Everyone knows that because of the internet we search and learn about things increasingly differently, can many people remember these days what you did before running a search engine query to learn about a subject? The fact is when we are potentially going to do anything we search online first, so with this in mind are franchise exhibitions a good investment of time & money these days?
Being involved in franchising for almost 20 years I remember the days when exhibitions had hundreds of Franchisors, a huge choice of business with high footfall but this has been steadily declining and in my opinion will continue to fall.
So are all franchise exhibitions doomed? Well certainly long-term I have to say yes but there are some advantages of exhibitions.
From the Franchisors they get a lot of PR & hype from shows. I am not sure if it’s misplaced but also some kudos as well as franchise exhibitions are extremely expensive, not just stand costs but staff, hotels, travel etc so prospects believe that the Franchisor attending should be more financial stable. The downside to Franchisors is that it’s a huge cost, if the show gets a poor attendance or a franchise is not sold a large amount of the franchise recruitment budget can be wasted, it’s a big risk!
From the potential Franchisee’s point of view they usually get in free and can ask questions directly to Franchisors without the need to go through a formal recruitment process, they can also get a better feel for what the franchise is about and if it’s right for them. The downside to potential Franchisee’s is that Franchisor attendance is quite low these days, many stands are taken by media partners and companies that want to sell their services to Franchisors so the choice of franchise opportunities can be very limited unlike a search engine!
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