Franchise Branding is not like branding just any old product, franchise branding is much more than that. You have to brand your Franchisees as “Service Gods,” The logo and image as a “Cult,” the Founder as a Legend and then you get to brand the product or service. Not an easy task at all, but we did it and you can too. Now before you call me some “get rich quick guru of marketing books and tapes” realize I am not selling anything. But I would like to share this real live and very meaningful email from one of our company’s top franchisees in the Denver Market.
You see I had asked him to participate in the Regional Meeting, but he was too busy servicing customers so I asked him; Brett what do you think is our companies greatest strength in the market place. What sets us apart? Why are you so successful there? Why are you so busy you cannot make the meeting? Tell us what this company’s strengths are? And so he replied and this is what he stated to me:
“The Car Wash Guys [our company brand name] greatest strength is IMAGE. And the trucks are our standard bearers. We get into conversations that end up in accounts based solely on the look of our trucks. Image really isn’t saying enough though, perhaps, presentation is a better word. In any case, the vitality of the franchise and the quality we will give in service is evident in the design of the logos, color choice and equipment. The web site is another presentation (and a very practical one at that) of who we are. It is as clean and sharp as our trucks. It too is a highly valuable and useful piece of equipment. 15 minutes on it today and I have answers to 10 questions. And when a potential customer goes there to check us out, they are blown away. In the same way the CD-ROM projects who we are into the marketplace in an almost irresistible way. One of the local Fed-EX terminal managers was telling us today that he could see we were different from what they were used to from this industry-after looking at the CD.”
Now mind you this was a private email and I have always as the founder of our company allowed our top performers to “Sound Off” and let me have it straight up or straight from the gut. I never liked sugar coated pansy ass “yes men” in fact I suffer fools better than I suffer weakness and weak people. I bring this to your attention for two reasons, one if you want to win, really win, in every market. You better think about image and the second reason, if you think this came easy or it was somehow luck or that you can figure all this out by buying a few tapes, marketing books and going to college you are kidding yourself and I advise you to stay out of our market lest you be crushed by our team. Think on this in 2006.
