Meeting Expectations - 10 Best Practices to Help Your Growing Franchise Get More From Your Annual Convention
By Rick Cornish

Many successful franchised brands originate from humble beginnings: An entrepreneur creates a replicable business model and chooses to grow through franchising. At first, most work gets done in-house, by people wearing many hats, who work long hours to build the brand.

So, when the first annual convention rolls around, it’s natural to start with that same "do-it-yourself" approach. But as the franchise grows, the meeting’s cost, size and complexity also increase proportionally. And as the cost rises, so do expectations-both from franchise leaders (who expect a tangible ROI from their meeting investment) and from franchisees (whose expectations may have been shaped by business meetings they attended in corporate America). That "homemade" approach to your annual meeting-which seemed fitting when you had 20 to 30 attendees—may no longer meet the needs of either your franchise leadership or your attendees.

If you’re still taking a "mom and pop" approach to your meeting, it might be time for a change. The following best practices, gathered from more than 20 years of planning and executing successful franchise conventions, can raise the bar on your annual meeting experience - and with it, the results your convention produces for your brand.

1. Make the commitment.
Business changes are upon us with increasing frequency, so start by making the commitment to meet every year. If your franchise has a slow season, that’s usually the best time to meet, so you’re not pulling franchise owners away from their businesses during their busiest time. There’s another reason to meet at the same time every year: recognition. If you have an annual awards program, synchronize the awards calendar with your annual convention date so you can announce winners at your meeting.

2. Choose wisely.
Book the location and venue for your convention at least a year in advance. It may seem advantageous to hold your meeting in your headquarters city (making it less expensive for home office staff to attend), but if you’re not located in a major convention destination, it may discourage franchisees from attending. Major convention destinations have the advantages of "lift" (many flights from all over the country) and plenty of good meeting venues and competition (which holds prices down). If you look at the total cost-both for the franchisor and franchisees-Las Vegas or Orlando may actually turn out to be less expensive than Milwaukee.

3. Set goals
Set two kinds of goals for your meeting: emotional goals and performance goals. Emotional goals could include reinforcing your franchisees’ confidence in the home office team, reaffirming their pride in your brand and getting them excited about future plans. Performance goals help you address parts of your business that are under-performing. Identify which Key Performance Indicators are lagging, then use those "areas for improvement" to suggest topics for breakouts. In the following year, take another look at those same KPIs and see if there’s been a change -especially between the franchisees who attended your meeting and those who did not.

4. Communicate.
Communicate early and often. Use your closing banquet to announce the dates and location of your next convention. Then work to drive attendance all year long through all forms of communication you have available. If you invite suppliers to attend, you’ll want to make similar efforts with them. Stay in touch with your venue as your agenda and attendance count begin to take shape. And, no matter how many people are on your team, it pays to share information and communicate often. We like to hold regular status meetings over the course of the year. Meetings are held every couple of months to start, then gradually more often, until we have a meeting every week in the month leading up to convention.

Set two kinds of goals for your meeting.