How B2B Franchise Organizations Grow Using Outbound Telemarketing

For decades, businesses have used outbound telemarketing to facilitate their sales efforts. From direct telephone sales, appointment setting for their outside sales teams, toll-free inbound numbers, product & customer satisfaction surveys, and countless other ways. Today I want to focus on how a specific type of business organization, franchise organizations that offer products or services to other businesses (B2B), can benefit from using an outbound telemarketing program.

What challenges does a franchisor have that other businesses do not?

It all boils down to control. If a traditional company has a hundred offices scattered across the country, each of those offices is somehow under its direct control, and the people working are employees. If a franchisor has a hundred franchises across the country selling its products or services, it has a hundred independent businesses running their day to day operations. Sometimes that can be a bit challenging to keep them all on the same page.   

How can an outbound telemarketing program assist a franchise organization?  

Let us look at some of the goals of a typical franchise organization.  

1. Increase the bottom line.
2. Strengthen its members, the franchisees. 
3. Make it easier to sell additional franchises by developing new markets.
4. Standardize the marketing message throughout the organization. 
5. Centralize inbound support for the benefit of the entire organization.

I have worked with many franchise organizations over the years. Like any other business that decides to use outbound telemarketing, they do so because it is not part of their core competency or does not support staff. 

Whether their service is 3rd party IT support, accounting services, or coupon marketing, they all rely on an outbound telemarketing agency to design and implement a program that will meet its goals at a price that fits their budget.

Outbound telemarketing is universal

Designed to be used and shared by multiple parties, telemarketing campaigns use the same script; the same sales message or intent is used homogenously regardless of where the calls are placed or for what purpose.   

First, the corporate entity, the franchisor, uses it to build sales in the areas it controls and markets in. Most commonly, it has permanent sales representatives in those areas or a team working the space to build it up for possible sale as a franchise. The call center does the prospecting. It qualifies the business, sets up appointments, and notifies the local salesperson of the appointment details. The healthier the territory, the more opportunity it has. The result is a healthier bottom line for the organization.

The franchisors then offer the same program to the franchisees. Often franchisees will struggle to set up their own telemarketing operations or use an outbound telemarketing partner that has not been well vetted and does not do a good job representing the local franchisee or the parent franchisor for that matter. 

Making the telemarketing program available to the individual franchisees can make the individual franchisees financially stronger. It also allows the franchisor to control better the marketing message delivered throughout their network.  

Sometimes the franchisor will include a certain amount of telemarketing time in the franchise agreements they offer to individuals. Others will subsidize the cost of outbound telemarketing or allow the franchisees to buy into the program, knowing they cannot possibly afford to set up a complete call center program independently. 

However, it gets set up the franchisor benefits as the franchisees grow their business through outbound telemarketing efforts, making their businesses and the overall organization more robust in the process. A healthier franchise business means higher demand for the company resulting in a higher franchise sales price, improved sales, and P&L statements. The franchisee wins, as does the franchisor.