Lessons Learned at the West Coast Franchise Expo

The franchise industry is like a little community where everyone knows -or at least knows someone who knows- everyone else. That's why I like attending franchise conferences and trade shows. I know I'll connect with old friends and make new acquaintances, and last week's West Coast Franchise Expo didn't disappoint in either department.

Talking with people at the show, however, it seemed not every franchisor was enjoying the same success. At first I thought that's just how it goes at shows -sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But is that really true? Thinking about it more on my flight home, it became clear that's not exactly right.

In fact, I discovered two major commonalities among those franchise concepts that were finding the show successful when I talked with them:

1. They were all based on or near the West Coast.
2. They had all mentioned that they had spent time prior to the show encouraging prospective franchisees to come to the show.

We always hear about how important brand recognition is for business. It turns out that it's also good for franchise expos. The local attendees had likely heard of most of the West Coast-based concepts prior to stepping foot on the show floor. They may have even visited a location or utilized their services before. This previous experience and knowledge likely made attendees more apt to stop by these concepts.

Now that doesn't mean that non-local franchise concepts are automatically going to have a less successful show experience. The second commonality, promoting your appearance at the show, plays a large part as well -especially for those brands with weaker recognition among attendees. Reaching out to prospective attendees beforehand gives any franchise -regardless of where they are based- the opportunity to introduce their concept and entice attendees to stop by their booth to continue the conversation.

I learned a lot of things at this year's West Coast Franchise Expo, but this one was big: brand recognition goes a long way, but targeted pre-show promotion can take you just as far, if not further.


-- Troy Schwehr (Connect with me on LinkedIn.)