4 BIGGEST Trends from a National Franchise Conference

What's happening right now in the world of franchising? 🤔 I just got back from a massive national franchise conference with over 400 founders, CEOs, and industry leaders, and I'm sharing the 4 BIGGEST takeaways that will impact your franchise journey. In this solo episode, we cover:

Cost Reduction: How franchisors are lowering build-out costs and using rebates to boost franchisee profitability.

National Accounts: The power of major partnerships (like Home Depot/Lowe's) and what it means for your revenue.

AI Integration: How AI is revolutionizing training, marketing, and operations to increase efficiency.

Smarter Marketing: Innovative strategies like matching ad spend and pre-launch campaigns to open at break-even.

Get a pulse on the latest franchise trends and learn what top brands are doing to help their owners succeed!

Choose the right path at https://ggthefranchiseguide.com

DISCLAIMER: The information on this podcast is for general information purposes only. Franchising involves risk and careful consideration should be given before making any decisions.

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Transcript

Giueseppe Grammatico: 0:00

the big takeaway here was that ai, in many cases, your chat, GPTs or Geminis could be free, taking it the next level where franchise orders are investing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars back into ai. AI being able to handle over a thousand calls at the same time, whether it be a call or just a chat, being able to service help, potential customers or existing customers and walk them through. by investing in it, you own the ai, you own the data, the infrastructure, and it just gets better and better.

0:33

Welcome to the Franchise Freedom Podcast, where you can escape the corporate trap through franchise ownership. Here's your host, Giuseppe gr, the franchise guide.

Giueseppe Grammatico: 0:46

Welcome to the Franchise Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Jose Epic Matico, your franchise guy, the show where we help corporate executives experience time in financial freedom via franchising. Thanks for joining us today. Really exciting episode. Before we dive into the episode, it wanted just to remind you, if you have a question, if you just have general interest in learning about franchises, reach out to us. You could book a call directly on our website. ggthefranchiseguide.com is the website. you can email me directly and, leave me a message on any of the social platforms and more than glad to spend 20 minutes and we'll figure out together if franchising, may be a good fit. for today's episode, we're gonna go solo. I just got back, so we just had a, an amazing conference in Cincinnati and, we essentially celebrated 25 years at FranChoice. Founded back in 2000. we learned that we have helped over 50,000 individuals. and purchase, 15,000 individuals, over the years since, 2000 have purchased a franchise. So, f 50,000 candidates, 15,000 new franchisees. I was blown away, at that number. and, that was a celebrator of 25 years in business. So, really excited, really proud to be part. a franchise and, and this great organization, and looking forward to the, for the next 25 years. So, what happened during the week? we do these shows twice a year. essentially it's almost like a mastermind. we have about a hundred franchise consultants, funding companies, and over 100 franchise companies. in total, there's. Well over 400 people, that attend these events. we have founders, we have, as I mentioned, funding partners. sales organizations and, c-suite, individuals working with each of the brands learning about what's going on in the franchise world, what's going on with the specific brands, what's going on in the industries. Lot changing, lot going on. we wanna know, everything behind the scenes so that we can share this knowledge with everyone we work with. And that's one of The benefits of everyone we work with. we have our finger on the pulse, of the franchise world, what's going on in funding in the SBA world, what's going on with certain industries, certain, niches, being developed, in the franchise space, merging of brands, things like that. So, would love to share that with you. And, what I wanted to do today is, keep this one. Short, because I encourage you to schedule a call with me. We could definitely dive a little bit deeper and discuss in more detail. But, I wanted to talk about, the four main takeaways from the conference, these are kind of categories and we'll talk about each one. a ton of information, ton of stats. and, would love to share that with you today. The first one, an idea that came up quite a bit was cost reduction. Well, franchisors are always looking for ways to make the franchisees much more profitable. what can we do? we've heard, certain brands, and we're gonna talk in general terms because, this doesn't affect every brand, but we had brands that that presented that were able to. Decreased our footprint to eliminate wasted space, in certain brands such as education and daycare where they were able to cut the costs, to the franchisee by, well over six figures. Looking for ways, essentially economies of scale, buying power, working with vendors, Whatever material it could be in painting and power washing, window washing and things like that. increasing those economies of scale as the brands get larger, more franchisees, more buying power and are able to not only get better pricing, but if they are unable to get better pricing. We heard of one brand, Talk about the idea of rebates, Given back for so many purchases and certain volume, of purchases, which was most, if not all, given back to the franchisees. So maybe not necessarily lowering your costs up front, but getting it in a form of a rebate on the back end. cost reduction was big, looking for ways to cut back on costs. we looked at build out costs. rebates, lowering prices and marketing costs, being able to. Leverage a platform, go national and looking for different ways of, of reducing marketing spend. You know, a lot of the, you know, micro sites that are being built for the franchisees ongoing costs to, maintain that. And there's several others, but those are gonna be part of some, some other categories that we're gonna be talking about. So, cost reduction is key. if we can add a couple percentage points at the bottom line, that can make a huge difference That was one of the main takeaways and topics, that we heard of over and over again. another idea, and, we can put this in the marketing budget, as well, but it was the idea of national accounts. Now, national accounts super important here, where franchisor may have full-time staff that is working with Larger names out there in order to get national exposure, national recognition, working together with companies like a Home Depot or Lowe's, in the home services space as a preferred vendor. and that really helps the franchisees, number one, getting exposure on the brand nationally. it also helps from a referral standpoint where you're the first point of contact if a customer is looking for that specific, service or maybe an alternative to that specific service. national accounts came into play and, you know, every franchise would love to have these national accounts, but really to make it a true national account, you need to have franchisees across the country. Certain. companies, name brands that we hear every day may hold off until, you have a franchise in every state or in certain states that they're looking at, so that they can launch those relevant, areas for their stores and eventually every store across the system. but this stuff takes time, to get in, with a brand, you have to obviously present. you have to, show exactly where your locations are, where the franchisees can service. But this idea of national accounts, I almost treat this as, the icing hard to figure out in the pro forma and budgeting these are, added revenue sheets, bonuses that you can pick up on referral sources until they become more consistent. then you can start saying, well these national accounts take into consideration 10, 15, 20% of our revenue. and then you can include those back into the proforma. So, this national recognition is huge, the exposure, and as I mentioned, getting into multiple stores is gonna be a huge plus. And we're seeing this over and over again. So not necessarily, you know, do we have to add more brands? I'm sorry, more services to the brand? We can keep the services offered at that specific franchise and just get more exposure, right? We don't wanna overcomplicate the business. We wanna keep the business simple. We wanna keep the business profitable, so how can we increase our reach And national accounts is definitely. one of the topics that, was, really popular Third key takeaway, and this is gonna be a repetitive one, we talked about this on our last, six month update, back in January. And that was the importance of ai. the big takeaway here was that ai, in many cases, your chat, GPTs or Geminis could be free, taking it the next level where franchise orders are investing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars back into ai. Where, the AI can streamline. some of the training, some of the marketing for the franchisor makes it simpler for them, demands less manpower and ultimately less costs, more efficiencies to the franchisees. AI is doing a great job. I guess on a while back, and he asked for the audio, only where they fed the audio into their AI and whatever we had talked about, got fed into their system, which they had used for training manuals and also to create quick videos. So when a technician was at a job site before contacting the franchisee or the franchisor, they were able to go into this database, type a couple key terms and they can walk'em through exactly. how to fix, whatever issue, basically troubleshoot whatever issue they were having. So, AI's been big, but, you know, franchisors are investing given their size, investing back, you know, utilizing the royalties and the profits of the business, investing back in the business to make franchisees more profitable. we've heard stories where, you know, certain health and beauty brands no longer needing a, a front desk receptionist. Utilizing ai, to make it a lot more efficient, easier to work with. were hearing stories of AI being able to handle over a thousand calls at the same time, whether it be a call or just a chat, being able to service help, potential customers or existing customers and walk them through. a billing issue, a question troubleshooting, with an existing franchisee. the AI is not taking over everything, but it's taking over some of the admin duties automating certain things and constantly learning. by investing in it, you own the ai, you own the data, the infrastructure, and it just gets better and better. So we've been seeing quite a bit there, which leads into, number one, which was cost reduction. the AI's automating so that. the call centers maybe AI picks up first on the first call gets transferred to somebody else. You're able to keep the headcount much lower, lowering the cost and lowering, the fees in order to have access to a call center where a lot of these leads are being, sent to. So, AI is big. And then, lastly, a lot of money being reinvested in marketing. We heard, of some brands, saying, we have a great system, we have a great blueprint that the franchisee can follow, but ultimately this great service, you gotta pay to get it out there. So paid ads, SEO marketing micro sites, on the digital side. we've had franchisors come back and say, we really want you to spend X amount, and as a promotion we will match. That intro amount to get the business up and running, which, not all brands. there were a handful of brands that were offering, these types of deals where they would just offer a credit and match the initial spend on a marketing campaign or offer credits to future campaigns. because at the end of the day, they want the franchisee to gain momentum. I know that when I first started my, my first franchise back in February of oh seven. closed. Our first sales appointment was not a big. Sale, but, you know, it helped with confidence, it helped with momentum, and, you know, it was great. You know, I still remember that win, over some of the much larger wins we had over the years, because it was number one on the very first. Sales call. marketing was big as far as what they're doing in the marketing. incorporating ai, Going back, into the marketing to make it more efficient, lower the costs, going back to number one, cost reduction. Utilizing AI in the marketing. As leads are coming in, AI may be picking up the phones or responding, answering basic questions on the website, those chats, even when they're making phone calls or answering the phone are learning, you know, from. You know, the information on the website from podcasts that, that, that are being done. So it's constantly being fed this information just to make the system more efficient. And they're working 24 7. So taking payment, answering calls, you know, answering questions, scheduling all that being done on your behalf while not having to worry about, after hour staff Well, you're still gonna have someone in customer service to speak one-on-one with customers. But this is just to. handle the admin and things like that. So, we talked quite a bit. I wanted to keep this one short because, these are four key areas that we've seen again and again. the marketing, obviously without any leads or customers, no matter how good and efficient your franchise is, you're not doing any business. You're not bringing any revenue. to recap the four takeaways, from our conference, cost reduction, national accounts. The use of AI and doubling down on marketing via credits. Generating as many leads. we heard some brands that, spent, marketing started almost immediately, to the point where the franchisor figured out okay, we know that you're gonna need X amount of customers or members in order to break even. what amount of marketing do we have to spend? that is when we recommend opening, once you get to that break even level, launching the business at break even great feeling, knowing that you're at, at a minimum break even, day one. reverse engineering, just like we reverse engineer the process of finding the right franchise. They're doing the same thing from a cost standpoint, number of leads number of members or customers needed to break even and cover all your monthly costs. there was so much more discussed. We talked about, funding and be more than glad to share that with you. not major updates, but certain changes when it comes to the SBA. We talk with other franchise consultants. You know, everyone's coming from different backgrounds, shared ideas, what's working, what's not. Talked about different industries, what is doing well. we talked about certain industries that were a little bit more recession resistant and others, and I would love to dive in a little bit deeper on all these topics. I hope you enjoyed this. We're gonna be doing these every six months, as A quick recap on the conferences. congratulations to franchise, 15,000 new franchisees over the years. That is extremely impressive. I had no idea the number was so large. these are just people that have. Actually purchased, or invested in a franchise 50,000 plus families and candidates is really impressive. Again, looking towards the next 25 years. thank you to Jeff Elgin, our founder, very excited to see what is coming down the pike in the next 25. in the next year we'll say, but really looking forward to that. And if I can answer any questions, or get into more detail, you can book a call. Go to Gigi the franchise guide.com book that call. there's a quick little survey, helps you figure out if a franchise may be a fit. three quick questions. you fill it out. It's not the right timing, it's not the right fit. We send everyone a gift as a thank you. we really appreciate your support. If you are thinking of, coming on our show and looking to be a guest, send us a message. if you have any questions on, franchising in general, send us a message. if you wanna get into more detail, book that call. There's no cost for the service. I would love to explore if a franchise. may or may not, be the right fit for you. again, appreciate everything. We'll talk to you guys soon and, very excited. We have some great shows lined up for you today, with some exciting brands that, we actually met at the conference. looking forward to it. Take care everyone, and talk to you soon. bye-bye.

15:02

Thanks for tuning in if you want to learn how to make the transition from corporate to owning your franchise. Join Giuseppe on the next episode. You can also follow on all social media platforms and achieve financial and time freedom today.