Franchisee resource center

However, once the ribbons come down and time passes, franchisees begin to recognize the challenge ahead and that, in many ways, they're on their own: regardless of the amount of support their franchisor provides, the franchisee is ultimately responsible for generating sales for his or her new business.

If you’re a seasoned franchisee, we’d love to hear what you’ve learned about marketing a new location! What has worked best for your business?

There are a number of reasons why a franchise can fail. Some of the reasons are based upon a lack of capital and/or particular skills necessary for a particular franchise to be successful. On the other hand, there may be factors that are out of the franchisee's control: a franchise program that has a lack of customer demand or a poor product, for example, can lead to failure despite the franchisee’s best efforts (another example of why the franchisee should have done their research before investing).

Franchisors need to have guidelines for franchisees when it comes to using social media, but to date, most have not put together formalized play books for franchisees to follow. There are plenty of things you can do so your franchisees can create innovative marketing strategies using Twitter, Facebook, location based networks, blogging, etc., as long as they understand the guidelines of the franchisor first.

But, once the original operating system is established, it must be refined and tweaked as changes take place in its industry and within the company. An ongoing challenge for every business, not only franchise companies, is how to improve their operating systems in order to better manage results.

Most prospects come with a firm belief in the product or service…but a limited strength in sales and marketing. Yet sales and marketing skills are the very skills they need to sell themselves and their services…the skills they need to keep the business alive! If your potential franchisees and existing franchisees are like most…they are lacking the "selling gene".

The first step in starting your home business should be in identifying the type of business you wish to get into. You have to ensure that the business you are entering does not have any legal or community barriers which would cause it troublesome to operate from home. The business should be viable to run from home and should be legally permitted.

Social sites such as Youtube, Twitter and Facebook may have started out as a means to communicate, but franchisors have been able to apply marketing strategies using interactive tools such as these to increase their sales and revenue. Here are eight franchises that have launched successful campaigns via social media that have assisted in their growth.