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A strong item 19 with a 20% ROI or 2-3 year ROI are important
•Lance Hood•Season 1•Episode 26
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In this episode, Lance Hood of FranPro interviews Lana Mazin, VP of relationship marketing at Raintree. Lana Mazin is an incredible resource for any franchise organization. If you would like to work with Lana you can reach her here:https://Franpro.vip/GoRainTree
Covered in this call:
Raintree provides lead gen, qualification, marketing, and development
The customer avatar is crucial to avoid wasting money on marketing
A strong item 19 with a 20% ROI or 2-3 year ROI are important
Strong validation with existing franchisees is essential
A strong support team and needed capital to expand are necessary
And More
Imagine partnering with a Franchise Sales Organization that not only values ethical growth but also champions your success. Well, look no further! Join me as I pick the brain of Lana Maison, VP of Relationship Marketing at Rain Tree, a company that has helped some partners evolve from zero to over 250 franchise owners. Lana gives us a tour of Rain Tree's unique organic lead generation program, as well as an intricate look at the comprehensive website design, report creation, and presentation design services they provide to their franchise partners.
Intrigued? There's more! Lana also shares the specific recipe Rain Tree uses when considering potential franchise partners. She elaborates on the significance of having brand differentiators, sound financials, validation, and robust support teams. If you're curious about the Rain Tree partnership process, Lana's got you covered. From start to finish, she walks us through the typical four to six-week timeline, ensuring we get a real sense of the commitment and dedication involved. If you've been searching for a Franchise Sales Organization that truly invests in your growth, then this episode is a must-listen!
Hi everyone . Today I would like you to meet Lana Mazin , the VP of Relationship Marketing at Raint ree . Lana , welcome to the call .
Lana Mazin (Raintree)
Thank you . Thanks for having me Excited to chat with you today .
Lance Hood (FranPro)
Well , you guys have a great company . I've known you guys for years and I've seen some incredible things that you've done for franchise brands . Not everybody is as organized and really does things in a way that where you just get it Because we work with a lot of brands , but I really appreciate when they work with the right company to develop them . Can you share a little bit about what you guys do ?
Lana Mazin (Raintree)
Yeah , absolutely , and thank you for the compliment . We definitely try . But at Raint ree we're an FSL , so Franchise Sales Organization we basically partner with franchise owners and help them to grow their franchise system . We do that in a special way here in the fact that we are really focused on ethical franchise growth . So we are not in the business of just selling franchises to anyone who has the right amount of money in their checkbook . We're really looking to match the right people with the right businesses and then from there it just grows . You have the validation . There's great numbers in your FDD . So that's really been our main focus .
Lance Hood (FranPro)
Nice and , like you said , for Franchise Sales Organization . What makes me know what I think , but what do you think makes Raint ree different from other people who are kind of doing this ?
Lana Mazin (Raintree)
Yeah , it's a great question . So there's a couple things . The biggest thing that makes us different and really unique in that space is that we don't work only with franchise consultants . We actually have an entire house or organically generation program of our business and when we do , typically we do about 70% of our deals through that , and that allows our franchise or partners to keep more of that franchise fee in their pockets to reinvest that in support in infrastructure . We love working with consultants , of course , but they do take a commission chunk and so we like to save our franchise orders as much money as possible .
Lana Mazin (Raintree)
So we're out there also on channels like Facebook , google , linkedin , really YouTube kind of anywhere you could think of , where we're serving out ads and we're really looking for , again , the right people for our brands . That's another big advantage for us is that we're not just waiting for consultants to bring us people that could possibly fit our brands . We're actually going out there and finding those people on our own . So we're building a dream buyer avatar for our franchise orders what demographics , psychographics , culture , fit are they looking for and then we're able to go find those people , target those people on channels like Facebook , and it's really unique in this industry and there's a lot of benefits in doing it that way .
Lance Hood (FranPro)
Well , we've said a lot , but let's go through and just give everybody a picture of the different things you do . So you know , say , I'm somebody who either wants to own a franchise I mean , sorry , I'm somebody who has a business and I want to turn it into a franchise , or I'm an existing franchise or and I'm looking at what you guys do what are your different services or offerings that you have for people ?
Lana Mazin (Raintree)
Yeah , we have quite a few things and I can show you some of them today . Raintree with , what our franchise or partners are getting is an entire team . So we like to say we're full service when it comes to franchise sales . So they're going to get a designer , a lead generator , a lead qualifier , a marketer , somebody , a development director to take somebody through the sales process . They're going to get somebody who does work with those consultants , so they're really getting the entire package .
Lana Mazin (Raintree)
When it comes to finding franchisees to join their system , we actually don't help franchise franchises become franchises . We don't help businesses do that . We have some great referral partners for that . But we do work with brands . Once they are registered franchise , they have that FDD and I can go ahead and share my screen here and kind of just show a little bit of the work that we've done for some of our our partners . So we will go ahead and build out franchise websites . We don't touch anything on the consumer side but we will build out the franchising site based on all the experience that we have had thus far of selling franchises . So you can see here this is for one of our brand's footprints floors . Just a little case study for you footprints came to us in 2019 . They have five franchise owners , all in the state of Colorado . They now have over 80 franchise owners across 37 states and a lot of that can be attributed to this website here Running through some other stuff that we do .
Lana Mazin (Raintree)
This is one of our franchise reports , so basically a brochure that we put together for our brands . This one here is for one of our brand's , dog training elite Another pretty incredible story . They came to us , started in 2020 . It's had seven owners in seven states . They now run over 250 territories across the country and that's across , you know , quite a lot of states . So just this is the piece that can go out to brokers . It can also go out to prospects who are looking at the brand .
Lana Mazin (Raintree)
And then just one other piece I can share with you here , and this is everything from design copy . You know everything's been created by our team , but this is a presentation that we've built for Toastique , so you can see our brands also range . We're not just focused on one industry . We covered just about anything . And Toastique another great story . They actually started with us and , unlike many of our brands , they had no franchise owners when they started with us in 2020 . They now have over 30 owners , over 70 locations awarded and across 11 states . So it's a lot of these pieces that you know . We've learned over the years what is really necessary to sell a franchise , how do we present it , how do we design it so it's beautiful . Again , this is just kind of a small piece of what we do , but this is an exciting info to share with you .
Lance Hood (FranPro)
Well , yeah , and I appreciate that , because one of the things that I have noticed is when you work with a franchise company , when you work with somebody who's doing it themselves , they're really good at running a business , but at positioning it and getting all the stuff done to really promote it and convey the message and have an organized and effective sales process is just not .
Lance Hood (FranPro)
It's a whole new talent that needs to be learned , and it really works out a lot better with a lot of the franchise sales organizations like Rain Tree , from your guys' websites that create clarity to the summary sheets , and all that because when I first started looking at franchises as a consultant , you don't know how many nights I would sit there and I would look at a company inside the computer system and I would almost pound my fists on my desk going what do you do ? I don't know what you do . It's like we cost less , save time , this and that , but what do you do ? What's the one sentence of what you actually do ? I don't understand . And you guys help them organize that and get that figured out , get that message , find that customer avatar , because otherwise you're going to blow a lot of money on marketing if you're not familiar with exactly who your customer is , and you can't convey that in a very simple thing , one or two sentences , and then you can go into all the marketing .
Lana Mazin (Raintree)
Yeah , absolutely , and we love when brands come to us because that means their team isn't focusing on finding franchise owners . Their team is focusing on supporting franchise owners and driving higher AUVs and working on validation and upgrading , training and really supporting their system . And we're on this side , bringing people to them saying is this a good fit for you or not ? But it frees up their time to . I mean , it really works well together when you have somebody focusing on each aspect of the business .
Lance Hood (FranPro)
Right , and so I mean we do have a link here next to video for people who would like to have a conversation with you guys . Before they do that , Give us an idea of what you're looking for in an ideal franchise that you would like to speak with who's ready for you .
Lana Mazin (Raintree)
Yeah , it's a great question and we've really narrowed it down to some very specific criteria of what we know we can be successful with , because , again , we only want to partner with brands that you know they're going to be our long-term partners . A lot of the brands in our portfolio have been with us , you know , three , four
, five years . At this point , really looking for somebody that we can grow and succeed with . It's not just kind of a one and done thing . So the first thing we're looking for is a really strong brand differentiator , so something that makes the brand really unique in the segment that they're in . So kind of like you were just saying , you know , what is it that you do ? We love to hear what is it that you do and how do you do it differently . You know , how are you reinventing that space that you're in ? That's really important to us . Financials are really important to us . So a strong item 19 . We don't require that all of our brands come in with that strong item 19 . We'll definitely work with them to refine it and get it to a spot that we need it .
Lana Mazin (Raintree)
But we need , you know , the franchise owners to be seeing pretty strong ROI . We look for about 20% ROI or two to three year ROI 20% margins . So that's really important to us . Validation is key , so making sure that other owners in the system are happy . We actually reach out and talk to the other franchise owners in the system if there are any , and ask them those kind of questions of would you do this again ? How is support ? What is the culture like ? Just to get an understanding .
Lana Mazin (Raintree)
And then the fourth piece that we're really looking for is a strong support team . So some of our brands for example , Footprints , floors and Dog Trading Elite they came to us . They didn't have a ton of owners , so they just had a small support team at that time . That was just fine . But the brand needs to be able to demonstrate that they have the capital to grow that team as their franchisees grow . So Footprints that started with one or two people . They now have 20 people on the support team . So just really looking for to make sure that that's there and that the brand knows that that will be a requirement if they partner with us , because they really should see some incredible growth .
Lance Hood (FranPro)
Right , and so if somebody wanted to have a conversation with you , we have a link next to this video and they can reach out to you and you guys will take care of them . What is , what are the steps of you working with someone , so say that they contact you and then from there , if they're accepted to , they're fully in your system , deployed and things are happening . What are those major steps ?
Lana Mazin (Raintree)
So it's about a four to six week process that we try to keep it to . It would start with just a general inquiry through the link that we have here . Then they would schedule an initial call with me . We would hop on the phone and just chat a little bit about you know how franchising has been going , what they're looking for in a partner . Again , we want to make sure that it's a good match . It's a mutual fit , that we think that it's something that we could be successful with . From there we'll have them fill out of intake form . It takes only about 10 , 15 minutes , just questions on the system . Have them send over their FDD and then I take that to the Rain Tree Board and we do a pretty deep dive . Come back with any questions that we need , provide them additional information on Rain Tree .
Lana Mazin (Raintree)
From there we actually build out a preforma that's going to outline the budget that we would need them to spend to hit their goal number of deals . We actually do that line by line . It would have a spend for Facebook , a spend for Google , a spend with the consultants , and we run through that and make sure that everything's aligned there and then we move into validation . So we would be reaching out to current franchisees . We would allow the brands to reach out to current founders or the executives of brands that work with Rain Tree . So ask any questions that they have about what it's like to work with us . Then we like to kind of cap everything off by our team actually going out and visiting the brand , having sort of a mock discovery day , seeing everything firsthand , breaking bread . We do love to meet our partners in person and then from there we sign them on and we really hit the ground running .
Lance Hood (FranPro)
So you're saying that's about four to six weeks . Is that process from end to end ?
Lana Mazin (Raintree)
Correct .
Lance Hood (FranPro)
And what can people do on their side to shortcut that process , just to be prepared and that what ?
Lana Mazin (Raintree)
are . I mean , really it's going to move sort of at the brand's pace , so as soon as they can get that form filled out . That's what really kind of kicks it off on our end . So suggestion would be if you're really excited , get that form filled out as soon as possible and then just being sort of flexible with us to get things scheduled , especially that visit out there . Sometimes that's just what could take a while is just coordinating schedules .
Lance Hood (FranPro)
Right , I've seen that we're just making schedules . Coordinate could add two , three , four weeks to a process you know .
Lana Mazin (Raintree)
Yeah .
Lance Hood (FranPro)
One little appointment at a time , but they add up , you got four appointments . It just Yep . So well , excellent . Well , I appreciate that . Lana , I just want to thank you for joining us and just invite everybody to check out that link here https://Franpro . vip/GoRainTree . Talk to you again soon .
