In a conversation with a recruitment manager at a large retail Franchisor this week we were discussing the impact of COVID-19 on franchising in general and on franchise sales (or recruitment) specifically.
A few interesting ideas emerged:
Increase in Leads (New Enquiries)
Consistent with what we have seen across most of our clients, the number of leads over the last 8 months of 2020 was an increase on the year before. COVID seems to have had an impact in Feb/Mar 2020 with decreased numbers but then total lead numbers increased throughout the rest of the year.
Better Conversion Rates
Conversion rates through the recruitment process were higher than previous years. The one minor exception was Discovery Day conversions in the early part of the year were restrictions around movement and lockdowns (stay at home orders) had a bigger negative impact. It didn’t impact the overall recruitment conversion rates from leads to signed franchise agreements though. So generally speaking, COVID didn’t stop the signing of FA’s.
Profiling is MORE important then Ever Before
With less face to face meetings possible in 2020 and the reliance on Zoom style video conference recruitment interviews, psych profiling became an even more important variable in the recruitment process. We have always said that “gut feel” should not be overly relied on when selecting new franchisees and it seems many franchisors started to see why. They simply couldn’t get as good a handle on the perspective franchisee with video time and less face time.
So the The FranchiZe Predictor provided an even more important variable when it came time to determine the potential of the candidate. Of course the fact that it is 100% COVID safe is another massive benefit. Simply send an invitation and get the detail report delivered to your inbox.