Why Your Franchise Business Is Losing Customers (According To Alec Baldwin)

Can you guess which classic 90’s movie has this synopsis?

When an office full of real estate salesmen is given the news that all but the top two will be fired at the end of the week, the atmosphere begins to heat up. 

That would be Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey and Alec Baldwin in David Mamet’s award winning stage play turned major motion picture, Glengarry Glen Ross.

If you ever wondered what it’s like for salespeople to be pitted against each other in a contest to sell the most plots of land, this masterpiece can teach you many lessons about sales. It’s a must watch for any business owner.

One lesson from the film is the phenomenon of lead quality.

If you’re a franchisee, you’ve no doubt dealt with this issue before. From fitness studios to health clinics to home repair shops to senior care services, it can be difficult for your franchise location to discern between these primary customer archetypes:

1. Suspects (all the people in your target market)
2. Prospects (people who took action to solve their problem)
3. Leads (people with the ability to buy)
4. Opportunities (people who are ready to buy)

The fated “Glengarry Leads,” if you remember from the film, are the hot leads, aka, opportunities. As the characters discuss:

These are premium leads that don't come right out of the phonebook. They're not deadbeats with money in their mattresses. There are only five thousand of them, but if you can get on the phone with just one of them, you can close them. 

The language in the movie is harsh, but here’s the sales principle is still worth gleaning:


The higher quality your leads are, the easier and faster you can acquire new customers and ultimately raise profits. 

Improving Lead Quality

Now, every franchise has its own unique definition of strong potential clients. Numerous factors will come into play, such as timeframe, geography, net worth, personality, needs, demographics, and so on. But odds are, that profile has already been researched by your parent franchise organization by the time you get your location up and running. 

The question is, how can your business acquire more of those high quality customers? The Glengarry Leads, as it were?

In our experience working with hundreds of franchises nationwide, the key to doing so is using strong verification and automation technology. As soon as you receive an inbound request through your contact form on your website, your franchise should reach out to that person right away. 

Not within hours or minutes, but within seconds. 

That may sound dramatic to you, but it’s amazing how quickly a sale can be lost, simply by not returning calls or emails with a reasonable degree of speed. As one of our clients, Christian Brothers Automotive once said: 

“You may not be able to close a deal in the first five minutes, but you can definitely lose a deal that quickly.”

The good news is, FranFunnel users see a contact rate of 35-50%, compared to an average of about 20% without texting. Our data shows that starting real conversations with leads via sms is the most effective form of initial contact available. And if you’re not using a technology like this to get the most deals out of your leads, then you’re missing out. 

Matter of fact, so are the customers. Because the reason they reached out to your franchise in the first place is because they have a problem to solve. A backyard to clean, a deck to repair, a truck to fix, a body to rebuild, and so on. You are the solution to that problem, so why not leave no doubt in people’s minds that they’ve made the best decision by texting them instantly?

Save Yourself Time By Automating Outreach

As a franchisee, we understand it’s not always practical to call a lead the second it arrives in your inbox. You’re wearing twelve hats, maybe talking on the phone, out of the office, solving an employee issue, fixing a building problem, or it’s simply after business hours. It’s a tough job and we want to make it easier for you.

Sadly, we can’t assure you will win the fated Cadillac or a set of steak knives like Alec Baldwin promised.

But if your franchise has a proven lead conversion system in order to garner the highest quality candidates, everybody wins.

Your business, the customer, and the franchise organization.

If you want to learn how to turbocharge your sales efforts without increasing your workload, and show returns, schedule a demo with FranFunnel. We’re confident that it will quickly become one of your enterprise's best investments.

Coffee may be for closers, but FranFunnel is for openers AND closers.

Scott Ginsberg is Head of Content at FranFunnel. His doesn't have a favorite Alec Baldwin film because all of them are amazing.