With the barrage of economic gloom we’re currently confronted with I doubt many people would expect that simply opening for business would guarantee a flood of customers. Gone are the days when a franchisee could rest on instant consumer recognition of the franchise brand alone writes Jacinta Creedy.

It’s vitally important that new (and long-term) franchisees don’t rely solely on franchisors to provide a steady stream of customers through the door to their business. Let’s face it, you’re the business owner and although the franchisor plays a role (depending on the structure of your franchise system); you need to make sure you’re doing everything you can to ensure your own business’ success. That means you need a plan!

Making time to focus on the areas of your business that will give you the biggest return was the subject of my last Mythbusters column (Franchising March/April 2009) and this month I’ll suggest some areas you can focus your precious business planning time on to help keep customers coming through your door.

Relationships equal money

Business is all about building relationships. Relationships with your customers, your suppliers, your franchisor and other business owners are all equally important. It’s a fact of life that people are more likely to do business with the people that they like. You can have the best marketing in the world, but unless you’re forming positive business relationships you won’t make much money

How can you build relationships with your customers that don’t start with a franchisor-driven campaign? And will it cost much money? One of the most cost effective marketing strategies available to you is cross promotions with other businesses that have similar target markets. These are the business owners that you need to have a positive relationship with. If the promotion is mutually beneficial it should be easy to find a like-minded business owner and there’s a good chance you can share costs. This style of promotion is not limited to specific industries and you’re only limited by your imagination.

Just remember, the goal is to build enduring relationships that in turn will create success. Don’t satisfy customers In today’s fast paced society its no longer good business practise to merely satisfy customers. You need to ‘wow’ them; give them a reason for your business to stick in their minds long after they’ve been bombarded with the thousands of advertising messages they come into contact with daily.

What added value can you provide to their experience? Can you provide free information seminars; lessons on how to make coffee by an experienced barista; offer free delivery? Think about what your customers buy from you and what added benefit might go with your product, then give it to them obligation free.

If you can make them feel good about you or themselves then you’ve accomplished both the points I’ve been making here.

Sack yourself

What have you done today? Have you done any planning for the business or have you been working at the shopfront, doing accounts or placing orders? If you read my last column you’ll already know that doing the wrong jobs (that is, the jobs you can pay someone else to do) will not bring customers (or money) flooding in. You need to sack yourself then take up the position of business developer – that’s the real reason you chose this franchise.

As the business owner, you’re the business developer. You must work on systems to make the business run more efficiently, ensure your team follow all necessary business procedures, implement an incentive scheme for rewarding your team, plan a marketing campaign to attract customers, work on ways to impress your customers and much, much more. You’ll never achieve this by standing at the counter all day.

Seeing red

You’ll no doubt be a little concerned at the thought of ceasing all the jobs you do daily in favour of a list of things you know you should be doing but never have enough time for so my suggestion is to break your day into 90 minute chunks and to make one chunk a day ‘red’ time.

‘Red’ refers to strategy; the business planning required for your franchise to be a success. It also helps to signify the most important part of the day, the part where you must stop, take off your sales assistant, accountant or consultant hat and put on your business developer hat; embrace the entrepreneurial part of your character. This may be hard if you tend to heavily rely on your business development manager or franchisor to provide direction but if you want more customers (and ultimately more profit), you’ll do it.

If you’re worried, start with some of the suggestions from your system’s marketing manual that you may never have had time to look at before now.

Aim for progress not perfection

Whenever we try something new it’s not uncommon to hit roadblocks which often can lead us to reverting to our old ways. The best way to avoid an all-or-nothing change is to make progress the only goal, not perfection. Freeing yourself from needing to be perfect also means you’ll be less inclined to give up if you make a mistake, for example by changing a system that doesn’t rectify the issue at hand. The very definition of progress means that as long as you’re moving gradually then the work you’re doing is still valuable to your business’ success.

Jacinta Creedy has built three award winning, multi million dollar businesses, runs a busy family of six and is one of the top Red Day Coaching Specialists in Australia, specialising in the franchise sector. Contact: jcreedy@reddaycoaching.com