When the typical person begins their search for a franchise they usually begin looking online or visit a tradeshow.

These days the internet is full of franchise noise. Thousands of brands are all competing to be heard and are doing anything they can to have you notice their concept.

As someone who is looking at investing in a franchise it’s important for you to understand how any inquiries you may make will affect you. Sharing your information online has consequences.

"Many people make decisions almost entirely on the sales process instead of actual predictable results."

Understanding the motivations of people you are working with help you understand their behaviors. We think transparency is key and that you should know how each party works. We’ll discuss the main players you’ll be dealing with in detail later on in this lesson.

It safe to say that all of the people you’ll be speaking with are motivated to either find or sell you a franchise that you end up purchasing so they will be paid a % of a fixed fee.

You’ll never pay more or less when you work with these people, but each of them will provide much different services and overall experience.

Lead portal sites house a large inventory of brands that allow you to easily browse and learn about new concepts. Their whole business model is to sell any inquiries back to the franchises.

The challenge with this model is that they make it very easy to select multiple brands to inquire about. This allows them to sell your information many times.

Eg. the more concepts you select on these portals – the more phone calls and emails you’ll get!

After you submit your information to a franchise, website, landing page, etc you’ll be connected with a franchise sales person.

- These individuals are compensated by being paid commissions from the franchise system, out of their marketing budget.

- You will not pay more or less if you work with a franchise sales person.

- The reason why the franchises pay Franchise Brokers these commissions is because they help them to qualify and educate their candidates.

- When a franchise does the whole process on their own it can cost up to 3 times more to award a single franchise.

- This is because they have to go through many more leads before they find a qualified candidate who matches them and wants their system.

These are independent franchise sales people. Often times, they will claim to be a member of a larger group or network and that they represent hundreds of franchise concepts.

Their Goal:

- Determine if you have the available capital.
- Determine if you are looking to purchase within 3 months.
- Understand you well enough so they have enough information to conduct franchise research on your behalf.

Their Motivation:

- Find you a franchise that matches your financial and personal goals.
- Have you purchase a franchise so they can be paid a % from the Franchise Fee.

A large number of brokers are not trained in how to properly assess a franchise. The quality of franchise brokers varies greatly.

The point of a franchise broker is to educate, advocate and support you with their expert knowledge.

You should not be “shotgunned” out to franchises that waste your time.

You should feel prepared and ready for any calls with a Franchisor.

- These are people who work directly for the franchise in one way or the other. They work to qualify potential candidates and to take them through a single franchises sales process.

Their Goal:

- Determine if you have the available capital.
- Determine if you are looking to purchase within 3 months.
- See if you are the type of person they want to bring into their system.

Their Motivation:

- They only represent one franchise and are looking to quickly see if they should invest their time in speaking with you.
- They are compensated with a commission when you choose to purchase the franchise.

Be aware that these are either employees or independent contractors working for the franchise system.

This is a varied bunch. Some are absolute professionals and some are not.

Some of them are extremely picky and won't let anyone into their system that is not a match. Those are our favorites.

Others will let anyone in who can write a check. In systems like that, they are likely going to have to deal with some pretty challenging consequences both from the system breakdown, lawsuits and the other franchisees failures.