The Truth About Getting High-Quality Leads: A Lesson from Franchises

Is anyone struggling to get leads? Or more specifically, high-quality leads? I’m about to drop a truth bomb that might be hard for some to handle.

For some reason, if you don’t own a franchise, you often grow up in business despising franchises. Am I right? Independent companies generally do not like franchise companies. It's weird, but it's true. As an independent business owner, I found myself in the same mindset.

Why is this? I think it comes down to several things, but one of them is pride. When you don’t own a franchise, you feel like, “I’m doing this all on my own,” and somehow equate that to being better than a franchise. I know, it's weird. Ha ha.

Interestingly, a lot of franchise owners don’t like being in a franchise because they have to give 8-10% of all their revenue to the franchisor, which can get old. But today, I want to give a shoutout to franchises because, whether you like them or not, they do some things very well—many things crucial to success.

The Power of Investment

One thing I want to quickly discuss is the notion of investing. Franchisors REQUIRE their franchisees to invest a minimum of $40-50k in advertising to start up and the same minimum every year. This is so important. Why do they do this? This is on top of the franchise fee, startup costs of equipment, tools, overhead, vehicles, etc.

Here is why: 82% of small businesses fail because of cash flow problems. They run out of money. If you are the owner of your business, your #1 job is TO NOT RUN OUT OF MONEY!!!

So why do franchisors require their people to spend more money than they have to start with? Isn’t this negative cash flow? Well, yeah…but another way of saying it is INVESTING.

Understanding True Investment

Everyone thinks they know the definition of investing, but only a handful truly UNDERSTAND what it means. I’m about to weed out the Pros from the Amateurs!

If you truly understood what investing means, you wouldn’t be saying things like:

• “I can’t afford to pay an inexperienced worker that”

• “I can’t afford to do direct mail”

• “I can’t afford to hire an office manager”

• “I can’t afford to wrap my van”

• “I can’t afford to spend $5k/mo on advertising”

Because if you’re saying those things, you think that investing is the same as spending. You think those things COST you money. In reality, they MAKE you money. That’s the definition of an investment.

Franchises and Competitive Advantage

This is why franchises have a competitive advantage when getting started. They require their people to INVEST. Listen, if you want to be a million-dollar company, you better start acting like one. It doesn’t matter what your specific goals are. The point is, you’ll never become who you want to be if you don’t start acting like who you want to be.

You want leads? You want a marketing machine that gives you 2, 3, 5, even 10 times what you put into it? Then you better be ready to invest! That is leverage. To build a business, you need to take risks, including financial risks.

The Reality of Business Growth

15% of revenue is how much you need to be prepared to INVEST if you want to grow your business. You can’t sit around waiting for leads to come in. You gotta pay to play! For your first million in sales, you need to be prepared to invest $150k into advertising. That’s $12,500/mo!!

No one spending that kind of money every month is slow with leads right now. This is not a SECRET. This is REALITY. Successful business owners are risking, spending, and investing in their business every single week. They are not waiting for the phone to ring; they are making the phone ring.

Take a Page from Franchises

Whether you like or dislike franchises, they do a lot of things right, and one of them is requiring their people to invest. Take a page out of their book and require yourself to invest. No excuses. This is a requirement of being a business owner. If you can’t afford to take risks, then maybe you shouldn’t be doing this.

Find the money. Business line of credit, credit cards, rich uncles, I don’t care. But you can’t use the excuse “I can’t afford to invest in my business.” I’m telling you, whoever can outspend their competition in marketing is going to win.

All the reasons to charge a premium price… remember it's not that you can’t afford to advertise… you can’t afford not to.

-Ryan Lee

# high-quality leads, lead generation, business investment, franchise success, small business growth, marketing investment, financial risk, business strategy #