Lance Hood (FranPro): 0:01

Hi everybody. Today I'd like you to meet David Schwartz, the CEO and owner of Franchise. Clique, David welcome.

David Schwartz (Franchise Clique): 0:09

Thank you. Thank you for having good morning. That's how we eat this morning. I am good.

Lance Hood (FranPro): 0:13

Well, I would like to get your insights and maybe some action items that people can learn from you, but before we get started, I want people to understand your company. Can you talk about franchise, clique and what you guys do?

David Schwartz (Franchise Clique): 0:27

Yeah, so franchise clique. We're one of the top lead generation companies in the franchise space. I've been in the franchise space for 24 years. I'm a CFP Probably one of the only two lead providers in the franchise space who actually is serious enough to actually go out and Get a CFP and take the lead generation business very seriously. I've been in the space. We launched our first business in 2008, which was franchise click. We've got five other properties. We've got franchise buy com, veterans franchise com, multi-unit franchise, com, call verified leads, com and we use those platforms as lead generation network to drive leads for franchise or and a lot of franchise consultants every day. But our our company provides call verified leads for for those franchise consoles or franchise or is that are looking for higher level leads, but that's at our call centers here in Charleston. They're actually an IFA supplier called call experts. We've been working with them for over 15 years and those and Having those types of resources allows us to yield over six to seven hundred franchise campaigns every day.

Lance Hood (FranPro): 1:35

I know that I've worked with you guys for many years, always always been happy with it, you know. What I have found, though, is is that I always get a good set of leads. I went back and looked at my records. I think I typically buy about a hundred leads at a time, and and that is just because you never know which ones are gonna go through, and, and I've also learned that I have to communicate. I have to, I'll leave, I'll reach out to. I work with guy. I'll reach out with guy Once or twice a week when I'm first dialing it in, and tell they're Going the way. I need them to work. You know the responsiveness of the leads, and then, if I see a change, I'll communicate with guy right away, and that communication allows him to adapt and change, and it's it's always worked well. I would be terrified to think how it would have been if I wouldn't have communicated with him and just let it roll, you know.

David Schwartz (Franchise Clique): 2:27

So I think it's essential so Dialing in this is something we take very seriously. So we've developed years ago something called a smart system, and the smart system is a uses algorithms, if you want to call it that to try to dial it in directly for clients starts with geography, financials, types of backgrounds, investment levels, net worths, occupational backgrounds and what we try to even brands and a lot of different areas. And what we try to do is we try to dial it in To start with. So you're getting your leads from certain states. They're five right financials, right type of person and then, as we evolve, we want a client to Come to us and give us the types of people you like to work with sales people who like to work with C-level executives and transition. We like to work with people who've looked at fish, window cleaning or some brand that they are Comfortable with or know a lot about or have good success with. So we try to every day we are smart systems what fulfills clients and it will only fulfill the way it's. It's scheduled from the start. So if there's certain people you don't like working with you, if you're saying I don't want to work west coast or this, we need to make sure that that is working correctly and if it's not, we end up doing things by hand. And you mentioned working with guy.

David Schwartz (Franchise Clique): 3:45

Like a lot of times for lands we would dial it in saying, all right, you ever just gonna pull your leads directly, we're gonna get somebody to work public lands one-on-one Typically. If you just set it up correctly from the start, it'll work. It'll work very well correctly. It'll be dialed in as much as possible. But sometimes it's, sometimes it doesn't and we have to really communicate. Like I'm getting leads from West Coast or in areas that Can't even open. A franchise can be tight and quick. Dial that in a little bit more. So we'll do whatever it takes to get a client exactly what they're looking for. We just need to know.

Lance Hood (FranPro): 4:20

Right, and have you noticed differences in how leads are responding nowadays versus the past?

David Schwartz (Franchise Clique): 4:29

Well, they're probably not responding as much as they did in the past. I think that's something that we hear industry-wise, I think, with leads it's tough when you get One of the things I think you should communicate on every level with a lead, but it's tough when you get a call, an email and a text within a few minutes. It's a lot of engagement. It's the correct engagement because if they're interested, they should respond back and they should want to engage. That's why they looked at it in the first place. But typically, sometimes because of all this information people are getting these days, because information is more readily available, they just don't respond as quickly and as much as we want to these days.

Lance Hood (FranPro): 5:08

Have you seen how leads might respond differently to different franchise companies? Do they have other processes out there that are more effective than others?

David Schwartz (Franchise Clique): 5:25

Well, typically when you talk to a franchise consultant, they always say we don't want to talk with people who are looking at food brands or food concepts because their wheelhouse is generally like home service man on a truck, senior care, health and beauty and typically most people out there are looking for a food brand. They just are. It's about 60% 70% Most of the time, unless you're in the fitness industry or you have a real healthy lifestyle, which is very popular these days. Most people they got a different size because they pulled into a schlotzke's or a teriyaki madness and they thought it was interesting. They thought they could run that type of business and that's what got them kind of just engaged to start with. So typically you'll see, we see those trends as not changing too much. As much as people think that they're not opening restaurants. They're opening tons of restaurants. I know that from our multi-unit focus. There's tons of restaurants being open. There's tons in development. They're constantly redeveloping their systems to be a smaller footprint and that's just where candidates originate from for the most part.

Lance Hood (FranPro): 6:34

Isn't it about the number of French ICs, somewhere around 60%, 70%, food and fitness in general?

David Schwartz (Franchise Clique): 6:40

I don't know if it's that high or because there's a lot of people looking for low-cost opportunities to anything under 25% of the vending concepts, the naturals to go and some of those brands. There's a lot of people looking to add something to what they're doing. So, whether it's an absentee owner, something absentee ownership that could really give them a secondary income or secondary level of opportunity.

Lance Hood (FranPro): 7:13

People talk about different lead sources and they're like, oh, they're always looking for, like you said in the past, the golden goose and, as I was working with clients too, you're always looking for are there better leads somewhere? I have always found that If I can have somebody contact me that knows me, that wants to talk to me or get a referral, it's great, but I can't count on that. I found stability in just having a source you know multiple lead sources, but having a source where I could actually just buy leads and they come in on clockwork, and that really stabilized my business. Are you seeing that as kind of like the thread as people are hunting for you know the perfect opportunity or the perfect lead, or but then they come back because then they run out of deals.

David Schwartz (Franchise Clique): 8:04

So everybody likes who they're comfortable with. So when we get a new franchise consultant, if they've been using a source that has a little bit of a different style than ours and I give you an example like there's a lot of non-verified lead sources in the space and they get a lead that came from a brand that they picked and it comes from the same two brands, so they only have to think about those two brands but the leads aren't qualified. They may get some great leads here and there, but they're not qualified and that's just a different way of doing things and we actually do those things as well. And then you get somebody else who's been using a source that they spend a lot of time talking about. That person, like Lance Hood's going to be, you know, we're going to connect you with Lance Hood directly. Lance is a great guy. If you see his phone numbers XYZ and they're expecting a call from Lance Hood.

David Schwartz (Franchise Clique): 8:57

Whether it works out or not, it's different and that that's a different style. And then there's groups that transition leads and it's just people in corporate America looking or need to work, transition or thinking about transitioning yourself outside of corporate America. It's a different style. And if you're comfortable only with that style and you come to us and we're like well, we can do all those different things, but you got to do it their way or our way and it's all about what you're comfortable with. So engaging people to come work with us. Sometimes they've just been doing the same thing over and over that they just don't want to do anything different.

David Schwartz (Franchise Clique): 9:33

And I get that I understand that you kind of just get comfortable with. You know the priority been using for years, you know what it's going to produce on average every year and that's what you do.

Lance Hood (FranPro): 9:43

What should people know and understand when it comes to acquiring and converting leads? Because we all get leads, but I think that there should be a way for people to have a little better understanding how to take that lead and put it into a closed deal, because that's what they're looking for. And what have you learned about helping people close the leads once they get them?

David Schwartz (Franchise Clique): 10:06

You know, the fact of the matter is they're going to close a certain percent of those people, a lot of the things that we feel are out of our control, or even the franchise consultants control. You've got the lead itself, and you talked about earlier on having somebody who's in a position, or they've got something coming up in their life that has stalled or has put this on the back burner. So you have the candidate itself, you've got the franchise or as well. That's got all line up and there's certain things that could be financing, there could be certain things that are out of your control. You just have to go to the next person. You have to have a pipeline continuously going. As long as you have a consistent pipeline of qualified people, it's going to produce those deals. It's just I get to say the numbers game, because everybody wants to close as few at a number of few leads as possible. You just have to have a pipeline and everything will work its way out. Some people will unengage, read, engage, and it's just. That's just. It's just life.

Lance Hood (FranPro): 11:03

Right. I've found for me you need to call people right away, but not like instantly. I know that somebody has some research that you're supposed to call them within seconds, but I have found for me that when I call people within about 10 minutes of receiving the lead and then I text them after I hang up, that works for me Sometimes. If I would call them immediately, it sometimes they seemed a little surprised or threw them off. That's just me, but it seemed like they were a little jarred from it. Then if you wait too long, then you don't know if these people are filling out forms everywhere on the internet and then somebody else is going to get in. That seemed to be about a good timeframe. Have you heard any feedback from people on what works for them?

David Schwartz (Franchise Clique): 11:55

If we do run portals. But if they're doing portal leads and they're afraid that somebody is submitted for other opportunities, other brands. They want to be the first to market because maybe a consultant or franchise award is there. They don't want to be the third caller Again working with a call verified lead. You're actually. They've gone through that process with us. They understand somebody is going to be giving them a call. We go through that very directly, provide a reporting bus. Doing that. Those people are more engaged. They understand what's going to happen next. There's no guess work. I'm going to call them. We've already done the initial outreach, which produces a different conversation to start with.

Lance Hood (FranPro): 12:35

When it comes to brokers, what are some things that you've seen brokers do that you think has led them to be more successful?

David Schwartz (Franchise Clique): 12:49

That's a good question. I think it depends upon you know people have more experience. You know generally whether it's in franchising, like there's some franchise consultants who have been in franchising before, so they have a background and they understand the process. At PD's, i-19s they worked leads in franchising before, so experience plays a big key in that. But getting better leads again is the key. It just it really is.

David Schwartz (Franchise Clique): 13:15

There's some groups that will actually want their consultants to get like starter leads, like just get leads so you get comfortable and you don't give a person who's been in business for 35 years, who's got a strong business acumen, who's getting into this. You don't want to give them like starter leads, you want to give them good leads so he gets more confident, who gets more control of his business, to get people in his pipeline faster, rather than just kind of breaking the ice and trying to figure this out. Just get in, get better leads, get response, get going. But experience is huge. To have experience working leads if they have some type of sales background, that's huge because they kind of understand this is a very sales driven industry and you've got to really work people you know, sometimes as aggressively as possible.

Lance Hood (FranPro): 14:03

Right and I found for myself is that I don't like to do things really slow, because if it's something that you're new and you're not good at or you might be nervous about, if you do it infrequently, you you one, you don't get the traction to get really good. But two, if it's something that you're nervous about, then you're always nervous every time you come back. But if you do a lot of them at once, you don't have a chance to get re nervous again. It almost just becomes like a Tuesday. It becomes old news to you and you get used to it.

Lance Hood (FranPro): 14:33

So I agree with you. I think that for me personally, with everything I've done, just when I decide, I just go for it and do it. And if somebody does have too many leads, you can ask to slow them down. But you guys, as a habit, have people do it at a reasonable pace anyway, versus the people that have the bad habit of always working with the next lead and they don't follow up with the existing leads and so they don't turn their existing leads into as much because they just keep calling the next one.

David Schwartz (Franchise Clique): 15:08

So one lead a day is our preference because we took the time to qualify the person, so the arm are qualified than than everything else. So typical portal lead you're going to have to build that pipeline. You know you have to get people qualified yourself and have them go through that process.

Lance Hood (FranPro): 15:25

What are some things that you've noticed about franchise companies that that tend to be more successful than other franchise companies? What are some things about them that you think stand out so we can all kind of pay attention to that?

David Schwartz (Franchise Clique): 15:40

How they handle their leads. So it starts with their CRM. You know, do they? A lot of companies will actually use CRMs to do some of the initial heavy lifting and if they get too many leads, you need you need some support. Sometimes they don't have the man power to do that. So CRM is huge making sure that leads are at least getting connected, drift on getting an initial email, seeing which ones open, those types of things. But it starts there and then starts with the staff. Again, I go back experience. One thing that's great about the franchise space a lot of people have tremendous experience. They've got experience working leads. They got experience in knowing brands and I think the more educated people are about you know what they're trying to sell. It makes it a lot easier for them to engage people and obviously close people. At the end of the day. But I think it starts with experience and CRMs.

Lance Hood (FranPro): 16:28

Perfect. Well, thank you, David, I appreciate it. You know I've always, over the years I've used your leads. It's always been profitable for me, but I really work with them and communicate with you guys. Anybody that wants to work with David, go here https://Franpro. vip/GoFranchiseClique. You can go there and connect with David's team. David, do you have anything else that you want to leave everybody with?

David Schwartz (Franchise Clique): 16:53

Like I said, there's lots of opportunity that's out there. You know, we like to think that everybody be optimistic about the future. I think the franchising, what we've seen this year, the amount of activity we've seen with franchise consultants, with franchise awards, I think there's a lot of good things that are going to happen. Obviously, in the next few years. I think we're going to see a real boom in people looking to start businesses. So I think I appreciate your time today. Like I said, I wish everybody the best and I appreciate you setting us up.