Opening a new franchise unit is an exciting and potentially complex endeavor. Utilizing the capabilities of FranConnect can streamline this process, ensuring an efficient, organized, and systematic unit opening. This article will outline the best practices for using FranConnect to guide you through this process. From pre-opening tasks such as due diligence and franchisee onboarding to ongoing management and support, we'll explore how FranConnect can help set your new franchise unit up for success. Read on to discover how you can effectively navigate the franchise unit opening process using FranConnect.
Topics
Sales
Once a prospective franchisee enters the FranConnect system as a lead, you will be able to seamlessly guide them through the entire journey, from converting the sale to successfully launching and managing their new franchise location, all within the robust framework of FranConnect.
A sample workflow for the sales process can be seen below:
FranConnect highly recommends that you leverage workflows to automate a lot of these tasks. You can learn more about using workflows in sales by reading this article.
Once you have successfully closed a lead, you will want to move it to the Opener module to begin the process of actually opening the unit. To do so, first log into your FranConnect environment. Then click Lead Management under Sales on the left-hand drop-down menu.
On the following page, click the name of the lead that you would like to move to Opener.
Note: The lead must be closed in FranConnect in order to move it to Opener.
From this page, hover your cursor over the More-Actions button and select Move to Opener(In Development Location) from the drop-down menu.
On the following page, you will see many boxes with needed information for the move to Opener. Fill out the relevant information on this page.
Click ADD once you have confirmed that the information you have added is correct. On the following page, you will be prompted to add a new franchise user to FranConnect.
Click Save once you have confirmed that the settings for the new franchise user are correct. Your lead will now be a franchise in Opener.
Opener
Opener is the module that handles the process of opening your new franchise location once you have closed the sale. As with the Sales module, we recommend you utilize checklists to make the opening process as smooth as possible. You can learn about using these checklists by reading this article.
Once your opening checklists are complete, and the unit has been opened, we will change this location to an active status. To do so, first click Opener on the left-hand sidebar and then select Unit Summary from the drop-down menu.
Click the name of the unit which you wish to make active on the following page.
On the left-hand side, click the In Development drop-down and change it to Active.
You will now be able to manage your active franchise from Opener or Info Manager.
Conclusion
Having read this article, you should now understand the best practices for moving leads all the way through the unit opening process.