STAGE 2: Preparing to Franchise
Objective: Once the decision to franchise is made in Stage 1, this stage focuses on developing your high-level strategy for social franchising, generating the buy-in you need to move forward, and creating your initial work plan and budget. When generating buy-in, you will need to ensure that your organization is allocating financial and human resources to franchising efforts; this means hiring new personnel, or designating responsibility of current staff, that will focus on Social Franchising.
Suggested time-frame: Stage 2 should be completed within one to two months.
Recommended Roles and Responsibilities:
- Executive Director: Lead meetings with stakeholders, as needed.
- Program staff / Franchise Project Manager: Lead meetings with stakeholders, as needed. Coordinate and lead on developing the initial franchisor operations canvas and associated planning, which may involve collaboration with your leadership, finance and accounting, communications, and monitoring & evaluation teams.
- Support staff: Use the initial franchisor operational canvas to support planning activities.
Please follow these six Steps to complete Stage 2:
To get started mapping your high-level social franchising strategy and resource needs, use the template presentation for the Social Franchise Strategic Planning Guide, and the accompanying excel template for the Franchise Budget to outline the key strategic and cost considerations for your franchise network.
Once you have outlined your social franchising strategy in a presentation form, and have an idea of your general budgetary needs, it is time to formally establish the buy-in needed to institutionalize social franchising in your organization and advance your strategy. It is recommended that at this step you coordinate meetings to generate buy-in from internal staff, leadership, and Board of Directors, as well as any external stakeholders, such as the Ministry of Health and other government agencies, that you intend to collaborate with. Use the talking points for generating buy-in in Stage 1 and the presentation you created in the previous step during these meetings.
When you have secured buy-in and are confident you will move forward implementing your strategy, it is time to begin mapping out your timeline of activities. Use the gantt chart template provided in the toolbox for the Franchise Development Work Plan to plan your timeline of activities for carrying out the design and implementation of your franchising model.
If you are launching a new franchise, and your brand has not been established, one of the first activities that should be outlined in your work plan in preparation for Stage 3: Franchise Package Design is to begin considering the design of a brand, logo and messaging. While designing your brand, keep in mind your social franchising strategy, developed in Step 1, and specifically the profile of your target market. You want to create a brand that will be attractive to the profile you have created for the end user. You should also consider what additional branded assets you will initially need under the franchise network. You should plan for all brand assets needed to recruit franchisees and advertise your network, such as branded communications materials describing the benefits of the franchise network, a branded microsite on your main webpage, or other complementary merchandise or fliers. These assets will be fully developed in Stage 3, after you have had the opportunity to test your initial brand ideas with potential franchisees and can make any adjustments that come from those conversations. Use the guidelines provided in the toolbox, Designing a Brand and Marketing Strategy, for tips on how to create a brand, logo, and promotional strategy. See the examples in Sample Branded Materials for inspiration from other MAs showcasing logos and branded promotional materials from their franchise networks.
Another important step prior to moving on to Stage 3, and once you have an approved budget, is to identify existing sources of funding or create a plan to fundraise for remaining resources that will be needed in the design and implementation of your franchise network. At this point, you should have a clear idea of your resource needs for the design of your network, which will take place in Stage 4. These are resources that you will need now in order to advance your social franchising work. You will also need to plan ahead for the resources that you estimate needing for implementation based on the number of franchisees in your network, in recruitment, launch and evaluate, Stages 5, 6 and 7.
Congratulations! You’ve made it to the end of Stage 2. In preparation of Stage 3: Franchise Package Design, familiarize yourself with the concepts of Lean Experimentation and Customer Discovery using the guidelines in the toolbox. You will use these principles, which are based on iteration and flexible design, as you test your value proposition and franchise support package with potential franchisees in Stage 3 before launching your network.
