Planning Your Franchise Convention: Best Practices

August 31, 2015

What’s the secret to successful meetings? People who know how to create memorable events.

By Mark Liston, CFE

It is easy for me to share how to have a great convention: Delegate the planning to Debbie or Shirley!

Debbie Hood has handled reunions for The Dwyer Group for the past 34 years. Shirley Witt has handled all Glass Doctor events for as long as I can remember.

But let’s say that hiring either of them is not an option. Let’s break it down to simplify the process so that you can have your best convention or conference in memory. I’ll share some failures and success that I’ve had in my career.

Location

Look at your franchise network. Is there a central location that will appeal to most? If you have franchisees across the country, you’ll want to alternate regional locations each year to make it convenient for at least half of your network each year. The good news is, there are affordable venues on both coasts and in the middle of the country.

Let me give you an example. At Glass Doctor we typically had a series of regional meetings. In 2014 we decided to have a Glass Doctor “only” event in addition to The Dwyer Group’s annual event. Here was our dilemma:

It was going to be a late March event — six months from the Dwyer Reunion.
We wanted a “central” location to attract franchisees from Alaska as well as New York.
Find a city that would be a draw. This meant that it had to be somewhere in the central United States that was a destination your franchisees might not otherwise visit, but were curious to do so nonetheless.
Make it so that it would be a fairly warm climate.
Discover a city that had an international airport — where direct flights might be possible.

We chose New Orleans. Everyone should visit this city at least once — regardless if you go to the French Quarter. We had a great turnout.

Secret Sauce

After being at Glass Doctor for five years I always wondered how Shirley was able to pick just the right venue. Recently she shared her “secret sauce.” It was Helms Briscoe. This is exactly the expertise some companies need.

Debbie Hood, with her extensive experience, doesn’t need to use a company like Helms Briscoe. She has plenty of experience working in a variety of venues throughout the United States. Over the years she has built a close relationship with the folks at Marriott and they provide one of the partnerships any meeting planner with Debbie’s background needs, however, she looks at all properties to find the best fit at the best value for The Dwyer Group.

This year more than 1,700 will meet at the new J.W. Marriott Austin. Debbie finds that being able to negotiate non-commissionable rates saves Dwyer Group franchisees money. She has also learned to never give a “per night” guarantee. Instead, give the hotel a per event guarantee and extend the convention room rates three days before the event starts and three days after it ends.

Both Debbie and Shirley are sticklers when it comes to the contract. Make sure whatever you want you have clarified in the contract. Anything and everything. Don’t assume. You will lose.

Agenda

Tips on creating a winning agenda:

Have a convention agenda committee made up of franchisees.
Focus on what your franchisees want,sprinkled with the message you want to deliver.
Round tables are magic — provide multiple opportunities for franchisees to attend the ones you think will be most popular.
Repeat that subject if you think this is a major topic.
Try and have a franchisee moderate the roundtable or be a subject matter expert.
Franchisees want to learn from each other — not from you.
Publish the agenda as soon as possible.
If you charge for the event, offer discounts for early registration.
Find an “affordable” hotel — or have some in close proximity to the event for those who just won’t stay at the convention hotel. We typically book one main hotel in order to use all of the sleeping rooms that we commit to and our goal is to make sure our reunion hotel is at a reasonable rate and that we keep our group together as much as possible. However, there are cases that we have a need for overflow rooms as we fill our main reunion hotel.

Fun Event

We all want to believe that our franchisees are coming to our conferences to see us and learn from us, don’t we? Guess again! Franchisees come to conventions to see their good friends, absorb what the best franchisees are doing, and if they learn something from the folks at corporate, it is a plus.

Plan an event that will encourage franchisees to mix, mingle and have fun with one another. You’ll want to make sure it is as inclusive, versus exclusive, as possible. For instance, some people don’t drink. Going to a bar where there is a mechanical bull everyone can ride is nice for a few — but not for most.

You can certainly have a cash bar available, but don’t have the evening revolve around it. Dances and bands at a business meeting where spouses will likely not be there are a bad idea. You thought your seventh grade dance was awkward… this could be worse!

Remember what was fun as a kid: scavenger hunts, game tables and trivia contests in groups are fun, and give folks a chance to win on small teams. You want to promote interaction among franchise owners, and these are good choices.

Early on I thought I was brilliant and helping put together a fun event. I finally got over my bad self and learned to turn this over to someone else.

In New Orleans, Shirley found a steamboat that went out from the downtown docks. It included food, drinks and great views. A little chilly but an event that everyone loved. It also gave our vendors a chance to mix with their customers in a different arena than at their booths. Great success!

Vendors

Speaking of vendors, if you’ve never been a vendor, put yourself in their shoes.They spend a bundle of money, drag displays, brochures, knick-knacks, and several people across the country with the hopes of getting more business. To top things off, your franchisor asks you for some money to help sponsor the event.

Makes one want to pull out the checkbook, right?

We finally figured out what works for vendors and for our franchisees. We gave vendors an entire day to meet with franchisees. Nothing else was happening. No training. No meetings. Nothing. The day was theirs to train, teach, and have seminars or whatever they wanted. In addition, we offered a limited number of rooms, for a small additional charge, they could rent for a full day or half a day for private seminars and hands-on training sessions.

Some showed new products. Others gave seminars on how to use their products. Others simply appreciated a place to have private conversations.

The end result — home run! Finally, vendors understood we wanted them to walk away with more business and we did everything we could to help them get the time they needed to get it done.

Make it Memorable

Have you done this? Buy a bunch of stuff to put on the meeting tables first thing in the morning for the franchisees to take home with them? Even by keeping the budget to a couple dollars per day we end up spending thousands of dollars only to find a bunch of stuff left on tables. Then you schlep all of your stuff back to your office and put it in a cabinet somewhere to use as a giveaway for future events or for your kids.

What about T-shirts? We give away T-shirts with the theme of the event and the year, in the hopes that our “one-size fits all” shirts will be treasured forever by our franchisees as a way to remember your wonderful event. Not long ago, I found over a dozen of these in my closet. Most of them never even worn.

Find a specialty advertising company who understands how to do events like this and ask for their recommendations. Want some ideas? Look in the bags that we get at next year’s IFA Convention and steal someone else’s idea! Some winners in recent years include USB chargers, smart phone credit card holders and luggage identifiers. Useful, memorable and appreciated. Oh, let me not forget your brand bobble heads. A sure winner!

Budget

I learned this one the hard way. In 1984 I was in charge of the franchisor’s annual convention where I was working. I was young, stupid and not even close to qualified to pulling this off.

I didn’t understand the meaning of a “budget.” We gave away a car, hot air balloon rides, separate trips with the president of the company and vice president in the Bahamas where the both chartered yachts they each could sail with a franchisee.

Sound expensive? Oh, it was! I missed the budget by more than $100,000. Franchisees I talk to who attended that event still talk about it. I’m certain they all wondered if we were good stewards of their royalty fees given this is how we spent money.

Fortunately, I’ve been to many successful conventions over the years that I’ll never forget. The reason is there was an expert in charge.

Find someone in your organization who will make your event memorable. Encourage them to reach out via social media (i.e. FranSocial) to solicit ideas from successful event coordinators.

But remember, you can’t have Debbie and Shirley!

Mark Liston, CFE, is president of Glass Doctor. Find him at fransocial.franchise.org.