Written by M. SCOTT MORRIS
Finding the right franchise prospects is a top priority but far from easy. At the 2025 FLDC, a panel of franchise professionals explored how to attract quality candidates in a changing market.
Moderator Jayson Pearl, president of Service-Score, set the stage: “Our topic is around lead engagement, identifying and profiling the right target for the brand. How do we reach them? And how do we engage and convert them?” Panelists included Bert Lane, vice president of franchise sales for Zaxbys, Paul Pickett, COO and executive vice president of Wild Birds Unlimited, and Gage Hagedorn, director of business development and growth for Pearle Vision.
Lane emphasized defining the ideal prospect before engagement. He recalled flying a team to California to meet a multi-unit operator with 80 restaurants because he was considering converting to Zaxbys. After visiting the operator’s neglected stores, Lane knew the deal was off. “If they had entered the market the way they were running their current portfolio, we would have never been able to go back into Southern California because it would have scarred the brand,” he said. “And so the cost to go out there? Priceless.”
Hagedorn said franchise marketing has evolved from broadcast to conversation. “People want to be contacted and receive the information very quickly,” he said. AI automation now plays a growing role, delivering quick responses and freeing teams to do more personalized follow-up.
Pickett tackled the issue of unresponsive prospects. “If you ghost me, I’ll go crazy, and I will hunt you down like a dog,” he joked. Still, empathy guides his approach. “It’s a big deal to make a decision to put a lot of money into something,” he said. His team never calls contacts “dead,” only “not right now.” As he explained, “I don’t hate dead leads campaigns. I hate when people call them dead leads. It makes me crazy. It’s just not the right time.”