Annual meets delivering success

Franchisees are the business generators for the franchise brand. Taking care of franchisees and understanding their problems and grievances and connecting with them will definitely increase brand’s popularity and success. No doubt franchisors provide training and support to their franchise partners from time to time but connecting with franchisees only for training and support sometimes makes things boring. Having realised this, franchisors of today have acknowledged the growing importance of Annual Meets. A franchisor with a large network of franchisees and willing to expand more can arrange an Annual Meet for his franchisees where in new as well old franchisees would share a same platform to know each other. New franchisees can feel motivated to meet experienced and successful franchisees. Also annual meets would help the franchisees to know the growth and success of the brand they are associated with would definitely inspire them to do better. Before getting into the details let us understand what is an Annual Meet?

Annual Meets

The franchisor organises the event to develop good relations with all franchisees in his network. Moreover franchisees also get an opportunity to know and interact with each other. Annual Meets can include refresher courses, knowledge about latest technology, setting targets and goals for coming years. However to make it more entertaining, franchisors can organise few games, skits and other cultural programs.

Organising annual meets

Undoubtedly arranging annual meets can be a time as well as money consuming job for the franchisors. It needs a lot of arrangements to make everything perfect and also money has to be spent. Mostly, the franchisor organises everything with his staff. These annual meets can be helpful for both the franchisor and franchisees.

For franchisors: Franchisors benefit in terms of gaining popularity and good reputation in the franchise arena. Franchisees in the network would surely praise and recommend other wannabe entrepreneurs to join their network. In this way the franchisor gains good word of mouth, which is the most effective source of advertisements. Moreover by organising such meets, the franchisor takes the right step for rejuvenating his franchisees and thereby increases their interest and productivity in the business. This in turn enhances the over-all profitability of the brand. In words of Shahnaz Husain, MD and Chairperson, Shahnaz Husain Group: “We have a common goal and a common commitment of working towards the success of the Shahnaz Husain brand name. The meetings help us to share our successes and also our blueprint for the future. The meetings provide an important platform for discussions, in order to iron out problems and clarify doubts about products and salon treatments. Information can be provided to franchisees about new products.”

For franchisees: Annual meets can serve as a platform for franchisees to meet the franchisor as well as other franchisees in the network. If the franchisee is not performing well he may come to know the reasons for his non performance by participating in discussion with other franchisees. Moreover in such meets, the franchisees can come to know the latest products as well as technology being used by franchisors and adopt accordingly. Husain shares: “Annual meets are helpful for franchisees. It provides the opportunity to discuss and iron out problems. Franchisees also have the opportunity to refresh their knowledge and also acquire the knowledge and art of new techniques and new products. During the meetings, we can establish a common understanding of roles and responsibilities, because we have a common goal and a common commitment. Most of all, we must keep in mind that we all have to conform to a global brand name and a global vision.”

To conclude it would not be wrong to say that annual meets are the face of the brand as everyone related to it, the owner and the channel partners share similar platform to share their news and views about the brand and can see the future growth of the brand together.