April 2019
www.franchisebuyer.com.au
How this ex-franchise owner is helping you afford your franchise
Finance Your Equipment & Fitout With Franchise Finance Australia With flexible funding solutions and unrivalled knowledge of the industry, Franchise Finance Australia can get you the equipment you need for your franchise today. What Can We Fund? - New Store Fitouts - Store Refurbishments - Business Re-sales - Equipment Purchases - Vehicles, Trailers & Vehicle Fitouts - National Equipment Roll-outs
Why Choose Us? - Competitive Rates - 24/7 Customer Service - Repayments Can Be 100% Tax Deductible - Terms Start From Just 12 Months - Flexible End Of Term Options - Fast Online Application Process
Call us on 1300 659 676 franchisefinanceaustralia.com.au
FRANCHISE
FINANCE AUSTRALIA
05 News Bites:
Inside this Edition of
Women in Franchising Conference What is the right
April 2019
amount of Vegemite on toast? Jon Smith Subs –
First Australian Grand Store Opening
12 Opinion: What are buyers saying about franchises?
COVER STORY:
How this ex-franchise owner is helping you afford your franchise
8-11 By Paul Robinson
Glenn Walford
16 Digital Marketing: Analytics basics for digital marketing
Robb Snell
20 Business Processes: What You Should Expect From A Great Bookkeeper
Karen Kennedy
24 24 Attracting Customers: How to use Facebook to get an avalanche of leads to your business
John Dwyer
28 Consumer Trends: Chocolate
Mel Brown franchisebuyer.com.au
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w w w . f r a n c h i s e b u y e r . c o m . a u Published by
FRANCHISE MEDIA GROUP PTY LTD Editor GLENN WALFORD glenn@franchisebuyer.com.au Art Director KATHERINE BERCASIO Campaign Administrator MELANIE BROWN Digital & Technology Strategy ROBB SNELL Writer PAUL ROBINSON
Contributors PAUL ROBINSON ROBB SNELL KAREN KENNEDY JOHN DWYER
Published by Published by Franchise Media Group Pty Ltd Opinions expressed in Franchise Buyer are not necessarily those of Franchise Buyer or the Publisher. Persons entering into a franchise agreement are strongly urged to seek their own independent advice. All material is copyright and reproduction in whole or in part is not allowable unless specific permission from the Editor is provided.
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News Bites
Women In Franchising Conference Finance, HR & Tech
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re you a woman in franchising? Would you benefit from a networking conference which focuses on learning and making connections in Finance, HR and Technology? There are many women who work on the financial side of franchising. This includes female franchisees, the partners of franchisees who are involved in the business, women in finance departments and women in accounting technology. The first Women’s Networking Event for 2019 to be held on Thursday 2 May @ 4pm, Parkroyal Parramatta, will focus on financial topics and related subjects such as Human
Resources. The speaker is Esther Colman, who is an HR specialist and a franchisee.
Why attend this conference? Listen to specialists speak on topics specific to finance Share your experiences with others and exchange ideas Build a stronger business network Register online https://www. eventbrite.com.au/e/franchisewomen-finance-hr-techsydney-tickets-59820976150 The next conference will be held in Perth in early June.
What else is coming up? Future events are being planned, and topics may include: Helpful technology (to streamline accounting) Understanding financial information Tax planning for business Financial planning (personal) Payroll and other ‘hot’ topics Succession planning Communication skills Hiring and firing staff Business expansion/funding your expansion Join the Facebook Group https:// www.facebook.com/ groups/549881992186127/.n
franchisebuyer.com.au
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News Bites
What is the right amount of Vegemite?
W
hat is the right amount of Vegemite on morning toast? When an online customer review went viral and sparked a national debate, Soul Origin stepped in to the fray… To find out more on how Aussies enjoy the spread, Soul
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Origin offered a free slice of Vegemite toast with every coffee purchase on 3 April. Australians are seemingly divided on the subject of vegemite, with some having strong opinions about the amount, whether or not the butter goes first and whether it’s ok to mix in other toppings such as avocado.
‘There’s nothing more Australian than vegemite on toast, but it’s no secret that everyone has their own personal way of enjoying this national delicacy. ‘ Soul Origin CEO Chris Mavris said. Good for you, Soul Origin - let’s hope some conclusive results are available soon! n
News Bites
Jon Smith Subs - First Australian Store Grand Opening
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elbourne Docklands sees the first Australian location of the Jon Smith Subs, with the grand opening celebration on Friday 3rd of May. Recently, we spoke with Michael Cooke, who explained that the concept is actually a 30+ year old business that
originated in West Palm Beach, Florida. What’s the Jon Smith Subs point of difference you’re probably thinking? Michael explained, “...we’re a fresh product. We’re cooked on a grill, our competitors are doing a lot of frozen products but we only have a couple of
different frozen products in the whole store. But, everything (about it) is a fresh concept, cooked on a grill where our guests can see that being cooked.” n FIND OUT MORE ABOUT JON SMITH SUBS
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COVER STORY
“I thought I could do it much better, so I started my own franchise finance company.� WHO: James Scurr, MD By Paul Robinson
Old schoohlotos! quality p
As an authority on franchise funding, James is a sought-after presenter and contributor to the subject 8
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he Cashflow It© Group specialises in funding for franchise businesses, with particular emphasis on the equipment component, which is often the primary cost to a new franchise customer. Spotting an opportunity in the market, managing director James Scurr founded the company in February 2014. Having already worked with a publically listed company — where he had developed a successful division focused on providing finance for franchisees — he was convinced there was still a fair way to go to better meet customer needs. “I was asked to join a finance company to set up a division that would service the franchise sector,” says James. “I did that for a few years, got it all set up and it was all going quite well. Then when I left the company, I was potentially looking at buying a couple of franchises, getting back into franchising, but people kept calling me, asking for help with finance. That steered me in the direction of doing something myself. I still felt it could be been done better “ Just like his new customers, the first major hurdle James faced was: where do I get the money? “To set up any sort of reasonable finance operation, you need at least $10–$20 million to do it properly,” says James. “I was a bit under capitalised, but thought, bugger it, I’ll just use whatever cash I’ve got, I can do this. But I fairly quickly exhausted those funds.” Out of money, but encouraged by the initial market response and
COVER STORY
Dan Toms and James Scurr. Creative, eye-catching marketing and promotional support keeps the business top of mind
seeing that his business model was more or less working, James went to plan B. “I could see we could make a go of it if only we could find some big dollars. So I started approaching high net worth individuals for what were essentially loans that I would take at a fixed rate then charge out at a higher rate to make my margin.” This plan worked in the short term and the business continued to grow. However, it wasn’t sustainable and that was keeping James awake at night. “The only real challenge was raising capital,” recalls James. “In those early days, it was definitely
an issue for a small business like ours to access those sorts of funds. It was looking tough — where the next tranche of money was going to come from was always a challenge. There was the excitement of all these deals coming in, but at the same time I was wondering, shit, how are we going to fund all this?” Light at the end of the tunnel appeared in late 2015 in the form of ASX 200-listed Thorn Group, who ended up forming a joint venture with Cashflow It©. This was a company with more than 80 years’ experience in the financial services industry. “We were introduced to Thorn franchisebuyer.com.au
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COVER STORY Group and ended up selling half the business to them,” says James. “They made a pretty sizable investment that took away all the capital constraints we had. There were no longer any issues around raising capital, it was pretty much an open cheque book, so to speak.” Suddenly the shackles were off and they could kick into gear to expand the business. “The past three years with Thorn have been great,” says James. “We’ve been able to grow the business much more rapidly without having the constraints of limited capital. It’s interesting — raising larger amounts of money is actually easier than smaller amounts. The lender still has to do the same amount of work. It really comes down to risk and, as a finance company, drawing down large $10m tranches actually becomes easier.” But for James, it’s about much more than readily available capital. “We’ve been able to expand
“With Cashflow It ©, we offer tailored products that are more relevant to the franchisees and franchisors. Having been in franchises that have done exceptionally well — and ones that have failed — I know exactly what franchisees go through with their businesses.” the products we offer,” he says. “When I started the business, we began with just a high-margin, flexible rental product that didn’t really suit everybody. We now offer some lower cost funding options with Thorn that expand to more traditional asset finance products such as operating leases, chattel mortgages and business loans. It’s
Some of the team at the many franchise conferences they attend to represent the business 10
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the area in which we’re starting to see really good growth. We’ve got a product that people want and can fill that gap between the banks — who as everyone knows are notoriously difficult to deal with and hard to get quick approvals from — and short-term business funders who charge ridiculous rates of over 40 per cent.” James’ own considerable experience as a franchisee, gives the business a fairly unique understanding of his customers’ requirements. He spent 10 years as a multi-unit franchisee for companies including Boost Juice and Dreamy Donuts. “I’d been in franchising myself for years — I had Boost Juice bars, some day spas — and other businesses outside of franchising. So I was always in small business until around 2007 when I sold up and took a few years off.” He’s adamant that his franchising experience makes him a much better lender.
COVER STORY
“That’s why I started the business in the franchise space — because I knew it well and felt I had a good understanding of what they were looking for,” he says. “With Cashflow It ©, we offer tailored products that are more relevant to the franchisees and franchisors. Having been in franchises that have done exceptionally well — and ones that have failed — I know exactly what franchisees go through with their businesses.” The most recent chapter in the company story involves a diversification to better service different niches within the franchise sector — specifically the accommodation, fitness and pharmacy industries. “It’s not so much a rebrand as expanding,” says James. “The Cashflow It© brand still exists as the overall group brand, but we’ve identified key industries where we do well and now have dedicated divisions that solely look after those areas. Everything to do with the franchise sector now sits under the sub-brand Franchise
Finance Australia. We wanted to tailor products specifically to a particular industry, such as fitness. It used to be, for instance, that in the fitness sector there would be an initial large capital investment in equipment. But now we’re seeing a shift to smaller studios — rather than the million-dollar gym fitouts with lots of equipment, we’re seeing smaller $100-$150,000 fit-outs. They’re quite profitable models, too, with a lower entry price.” Going forward, James says it’s all about continued expansion for the Group. “Our sub-brands give us the ability to really expand more broadly into those spaces, and there’s also an opportunity to develop other products more appropriate to those industries — rather than sticking with the more traditional rent or lease or mortgage, there might be more individual products we can come up with that are relevant to those sectors.” Noting a big increase in demand for finance in the aftermath of
the banking Royal Commission and the franchising inquiry, James welcomes the increased business, but cautions that banks need to be less reactive. “We’ve been getting calls from clients saying they had been pre-approved with the bank, but that now the bank wasn’t going to fund them. But it’s a doubleedged sword. Whilst it’s good in the short term for us, long-term the whole economy needs to ensure business has access to funds to grow, otherwise everyone will be impacted.” And he remains constantly appreciative of the support of his customer base. “The key element for us is that we’ve got that franchise base,” he says. “We’ve got close relationships with a lot of franchisors in the industry, so we can put together an accreditation where we formally accredit the brand for the franchisor then all of the franchisees within the brand have pre-approved access, which is a pretty critical thing in that space for us. Just by having that in place, the franchisor becomes a referral method to us through their franchisees if finance is required. We have some quite long-term relationships with franchisees. There are a significant amount of franchises where we have funded their first store and then they’ve come back to us a year later with a second or third store.” n
Interested to know more about James?
franchisebuyer.com.au
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OPINION
WHAT ARE BUYERS SAYING ABOUT FRANCHISES? By Glenn Walford
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really enjoy the time we spend at the franchising expos run in major metro cities each year. I’d want to, as we have featured at every franchise expo across the country for the last 8 years! Talking face-to-face with hundreds of people looking to invest in a franchise business is a great opportunity to understand what people are thinking at a deeper level than is available via our online engagement. Let’s not beat around the bush, franchise expos are sales
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OPINION events. Franchise companies pay substantial $ to take a space, and do their best to demonstrate and pitch their investment opportunity to people eager to window-shop the opportunities.
What are people saying? Recently at the Sydney expo we did things a little different. We always have many, many discussions with all sorts of people about buying a franchise. This time, we had a set of questions to ask people willing to submit to the interrogation! We had just under 50 people give us answers to the set questions
to help us take the pulse of what is running through the minds of buyers. I’d like to give a bit of a summary and commentary of what we found out from the answers, as well as from the general chats we had with hundreds of buyers across the weekend.
Q 1. What are the first words that spring to mind when you hear the word ‘franchise’? The vast majority of responses to this basically centred on the view that it is an opportunity to be your own boss. This may come as no surprise, as it is very much the way franchising has positioned itself as a business model over an extended period.
Franchising is well-positioned as the solution to getting into your own business in just about any field you like. The next most common responses to this question were around cost. ‘How much per month do I have to pay’, ‘what is it going to cost me to get in’ ‘what extra costs are there beyond the initial price’, and so on, were often said. To be honest, with the amount of recent negativity swirling around the franchising sector, I did expect answers that were confronting and or negative. I got none, and all I got was what were basically some anecdotal joke type oneliners on it. I’m not sure what to make of that, but I put it down to the fact that people are ‘aware but not alarmed’. Speaking with many franchisors at the event, they reported the same, but they also reported to me that broadly their feeling was that they sensed people were significantly better informed and equipped with more research based questions on their business model. This is an encouraging sign and a very positive thing.
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OPINION
Q 2. What worries you about a franchise? Practically every answer here centred on return on investment and transparency. Answers like; n ‘the management fees’, n ‘putting money in and not getting a return’, n ‘that it’s not legitimate or sustainable’, n ‘unexpected surprises around cost’, n ‘that it makes money for them and not us’, n ‘that it’s not what they make it out to be’. The ROI aspect was no surprise to me of course, given that it is a business investment. However, the broader transparency issue kept popping up and it was clear that buyers are concerned about whether they are being told the correct information. Good advisers are crucial for franchise buyers to get the right information, AND to feel comfortable in the decisions they are making. Every franchise company in the market worth considering should be engaged in making sure buyers are accessing knowledgeable, professional advisers who know franchising. This is good for business all-round.
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We’ve got to get better at helping buyers find the right advisers to get the right information and advice for them. I especially like what FRANdata is doing to help here with their accreditation initiatives for professional advisers in legal and accounting advice specific for franchising.
Q 3. What makes you interested in a franchise? Responses on this question was quite varied. In fact, of all the questions, this was the one that got the widest range of answers. Some of the responses included; n ‘security and the fact it is established’, n ‘get a lot of support in marketing and operations’, n ‘have a team behind me’, n ‘I need to earn more than I’m currently earning as an employee’, n ‘that it’s well-known and the endcustomer knows what to expect, which is not the case with an independent business’. The responses here demonstrate that we all approach and do things with quite different rationale, motivations and intentions. With this highlighted awareness, I think it is very important that franchise companies
really understand WHY each person approaches them. Generally, we tend to try to pigeon hole people, and I guess in franchising it’s easy to let the answer to question 1 – ‘I want to be my own boss’, to be the thing that we think drives everyone. Indeed, the answer to this question, albeit brief, gives insight into the varied expectations that each person is coming to a franchise with. It should help partly shape a systems’ approach, but also shape the way people selling franchises focus communication topics that is in line with the individual expectations of particular prospects.
Q 4. Have you any experience in running your own business? No surprise here for me as 70% of people who responded had no experience of running their own business. Again, this is very much what franchising has positioned itself correctly for. It ties into the aspiration to be your own boss which we got as the dominant answer for our first question. I can see a shift here though in that I believe people are and will continue in numbers to start to gravitate toward franchises that are in line with their experience. It’s essentially
OPINION risk aversion, and this again is good for everyone. For example, a teacher gravitating toward a tutoring franchise, a hospitality experienced person to a cafe franchise and so on. I think it just makes sense for all concerned, and I’d like to see more of it. When this happens, it acts to reduce the risk in the business as the training period and business ramp up can instead be more heavily weighted toward things that the new franchisee does not have experience in and needs the most training and help – sales and marketing. As it drives sales and customer counts, every business lives or dies by sales and marketing, so by being experienced broadly in ‘the thing you do’ in the business already, means more attention can be paid to the things that contribute to make the $ happen. I often hear franchisors talk about the fact they don’t want people with experience in their niche as they have ‘bad habits’. I’d be re-thinking that approach and more about how it may be better for the franchise operation.
Q 5. Is there any type of franchise you are thinking of and why? Again, this was pretty broad in the types of response we got. In my time with franchise buyer, the most popular franchises have mostly been in food, cafes, pizza and similar. This is changing, and has been for a couple of years as more diverse possibilities come to market. The answers reflected this shift with things like; n ‘B2B because I don’t like B2C as I want weekends off with my family’, n ‘Flexible as I have responsibilities at home’, n ‘probably in food as it is a safer option as people always need food’,
n ‘gym or beauty as my daughter is doing an injectables course’. I recall one conversation clearly, and it has made me think a lot since. A lady approached with her mum and introduced herself, appealing to me for information about what franchise she should be looking to buy. This is a question I’m asked over and over at franchising expos given we are not ‘selling’ franchises at all and basically giving away magazines! She explained that she needed a ‘flexible’ franchise because she was a carer for her autistic son, and that her partner also could not work due to a medical condition. Mum was going to put in some money to help her get a business, and both were terrified that they would make a bad choice and lose more money like they had in another business previously. My advice was basically that it doesn’t matter what anybody tells you, that a shop-front business that she had ‘show bags’ of, is simply not going to be flexible enough for her, and that work from home options is really all she should be focusing her research on. These options are out there. She talked about confusion and not knowing what to do, or who to trust. She did not know if what she was being told by people was true or not, “How can I tell if it’s true?” she asked. It’s hard to give a detailed answer in that environment, but
we talked for some time. For anyone looking to buy a business or franchise, trust your gut, as if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, and ask endless questions. Only after you are comfortable with the answers you get, then engage advisers to go over it thoroughly, work through scenarios, be honest with yourself and realistic. You engage them to ask the questions you didn’t know to ask! Don’t approach it looking for reasons not to get into business, but go into it knowing that you have a plan and are prepared for possible scenarios. And remember, you still want to be your own boss! There you have it. That’s what we found out by just asking a few very quick and simple questions of people looking to invest in a franchise. Hope it helps… n franchisebuyer.com.au
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DIGITAL MARKETING
Yes, everyone is telling you how powerful and targeted Google, Facebook and LinkedIn are, yet you either don’t know where to start, or you are pumping in crazy $ for little return. Let’s look at some basics to get a foundational understanding of how they actually work. By Robb Snell 16
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t’s never been easier to get up and running on the big digital marketing platforms, Google, Facebook and LinkedIn. Small businesses are continuing to increase their spend in those areas, though from my experience this continuous investment is often based on a hopeful assumption that it’s all working. What you really need is hard data that’s showing your return on investment (ROI). So here we go, these are the minimum set of analytics that you should be setting up if you’re going
to be spending money on digital advertising via Google, Facebook or LinkedIn. The easiest place to get started is Google Analytics. There are hundreds of different statistics that Google Analytics can tell you about the traffic on your website and it’s worth spending a couple of hours digging around in the console to get an understanding of it all, however here are the four most helpful features for tracking your digital marketing ROI.
DIGITAL MARKETING to view your content, each of them may have looked at four (4) pages, in which case your page views will be four (4) times higher than your user sessions. You get these statistics for every page on your site as soon as you add the Google Analytics tag to your website.
Feature 2 - Events Often you want to track something like a button click and there’s no way to see that from the Page Views report. For this scenario Google Analytics can track user interaction events within the page. This type of tracking is great for seeing which parts of the page are attracting prospects and which parts aren’t getting any interaction at all. You will need to get your web developer to apply event tracking to each of the elements you’re interested in.
Feature 3 - Goals Google Analytics allows you to configure “goals” which are important milestones in your user activity. Typical goals might be reaching a certain page such as a form submission confirmation page, or perhaps a particular type of event. Once you have your goals configured you can track the success of your site at a glance. You can configure your own goals within the Google Analytics web console.
Feature 4 Campaigns If you’re going to do a big marketing push then you’ll want to be able to see how that initiative performs compared to others, and in Google Analytics you can use campaigns to do that. For a campaign to work you must be directing your prospects to a website that has Google Analytics
Feature 1 - Web page views and user sessions Page views are exactly as they suggest, the number of times an individual page has been viewed. You should see these increase as you start using your digital marketing campaigns to drive prospects to your content. To get a more robust figure you should also keep an eye on the number of user sessions as that figure tells you how many individual people came franchisebuyer.com.au
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BUYER HELP DIGITAL MARKETING setup. You can then go to this URL builder tool to configure your Campaign: https://ga-dev-tools.appspot. com/campaign-url-builder/ The only mandatory details are the website url itself and a campaign source, which is simply a name that’s meaningful to you. There are other fields too and they’re great for adding extra layers of granularity to your reporting, but they’re not essential for your first try. The URL builder will give you a URL like this: https://www.yourwebsite.com. au/?utm_source=edm-jan-2019 You should use that URL in your EDM campaign and any clicks that come through from that link can be clearly attributed to that EDM campaign in your Google Analytics. The really powerful thing about
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this feature is that you can filter ALL of the analytics by campaign, including your user sessions, page views and goals. Now you have your Google Analytics setup and you can clearly see how traffic directed to your website behaves, even to the point
of achieving specific goals. Now let’s look at Google Ads.
Google ads Google Ads allows you to setup ads that can be displayed with their Google Search results and also throughout their content
DIGITAL MARKETING
network. Whenever you configure and activate ads in Google Ads you will automatically get some good statistics around the number of impressions and clicks that you’ve received. Those details are great for identifying which ads are the most attractive to prospects but it’s useless for seeing which ads actually drive the most business on your website. This is where you need to start tracking conversions and conveniently you can connect your Google Ads account to your Google Analytics account for exactly that purpose. Once you’ve connected your Ads and Analytics accounts you will need to create an Ads Conversion Tracking Id and when you’re doing that you’ll define the type of event that you’re looking for when tracking a conversion. That whole process will give you a tracking ID that your web developer will need to add to your website. Once that’s done you’ll be able to see exactly which Google Ads lead to conversions on your website AND if you indicate the monetary value of a conversion then you will also be able to see the Cost per Conversion for each of your ads
and keywords within your Google Ads console. Facebook and LinkedIn offer a very similar type of conversion tracking process though they don’t connect to Google Analytics. For both of those platforms you’re going to need your web developer to add their separate javascript tags to your website. The Facebook tag is referred to as a Facebook Pixel and the LinkedIn equivalent is called the LinkedIn Insights Tag. The Facebook Pixel will automatically track Page Views but if you want it to track a specific action then you will need your web developer to add that extra conversion event to your website code.
The LinkedIn Insights Tag is a bit different in that it will automatically track all Page Views and that’s all it will capture. If you want to track conversions for LinkedIn Ads then you will need to direct your leads to a specific page which only displays when a conversion has occurred. Once you have that page flow in place you can then configure page views with that specific URL as a conversion. It may seem like a fiddly bit of setup, and I’m not going to lie, it is, BUT you now have really great insights on how your digital marketing ads are performing according to your conversion metrics and you can truly start to measure the ROI of each campaign. n
From the start of the online revolution, Robb Snell has crafted technology solutions to get the best out of any business. From the biggest corporates to ‘Day One’ startups, Robb’s work has launched companies, won international acclaim and revitalized P&L’s time and time again. www.MagneticFranchising.com.au franchisebuyer.com.au
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BUSINESS PROCESSES
WHAT YOU SHOULD EXPECT FROM A GREAT BOOKKEEPER No matter your business, you need a great bookkeeper. By Karen Kennedy
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tarting a business is daunting. The doubt that you’ve got a good idea, the late nights planning it out, the website you created that you keep changing. Then you finally launch it, and it’s exhilarating: the first client, the first invoice, the first payment, the next client, the ups and the downs.
The same feeling is true for anyone buying a franchise. The ultimate responsibility lays with you and how much you want to succeed. Where the difference lies is in your financials. In any business, staying on top of the books while running operations at the same time, can be quite a challenge. The requirements of
BUSINESS PROCESSES record keeping, account coding, and ATO rules can go from being ‘doable’, to a significant burden in record time! And for franchisees, the added layer of obligations and compliance with the requirements set by your franchisor, can make it even more of a challenge to keep on top of. How do you know what to keep, and how do you know what counts as expenses? The learning curve is pretty steep in any business, particularly for first time business owners. Even experienced business owners can become overwhelmed with managing their financial reporting and compliance obligations. If you’re someone who likes to be hands-on in your business (which many owners need to be at the start,
but many choose to remain so), then finding time to sort out your financial obligations means late nights, lost weekends, and hours upon hours of recording, filing and trying to understand the ATO and your franchisee rules. That’s where hiring a bookkeeper is your best bet. Whether you choose to hire a bookkeeper onsite or remotely, the benefits far outweigh the cost.
Here are 4 benefits to expect from a great bookkeeper: A great bookkeeper saves you time Do you know where your receipts are? Have you been filing your
invoices chronologically in an easyto-access and secure location? It’s easy to let it pile up because doing it all at once sounds like a time-saver. In actual fact, the opposite is true. Reconciling your bank statement alone can be a major task, especially when many of the transactions feature trading names that have nothing to do with what you bought. If you love being a detective, then this is the method for you! But if you’d rather spend those many hours and possibly days’ worth of work taking some time for selfcare or working on your business, then you need a great bookkeeper. A bookkeeper knows exactly how to code every cent you earn and spend, so that you can see in
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BUSINESS PROCESSES real-time how well your financials are doing. This not only saves you time physically, it also saves you time when it comes to making crucial business decisions that need up-to-date financial data, because when that time comes, it’s ready and waiting for you.
A great bookkeeper makes life easier While bookkeeping started literally on physical books, the days of recording every debit and credit manually are gone. These days, software like Xero has made bookkeeping a more effortless task. But that still doesn’t mean you should be the one to handle it.
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If you’re someone who likes to be hands-on in your business (which many owners need to be at the start, but many choose to remain so), then finding time to sort out your financial obligations means late nights, lost weekends, and hours upon hours of recording, filing and trying to understand the ATO and your franchisee rules.
A great bookkeeper knows Xero like the back of their hand. Not only that, but they understand that your franchise will often need a different set up to others. They work with your accountant to make sure that everything you need to account for is coded correctly so that when it comes time to see the reports, everything is where it needs to be.
A great bookkeeper saves you money When you hand your accountant a mess of receipts at the end of your financial period, they will charge you a decent fee to sort them, enter them in the system, along with the
BUSINESS PROCESSES
fee to do your tax return. It’s a lot of work for them, so the fee will match. Having a great bookkeeper means you never get to that point. They keep your accounts in order on a regular basis so that by the time your accountant sees it, all they have to do is your tax. Not only that, but a bookkeeper who’s experienced in franchises knows that a lot of owners lose money because they don’t know what they don’t know. For example, one client of ours didn’t know that you could claim GST on GST in importation of goods. As soon as she joined us, we picked this up straight away, and helped her claim back thousands in GST. It’s things like this that can make all the difference to your business.
A great bookkeeper wants you to succeed A ‘good’ bookkeeper is someone who does your books. A ‘great’ bookkeeper is your partner. They want you to reach your goals as much as you do, and what’s more, they understand that your financials are one of the key metrics to help you do it. They can point out where your expenditures change unusually, keep on track of suppliers
who change up their pricing, and monitor any fluctuations in payroll. They help you stay on track to succeed, and that marks a great bookkeeper. No matter where your business is at, it’s never too late to find a great bookkeeper to make your life easier, saving your time, money, and giving you a pathway to success.. n
Karen Kennedy has over 20 years accounting and administrative experience having worked in accounts and admin departments for many and varying business types. Ranging from multinational companies to franchising, real estate, manufacturing and hospitality. She has worked her way through the sector on her way up to Financial Controller and now Founder of Bookit Bookkeeping. https://bookit.net.au/ karen.kennedy@bookit.net.au franchisebuyer.com.au
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ATTRACTING CUSTOMERS
HOW TO USE FACEBOOK TO GET AN AVALANCHE OF LEADS TO YOUR BUSINESS! By John Dwyer
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iven I’m in the “marketing coaching” game, I often hear business owners (many who are franchisees) moaning over the poor results of their “social media” advertising endeavours. Time, and time again, I hear tales of woe regarding “payper-click” advertising failures on platforms like Facebook & Instagram. And most of the time, 24
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my response to the business owner is “the online platform is fine – it’s your ads that stink!” Facebook & other social media platforms are all about engagement – in other words, you need to ‘engage’ people via ‘nonsalesy’ dialogue before inviting them to consider your product or service. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a franchisee or a regular business owner, the name of the
game in this communications sector is engagement.
Let me make a couple of things really clear;
a. You Can Be Laser-Targeted Facebook & Instagram are the most laser-targeted advertising channels the world has ever seen, delivering massive opportunities to all business owners. Unlike TV, radio, newspapers,
ATTRACTING CUSTOMERS billboards & magazines, these social media platforms allow us to pinpoint our target audience precisely, and therefore enjoy minimal wastage in our advertising. Whereas on Channel 9 today, your expensive ‘wrinkle cream’ ad might have a 50% wastage factor (due to half of the viewers being too young for that product), but, your same ad on Facebook can zero in on women 45yrs+ who live in a wealthy suburb & drive a prestige car. The opportunity for all business owners is insane - never before have we been able to laser target our most profitable audience.
b. Your ‘Creative’ Is Vital If you put rubbish in, you’ll likely get rubbish out. In other
words, your creativity and strategy are vital ingredients when it comes to your Facebook or Instagram ads. Remember, your ad needs to attract attention by either solving someone’s problem or by ‘wowing’ your audience with an incredible, engaging invitation People are attracted to benefits, so stop promoting the features of your products or services. My business, www. theinstituteofwow.com spends a reasonably high amount of money on social media advertising, predominantly Facebook & LinkedIn. And because of this, we’ve worked hard at developing a model that delivers us a somewhat predictable ROI. We’ve devised this formula through good old testing and fixing. We experiment with countless different ad-sets with different headlines, body copy, images, videos, carousel slides, voiceovers, captions and so on. As a result, we’ve developed a system that delivers us and our clients an avalanche of leads more often than not. I’m not saying the formula is fool proof, as there’s always variables in all industries and factors that affect the result of any ad campaign be it online or offline.
The Engagement Code We’ve called the formula The Engagement Code, and it consists of the following components;
1. Identify precisely WHO your most profitable audience is - so you can look for more people online who look like them! In other words, use Facebook’s lookalike audience facility properly.
2. Position yourself (or your company) as THE EXPERT – people are attracted to experts, just ask Gordon Ramsay! And people pay more to experts because they are trusted advisors.
3. Create a WOW FACTOR and stop people from scrolling - and take their eyes off the price! McDonalds have been doing this for decades with their free toy in the Happy Meal box. Harvey Norman does it with 2 Years Interest Free, and Kellogg’s have also been doing it for 50 years – with the free toy in the cereal box. franchisebuyer.com.au
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What’s your ‘wow’ factor? 4. Create videos that look like ‘native posts’ – in other words, they look real and down to earth, NOT Steven Spielberg quality. Don’t make a glossy, Hollywood style video – be ‘real’ and watch the engagement skyrocket. When you are marketing on social media, remember it’s called ‘social’, so you have to treat the audience as if you were having a casual first-time chat at a BBQ with someone. In a social setting like that, you wouldn’t talk to people in a salesy-type fashion and start screaming selling messages to them. You’d likely be far more casual and inviting, so you need to create a similar ambience with your communications on Facebook and beyond.
5. Plant emotional seeds in your ads – that is, provide a problem / solution scenario, but in a conversational style way. So, if you were promoting a headache tablet for example, you’d create a video that showcases mum coming from the school pick-up run, exhausted and tired. Then she’d take a tablet with a glass of water and boast that 15 mins later, her headache has disappeared...ie Problem / Solution.
6. Test ‘teaser ads’ via quizzes & contests – attract
interest from your audience by offering a reward for completing a survey or quiz, or via a contest with a good prize incentive. I had an aluminium fence
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company as a client and their efforts with Facebook advertising were resulting in almost zero leads. Their target audience were home owners with an old paling, wooden fence, probably living in a house that was 20, 30 or 40 years old. But because the company was simply showing an aluminium fence in their Facebook ads, the response was woeful. So, when the business became a client of ours, we flipped the campaign on its head and ran ads promoting a contest called ‘The Ugliest Back Fence In Australia!’ The campaign understandably was laser targeted into older postcodes and the prize was a brand new aluminium fence up to
$5,000 value, which of course only cost the company a small portion of that. Home owners simply had to take a photograph of their falling down fence and post it to the aluminium fence’s Facebook page. And whammo! The campaign resulted in 2 years’ worth of leads in just 3 days of Facebook advertising! We made a gazillion prospects do the equivalent of glowing in the dark for the fence business, and they even provided proof that their backyard wooden fence was crappy! Now whenever that fencing company wants to get more leads, there’s a proven formula they can follow.
This means that they can turn on ‘the customer tap’ whenever they want via a creative, laser targeted Facebook campaign. We now devise similar Facebook campaigns for other businesses across many industries. A Kitchen Renovation company attracted 6 months of warm leads in just one week through a Facebook ad campaign I created. Their target audience were predominantly owners of older homes, where it was more likely they’d need a new kitchen. Our Facebook ad campaign targeted owners of older homes who were invited to vote for their preferred kitchen design, after we showed them two options, A & B, for the chance to win a $10,000 kitchen makeover. Again, the clever campaign resulted in an avalanche of fast leads - an insane amount of warm prospects. It really is easy to get prospects to ‘glow in the dark’ when you know how! And of
course, in both the case of the aluminium fence firm and the kitchen renovator, the businesses followed a systemised follow-up procedure (which we designed for them), contacting all of the Facebook ad respondents and offering a ‘special deal’ via phone calls, SMS & email. So there you have it – the Facebook Engagement Code which can also be used on other social media platforms. It’s your ‘herbs n spices recipe’ to making pay-per-click advertising work for your business. It doesn’t matter what type of business you operate, services or
products, this ‘code’ can work for you IF your creative is right. Facebook Live broadcasts is another powder-keg leads stimulant, and if you or a member of your team is comfortable in front of the camera (your smartphone), it’s a juggernaut in terms of attracting leads. But it’s a whole subject by itself, so I’ll cover this in a future article. Just remember, when you are using social media for promoting your products or services, if you want to get the best result, firstly nurture relationships through ‘Engagement’ tactics.n
John Dwyer is renowned as one of Australia’s leading direct-response marketing experts. His client list includes the “who’s who” of Australian businesses, including News Ltd, Channel 9, Madura Tea, KFC, the Greater Building Society, Fairfax Publications, BP & 7 Eleven. His business, The Institute Of Wow, helps all size companies attract avalanche leads through innovative online & offline advertising tactics. Contact: john@theinstituteofwow.com Website: www.theinstituteofwow.com
franchisebuyer.com.au
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CONSUMER TRENDS
CHOCOLATE With Easter Egg
Hunts on the radar for many Australian households this time of year, we wondered what’s trending in the chocolate industry? By Mel Brown
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ccording to the IBISWorld Industry Report on Chocolate and Confectionary Manufacturing in Australia, there is a shift in consumer demand towards premium goods. Consumer demand for gourmet products that are healthier and more sustainable has increased,
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with consumers willing to pay a premium for chocolate and confectionary that fits into these categories. This trend has benefited companies that produce product premium products and encouraged small-scale manufacturers to enter the industry. The two top trends for the chocolate industry are:
1. Dark Chocolate and Pana Chocolate
Growing concerns about the amount of fat and sugar in foods have weakened demand for massproducts and is driving a change in consumer preferences. Industry operators have extended their product ranges to include healthier
CONSUMER TRENDS farming. In addition, more operators are working with suppliers that are registered under the fair-trade logo or purchase all raw products from a single source. Products that fall under these categories usually include a backstory about sourcing and consumers are generally more willing to pay a premium for a product that has an ethical narrative.
So‌ what is the future for Easter Egg hunts? Will they be for healthier dark chocolate premium eggs? Will they be harder to find and not so many? And will there be a great many parents explaining to their five year olds why the Easter Bunny is only delivering a couple of sustainably sourced dark chocolate eggs‌? Good luck with that! n
options, such as dark chocolate and pana chocolate. Products in these categories often contain fruit, nuts and raw cocoa.
2. Sustainable and Ethical
Industry operators are increasingly working with suppliers that practice sustainable cocoa
Sources: Chocolate and Confectionery Manufacturing in Australia August 2017, IBISWorld
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