I attended an 8-hour tablecloth photoshoot yesterday – And I couldn’t stop thinking about franchise lead generation

A little context here…

Yesterday, I was invited to participate in a photoshoot. I have never been to a photoshoot, and those of you who have met me know that I’m not the kinda guy that belongs at a photoshoot. (I quickly learned that the most important quality in anyone interested in helping out is the ability to follow directions well. The photographer speaks, you act. But that’s beside the point.)

The purpose of the shoot was to get 20-30 photos of tablecloths that would redefine the industry in terms of how products look on the internet. And that’s when I started musing about franchise lead gen.

Before I dig into what got me thinking so much, I’d like to introduce some concepts that we’ve spoken about before but haven’t described in detail: front-end vs. back-end.

When it comes to building and running a website, almost every aspect of the system can be broken down into one of these two classifications.

Front-end: The parts of the website that you can see, click, interact, and share. It’s the actual webpages. The colors, buttons, photos, text. The user experience.

Back-end: The parts of the website you can’t see. Servers, applications, databases. Sometimes you’ll hear all these classified as “the system.”

Obviously you can’t have one without the other. A front-end without a back-end would simply be an image. It wouldn’t actually “do” anything. A back-end without a front-end would be an unusable machine. You couldn’t actually “see” it.

If you want some classic examples of front-end with regard to FranchiseHelp, check out:

• An A/B Test That Shows the Value of Color
• How FranchiseHelp Makes Our Site Look Different On Your Phone

If you want some classic examples of back-end with regard to FranchiseHelp, check out:

• Call Verification: Here’s exactly how we do it (for now)
• Optimizing Your Franchise Lead Follow-Up Process

Back to the photoshoot.

The entire purpose for getting those photos taken professionally was to help improve the front-end of the company’s website.

The theory goes that if the images look better, more customers will be interested in buying them.

Well, let’s extend that concept directly to franchise lead generation. Our industry is rife with franchises, consultants, vendors, etc. that elect to skimp on what their online presence looks like. I will decline the opportunity to post examples here because I don’t want to insult people, but you know exactly what I’m talking about:

• Images that look fuzzy
• Websites that don’t look good on phones
• Text that gets cut off
• Flashing banners

In web design, perhaps the most piercing comment you can make about a site is that it looks like it’s “from the 90s.”

And historically, you’ve seen a fairly categorical denial of the idea that the look of a website matters. “Who cares what it looks like?” you’ll hear.

And this is where the photoshoot was a friendly reminder…the customer cares! (Or in our case, the potential franchisee!)

The hardest part is that he/she may not be able to articulate to you why your website has to look great because often times all the associations are subconscious. For those of you who are fans of Malcolm Gladwell, you will remember that this is the entire premise of his book Blink. Decisions are made very quickly and often times without logic.

But I promise you it matters. And it matters a lot.

It’s something that the e-commerce world realized a long time and something the franchise lead gen world needs to come around on quickly. Or else, we’ll be stuck in the 90s.

If you’re interested in learning about FranchiseHelp’s lead generation programs, click here.