Jan 20, 2012 | Coconut in the Media
Yes the book is finally here! The long awaited Franchise Recruitment Marketing bible by Coconut Creatives Founder, Sarah Cook. Her book takes a pacey and highly informative romp through the world of the most effective marketing systems and strategies for recruiting franchisees.
And while we’re waiting for the paperback version to be delivered in mid-January, we’ve issued a Kindle edition – available for download now on Amazon!
Franchise recruitment marketing might sound more than a little niche, but much of this book also makes for fantastic general business marketing advice – Sarah is a Chartered Marketer who has worked across many different industry sectors in both large and small businesses. The information is easy to follow, easy to digest and, best of all, her methods really work, as is evidenced by the number of clients whose testimonials appear in the front.
The paperback should be available on Amazon in the next couple of weeks but, for now, why not avail yourself of a digi-copy? (Click below)
“Having known Sarah through her university years and through her respective highly successful career in Marketing and Business Planning, one has to respect the wealth of knowledge, drive and passion that has come to define Coconut Creatives as a very special company. Sarah’s advisory work with industry organisations and enterprise groups shows her energy and beliefs to be at the forefront of her profession.”
Nick Rowles, Senior Lecturer in Marketing Communication and Strategic Management at Bournemouth University.
“This is an inspirational book for anybody who wants to market their franchise.”
Linda Whitney, Freelance contributor to the National Press, including the Daily Mail’s careers and franchise pages.
Nov 17, 2011 | Coconut in the Media
Sarah Carlile, Founding Partner of Coconut Creatives, the only marketing company to be accredited by the bfa offers her advice on preparing for a successful and sustainable 2012.
Whether you are looking to start a business or buy a franchise, now is a really good time of year to ask yourself some questions. What will be the best industry to be in, in 2012 onwards? How will the changes in Government affect me? What franchises are growing and providing profitable sustainable business opportunities. In the UK there are around eight hundred franchisors both from inside and outside the British Franchise Association, all looking to recruit the best candidates for their franchise network. Could that be you?
October through to April is the most important time of year to focus on business development. The kids are at school, the summer holidays are over with and Christmas provides an ideal opportunity for reflection on the previous year’s accomplishments. As we approach Christmas many people start to re-evaluate their life choices and a big part of this is their career. We are all familiar with cyclical national headlines such as ‘new year new career’ but how you maximise your chances to capitalise on business opportunities will depend on a number of factors:
It is all about timing. Being in the right place, at the right time and meeting the right franchisors for you. Here’s what you can do:
- Review online profile’s for franchisors: it is really important that you can access current information including availability of territories, current prices, quotes and case studies. You can spend time comparing information you find on different website against information on 3rd party websites. If you find conflicting information on different recruitment websites, the franchisor could be unprofessional or just not keep their communications up to date and this can give you an indication of how they might treat you if you bought into the business.
- Case studies are really useful to you to build a picture of the types of people that have already bought into the franchise. Many franchisors like the van based franchise, Cafe2U will offer video case studies which are very useful in understanding what you might do on a daily basis. The reality is that if they invest in video and better communications, they are likely to be investing more in you when you join. You can gain a huge amount of confidence by reviewing case studies and if you can’t find any that are publicly available, call the franchisor and request some.
- Social Media sites like LinkedIn can be very useful to gain an insight into the business community that you are interested in. Whether you choose a business or a franchise, ensure you join LinkedIn and sign up for some of the special interest groups. See how they communicate with each other and what discussion topics are brought up.
- Consider ALL your options including who the client/ customer will be. Is the market growing? Do you see it growing through 2012? Undertaking due diligence into the market sector, general growth statistics online can give you a good indication of whether your chosen sector and business will work for you.
- Read around the subject: Magazines such as this one and newspapers will have a number of features on business opportunities. These are great for you to review and to gather information on specific individual businesses and also sectors that you could be well suited to.
- Make sure you reach a decision! Ensure you do set yourself a deadline for making a decision about your next career or business move. It is easy to get stuck in ‘analysis paralysis’ and spend so much time deciding what to do, that you never actually get on and do it! Make sure you evaluate all your options and make an informed decision on moving ahead. Gut instinct is usually right, so let this also guide you.
- Relationships are key: No matter how good a franchise opportunity, you need to make sure you get on with the franchisor you will be working with. Relationships are key for your ongoing business development, especially where training takes place.
Overall consider whether a business or a franchise is right for you. Franchises can often be seen as the more expensive choice but the reality is often that the money you invest will save you time and money later on by avoiding common mistakes.
Oct 18, 2011 | Clients in the Media
Coconut Creatives client, Goldshield launched in the UK last month! Goldshield is a new technology which was introduced to the UK public for the first time at the Infection Prevention Society Exhibition in September. This disinfectant is unlike any other disinfecting or bacteriostatic agents that will provide a long 
term residual protection on surfaces, equipment and textiles, mitigating the spread of infectious diseases.
IP 2011 hosts the largest infection prevention and control exhibition in the UK, and is now classed as the major IP event of the year. It attracted over 700 delegates, around 150 exhibitors and an array of speakers covering all areas around infection prevention.
To assist with the UK launch Goldshield appointed Coconut Events, a division of Coconut Creatives marketing company, to manage all pre-event logistics and on-site management.
The 
show was a huge success for Goldshield leaving with over 220 leads and being shortlisted for the Best Stand in the large category.
Aug 8, 2011 | Clients in the Media
Coconut Creatives’ client Rosemary Bookkeeping franchise partners are working well as a family team:
TJ Sutherland and Steve Brown have run their Rosemary Bookkeeping franchise since September 2010. Their unusual business partnership has gone from strength to strength showing that family really can work together very successfully.
Last month, TJ and Steve generated £4,800 and they are still in their first year of trading AND both working part-time! They are working closely with Rosemary’s Marketing Director Sarah Cook who writes a specialised marketing plan for every new Franchise Partner that comes on-board.
“People looking for a franchise are mainly concerned about 2 things: how to earn money and win business. We follow the monthly marketing programme that has been written for us which, combined with our weekly marketing calls with Sarah, keeps us on track to earn more money and win more business,” explains Steve.
Established in 2002, this is a proven, solid and reliable bookkeeping business which has been further strengthened due to new Government initiatives. Franchise Partners work in the SME sector, where the Government is making plans to investigate up to 50,000 small businesses with potential £3K fines if they find their books in disorder. This means that small businesses have never been keener to work with a professional bookkeeping service like Rosemary.
- 50% average net profit margins being achieved
- Run by yourself or build into a management style business (projected earnings over £200K)
- 2.16 Million Customers NEED this Service! According to Federation of Small Businesses
- Tailored training allows delivery within 6 weeks
- No office premises required – work from home
- Benefit from 60 years collective industry experience
- Week-by-week business development support even AFTER 5 days initial trainingNo former bookkeeping qualifications or experience necessary
“A low cost, high profit margin, service business, operated from home. You simply need to follow a system, backed up by Rosemary support,” Lisa Curteis, Rosemary Director.
Come and meet TJ and Steve at a monthly Rosemary Bookkeeping Discovery Day and see if this is a business you could do. The discovery day includes informal seminars in the morning, networking lunch and 1 to 1 workshops in the afternoon led by the Rosemary team: Claire Watson-Bardot, Joanna Dennis, Sarah Cook and Lisa Curteis.
It is a ‘no stone left unturned’ day for you to ask whatever questions you like in an open and informal environment where you’ll get a real taste of the Rosemary Culture and how their unrivalled support in the areas of Bookkeeping, Operations and IT, Training and Marketing will ensure your business success.
For more information email: franchise@rosemarybooks.co.uk or call 01442 800147.
Jul 22, 2011 | Coconut in the Media
Sarah Carlile is a regular contributor to Franchisor News on the subject of franchise recruitment. She is the Founding Partner of Coconut Creatives, the BFA’s only accredited marketing company that offers 1 to 1 franchise recruitment projects and group franchise marketing workshops for franchisors.
In this feature, Sarah discusses the use of social media and its impact on franchise recruitment, how it should be combined with offline activities and how franchisors can use it to train their franchisees to be more successful.
There is a great synergy that now exists between on and offline networking. If you learn how to harness this for your franchise, you’ll recruit more franchisees and you will be better equipped to train your franchisees to become more successful.
How should online social media be used?
The most obvious use of social media for businesses is to create and build a number of ‘raving fan’ networks across various platforms such as FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube and Linked In. These end up being networks of people who know you, have met you or know someone who recommends you and so they will listen to what you have to say, as long as you keep it brief, interesting and non-salesy.
Many people become so focused on utilising the different social networks online that they attack it in a rather hap hazard way: posting updates and tweeting messages that haven’t been thoroughly thought through. We say integrate it into your marketing. This way, you will know what you are going to say and when and you’ll also have a better handle on whether it is working for you.
By making social media an official part of your marketing plan, you can measure its effectiveness, just like having a listing on a franchise recruitment website and measuring how many leads it delivers. The first step to doing this is to assign a ‘Social Media Keeper’. This can be any person within your company that has 30 minutes a day or more to devote to updating your social network mediums. You pick the message and they send it out via the various channels you want to use. You can even hand over business cards you acquire through offline networking and exhibitions and get them growing your networks online for you by adding the details. By doing this you bring offline, online in a better structure. But where do you start to make it effective?
The perfect intro
When people find you or look you up for the first time, is it clear what you do? Is it clear how you do it and who your customers are? Your profile and key information should be planned and thought through carefully. We always work with franchisors in the morning session of our marketing workshop on their ‘perfect intro’ which is initially to support franchise recruitment through introducing new prospects to the franchise in under 1 minute. It seems ideal though that this perfect intro, once created, is used in many other places. This keeps your messaging consistent (one of the fundamentals of good marketing). When writing your perfect intro, you want to aim for about 200 words, broken down into 4 key areas (feel free to email me for a template example):
1. Clearly state who you are, followed by:
2. What you do and for who, followed by:
3. Why you are credible, different and trustworthy, followed by
4. An example of how it has worked for a customer – this gives credibility and believability.
It is definitely a good idea to spend quality time creating this and getting feedback on how it comes across and then edit it accordingly.
Once perfected, this introduction can be used again and again. It is my favourite phrase – “create once and use many times”! Integrate it into magazine features and show guide listings, use it on your website, on leaflets and literature, as long as you follow the 4 stage format and tweak the length, it will work every time.
Smart franchisors also choose to utilise their perfect intro as a training tool for the people they take along to help them on their exhibition stand at shows and events. By doing this, you suddenly increase the consistency of the way prospects are dealt with. You increase your success rate as people grasp quicker what it is you do and why you are different.
Regional use of Social Media by Franchisees
Just like you, your franchisees will be keen to use social media. Some will have a better idea than others how this can be done. The important thing to emphasis, is how to use it to aid sales. It is vital that you provide a good steer on which media to use and how to create their pages on platforms like FaceBook. We have seen cases where a franchisee has successfully (and unintentionally) taken over the franchisor’s network size and voice on a social media platform which then creates confusion for customers trying to locate their local branch and also for potential franchisees trying to locate the franchisor.
Linked In, FaceBook, Twitter or any other online tool should be used in conjunction with three other key areas when operated on a regional/ area specific basis. These are:
1. The franchisees community network
2. The franchisees professional network
3. The franchisees immediate network (family and friends)
When networking is explained in this way, franchisees start to clearly see the role that their chosen online medium can play for them to support sales. It also identity’s the other, sometimes offline areas that also need attention and integrating in with online. For example, if a lead source for a franchisee is to attend business breakfast networking events to build relationships for future sales, these people should also be networked with on Linked In.
It is also highly likely that a franchisee will have a number of potential customers within their own community network (such as fellow golfers, children’s parents and so on). By using online channels to softly inform them of their service, they keep business online and pleasure offline which, when integrated in this way, often results in additional sales as awareness increases.
As tools on and offline expand, we need to utilise many more of them to maintain business growth. Franchisors need to consider the impact of these tools on their franchise network and customers and how they can control and monitor their growth to support sales all round.
To find out other ways to improve your franchise recruitment, attend a Franchise Marketing Workshop with Sarah Cook, Sally Butters and the rest of the Coconut team. Email info@coconutcreatives.co.uk or call 01725 511673.
