects of a brand and organisation if done well.

As with any procedure, product or service the communication and delivery of the features and benefits is crucial and if this is wrong it will fall apart.

How Does Your Training Grow?

Some of the tried and tested ways of training in this field include:

• incorporating social media into initial franchise training and operations manual
• including a social media policy in the franchise agreement
• regular training sessions at sales meetings and conferences
• webinars and screen share sessions
• third party speaking and training from external providers

Franchisors who have made a success of social media are few and far between and even those who have made decent inroads into the opportunity require regular updates and training for themselves and their networks as everything changes so frequently.

For more tips and any questions you have please contact Richard.

Connect with Richard Dancy Franchise Intelligence Senior Consultant