How to grow your franchise

Tips for effectively marketing your franchise opportunity:

• Avoid a hard-sell. Promote your franchise opportunity, but don’t pressure prospects into signing up.
  
• Use your website to promote your franchise.
  
• Use public relations. This can play a major role in promoting your franchise.
  
• Use the power of ‘word-of-mouth’. Nothing is more influential than a personal recommendation from someone who believes in your brand and is willing to talk about it.
  
• List your franchise on the Franchising Association of South Africa’s website.
  
• Participate in franchise and small business exhibitions.
  
• Place advertisements in business-oriented publications.
  

Once you’ve addressed all the possible issues, you’re ready to decide on a business format. You have a few options:

• Appoint a master franchisee. You appoint a franchisee in your target country to operate as the franchisor in that country. This is usually the most successful way to expand into foreign markets. The main issues to consider are the legal and cultural differences, exchange control and differences in business ethics.
  
• Direct franchising. You sign up foreign franchisees just as you would local franchisees. You’ll need to consider the target country’s legislation and, for logistical reasons, this format is most viable in your neighbouring countries.
  
• Set up a subsidiary. You set up a subsidiary in the target country, which acts as the franchisor. It operates one or more pilots to adapt the offering to local needs before establishing franchisees. This approach takes a big investment and carries the most risk because you’ll need an intimate understanding of the local market. But it also offers the highest level of control and potential rewards.
  
• Enter into a joint venture. You set up a subsidiary in your target country with a joint venture partner who has an intimate knowledge of the local market. As such, the risks and rewards are shared.