Start With A Win - Franchise Marketing with Madeleine Zook

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

Marketing is incredibly important in business and franchising.  Madeleine Zook dives deep in to how franchises market, key points on customer experience, and other fun franchise conversations on this episode of Start With a Win.  Madeleine Zook is a multi-unit, multi-brand franchisee, former franchisor, and current marketing supplier. She's the host of the award-winning franchise podcast, The Art of Franchise Marketing, and has landed coverage in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fortune, and INC. She is also the founder of a 501(c)3 nonprofit called Together She Can, which strives to help homeless communities with hygiene care. Main Topics02:36 Give Back to your Community/Charities 05:38 Biggest Challenge in Home Service Franchisees07:32 Three components of business08:24 What do people want, a paycheck, NO!13:00 Number #1 thing people want15:00 Is good enough, ok?17:39 Need a wow factor, an unexpected gift, a gesture!19:44 The BIG AH HA moment21:00 Lead generation success today23:50 How many times does a customer need to see your ad before they say YES? Connect with Madeleine Zook:www.togethershecan.orgwww.linkedin.com/in/mpark141/https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-art-of-franchise-marketing/id1651430743www.netsertive.com Connect with Adam: http://www.startwithawin.comhttps://www.facebook.com/AdamContosCEO https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamcontos/ https://www.instagram.com/adamcontosceo/ https://www.youtube.com/@LeadershipFactoryhttp://twitter.com/AdamContosCEO  Listen, rate, and subscribe!Apple PodcastsSpotifyGoogle Podcasts

What's one of the top things you should be thinking about in your business today? Marketing? Is it? Do people know who you are? Let's talk about that today on Start With A Win. Welcome to Start With A Win, where we talk franchising, leadership, and business growth. Let's go. And coming to you from Start With A Win headquarters in Denver, Colorado, it's Adam Kantos with Start With A Win. I have an amazing guest on today, Madeline Zuck. She's a multi-unit, multi-brand franchisee, former franchisor, current marketing supplier in the franchise space for NetSertive. Madeline, welcome to Start With A Win. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Awesome. Hey, first of all, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Madeline Zuck, who are you? Where do you come from? What do you do? So I am the child of franchising, I like to say. So I worked as a franchisor on the marketing side for about a decade. When I was there, I met my husband, who is a franchisee. We now own four different franchise brands in the Philadelphia area. Depending on how you carve up territory, we have anywhere between five and 50 locations, lots of qualified households in the Philly area. And then I've also somehow migrated to the

supplier side now. So I help franchise brands with their marketing, learn how to localize, grow at scale. So I've really seen franchising as a whole. Outside of that, mom of three, have a newborn, dog lover, retired professional basketball player, which is some people like to. Wow. Fun fact there. And I also own a nonprofit that helps homeless communities with hygiene care. So we take all of those used toiletries you get on the road, those hotels, and we package them up and give them to people in need. So very busy. And what's the name of your charity that you run?

It's called Together She Can. Together She Can. And if people want to get just go straight to that, if people want to send something to Together She Can. Together She Can. And if people want to get, just go straight to that. If people want to send something to Together She Can, where do they find that? TogetherSheCan.org. 501-63. And, you know, we accept, I think the best part is we don't really need your money. We just need all of those toiletries that you no longer need.

Awesome. Well, here's, and just on a side note here, folks, and, you know, playing in the franchising and business and things like that, we can always be finding ways to help, which we should in our communities. And frankly, serving franchisees, franchisees, franchises on the road. When I was with Remax, in fact, 2019, I did 250 days on the road. And what we do commonly is collect all those extra shampoo, soaps, the toiletries, things like that in hotels that you stay in. And even if you go to the front counter and say, hey, I'm going to give a few more of these to a local charity. They're great for, you know, the charity we're talking about here or the local battered women's shelter or something like that.

Please make sure you do that as well as the homeless groups that help people maintain hygiene. It's really important and important to give back to the community. Let's jump into business though. You have an extensive business background, franchisee, franchisor, you know, or region owner, developer, things like that. You wake up in the morning, you're like, here's what I have to do now. What business aspect are you in today? So the good thing about my husband and I, we've been able to separate the job roles pretty well because I know being in business with anyone, let alone the someone you share a bed with can be pretty tricky at times. So he's really operations manager. He handles the day-to-day, answering emails, dealing with the vendors or the staff.

And then I am in charge of marketing and sales. So because with franchising and especially home services, we've been around for quite a while, I think 15 years total now. So we have a pretty good grasp on the neighborhood. So in terms of running our marketing, it's pretty much an automated system now. So I'm keeping tabs on making sure that the spend is right, nothing's broken, that sort of thing, maybe helping with content here or there. But the best thing about franchise ownership is we've built it enough that we have the freedom. So in that, I also am the director of marketing at NetSertif, which supplies marketing software for franchisees. So that's really what I'm focused on day marketing at NetSertif, which supplies marketing software for franchisees. So that's really what I'm focused on day to day.

And I think what's really great about that is part of my job is to always learn about what's working and what's not on the marketing front consumer wise and also specifically in franchising. So I'm talking to different brands ranging from, you know, a pizza hut all the way down to, you know, a pet mobile pet grooming company on a daily basis. And just really learning about what works in local communities, but at a grander scale. So that's kind of what I'm deep into every day. Awesome. And what is your franchise brand that you own?

We own Made Pros, which is our biggest one, which is home cleaning. We have Catio Patrol, which is mosquito and tick control. We have Men in Kilts, which is the exterior cleaning where the cleaners wear the kilts. And then we have our newest one is Closetivity, which is custom closets and built-ins. Wow. And my understanding is, you know, given the economy, people are moving a little bit less now that interest rates went up. Because why would you move away from like a two and a half percent interest rate to go get a seven percent interest rate on your house? So a lot of people are putting money into their house. So the home services franchises are really blowing up right now. Tell us what what do you see as your biggest challenge in marketing in those particular in that space and those brands? So I think the biggest thing right now is one, which you'll hear all the time is marketing for

new employees because everyone provides benefits now. Everyone provides, you know, the 15, 16, 17, all the way up to $25 an hour. So it's, it's how do you compete with that? And everyone has also learned you need to market for your culture. So now it's how do you stand out when everyone's offering incredible benefits? I mean, I've drove by, you know, a Burger King sign that was like, every new employee gets an iPad. And I was like, well, I can't afford that. So now you're, you know, you're competing with a pool of people who do you want to clean clean toilets all day or do you want to work at a cashier in Target? So it's that sort of rub there where the competition, everyone's competing for the same pool of applicants, which is tricky. So it's hard to make the marketing dollars go a long way when you're in that kind of high competition there. In terms of consumers, they're just,

consumers are just smart and they're just not ready to push a button on purchase right away. So what we originally were seeing as three to five touch points until you get a conversion or a sale, we're now looking at like seven to 10. So, and that doesn't necessarily mean

that your budget goes up a couple percent to meet that. So what are the ways that doesn't necessarily mean that your budget goes up, you know, a couple percent to meet that. So what are the ways that you're going to build the most creative marketing strategies to increase touch points, but also convert? So that's been, that's been a, just an ongoing, ongoing thing. But now, you know, with all of the TikTok and the social medias and the paid and the organic, it's definitely getting tricky. Awesome. And that was a great flyover of the different components of really what a business is.

It's sales, it's marketing, and it's people. Sure. You know, really, it's those three things. And we tie a brand, we tie a system to it, we tie group purchasing, we tie, you know, the power of the network, things like that, and franchising to those three components in order to build a franchise network, as well as, you know, kind of that overall framework for operation. like National Restaurant Association says that is the number one challenge of restaurants in this day and age. And, you know, listening to yourself and frankly, talking to any business, recruiting good talent and retaining it, reducing your churn rate, you know, hiring A players, things like that is a big deal. How does marketing fit into that? Because what do employees want?

First of all, they want a paycheck, but is a paycheck number one in what they want? No, it's statistically listed as number seven. It was as high as number four at one point, but it's like seven-ish now. They want a great culture, a place they can get better, a place they can be happy and have friends, and someplace that fits their passion and joy doing. How do you address the current trends in your marketing to gather good people? I think the first and foremost, before we even get to marketing, is you have to walk

the walk. You can't say you have this great culture and not do it because people are going to research you. Maybe they call current employees, depending on where you are. You got to make sure you're doing it and you can't just market it. Right. That's a little bait and switch there. Right.

Second is you have to understand who you're marketing to, which is, you know, the classic persona. But the same thing is with employees. You know, there is a difference between a manager person and maybe a tech. So when you're, when you're, you know, thinking about your employees, you have to also think, well, where are they, where are they going to find jobs? Where are they gathering their information? So, you know, the, the, the place you market is going to change. And then I would say, you have to be very thoughtful about the places you're going to market to. Of course, you can run ads that a ton of people are going to see, but I also understand that people want the A players, right? Are the A players unemployed

right now? No. A players are not sitting around going, oh, I want a job. I can't get employed. No, A players are employed. I've talked to a lot of recruiting franchises and they said, no, look, you have to go and look for the people that are passively looking. And that means using networks, calling up people, seeing if they are comfortable in their job. And yeah, it sounds a little sleazy.

It sounds a little like I'm going to steal people away, but you're leaving it in their hands. So how you do that, it's going to vary by region, but understanding that A players are not just out there waiting to apply. When it comes to kind of the rest of them, yeah, sure. You're going, you have to do the Indeeds, you have to do the Facebook marketplaces. But we really need to be diligent in how you hire. I see people run like the automated Facebook ads, and then they set up the automated responses. And then they get mad when people don't show up for the interviews, or they're not a great candidate. I'm like, well, you're having a robot interview them. Like, how do you think they're going to feel? Right. Remembering, yeah. Remembering to put yourself on the other side of the table and understanding what is that person going to want? What do they need? And where are they? And where are they going

to go to get a new job? Where are they working currently? And thinking that way, other than me, me, me, look what I can provide to you. I'm so great. It's definitely going to be a more tactical strategy and probably more effective in getting those A, B players. You know, it's fascinating when we look at that old quote, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And I think that's, you know, you're talking about that experience and not just the customer experience, which is important for the people who are out there in the job marketplace. And even as you said, A players already have jobs, you have to go get them. Well, guess what? A customers already have providers,

we have to go get them. So it's essentially the same thing. We're recruiting customers, we're recruiting employees. And I was in this business masterclass a couple of weeks ago, and we talked about this. We spent an entire day dealing with recruiting and marketing to people to get them to gain. And it was fascinating because it was tied right into customer acquisition. So the funny part was you hire a couple of A players and they will go get the rest of the A players for you. Yep. Exactly. But if you hire B players, they will go get C players for you. I love that. It's so true. So it's totally true. And then guess what happens to your culture? It starts going down. So it's fascinating. But enough about people because

we know we should have a waiting line. And believe it or not, I do have some franchisees who have a waiting line for people to work in their franchise. Why? One thing, leadership. The leadership is off the charts in how they deliver that personal recognition and attention, that appreciation that everybody desires, which by the way, folks, we talked about pay being number seven, personal attention and appreciation is number one in the organization. Also, for those of you that want a statistic around this, LinkedIn actually did a survey and people, number one thing that people like when they join a business is culture. What do they want in the culture? They want to be helped to get better. They want a culture of personal growth and development, which is also a culture of

encouragement that plays into that personal attention and appreciation. So what do we want? We want to be better. What do we sell a product or service for to help somebody be better? It's interesting. All of this ties together. The customer journey and the employee journey, very similar. The recruitment process is the same as the marketing process. We're recruiting customers. So I want to flip the paradigm and go to that. How are you seeing customer acquisition go in this day and age?

And what's different about it, say, pre-pandemic or the evolution of the whole process? So there wasn't, and I say this lately, there wasn't much change pre and post pandemic in terms of what consumers are looking for. Sure, trends change in terms of what they're purchasing. But in terms of, especially, you know, my expertise of the home services, homes are still getting dirty. People are still getting bit by mosquitoes, you know, my expertise of the home services, homes are still getting dirty. People are still getting bit by mosquitoes, you know, that sort of thing changes. What I would say though, is that it used to be such a big marketing ploy to just be good at your job, right? We provided, we provide excellent service, a hundred percent satisfactory guarantee. Like cool. Customers expect that now. And if you don't give, I would dare to even say, if you don't give 110% every job, you are probably going to get a bad

review or no review at all. So that's what I've really changed. I've seen change in the market is that no longer is good enough. Okay. Good enough is bad. Good is average. You have to be great to continue to see that customer come back to leave a review. You have to go above and beyond just to keep your customers and use that to, you know, get maybe their referrals in the future. So we're constantly looking at ways to add, you know, some sort of bonus that blows their socks away, but isn't a huge operational lift. You know, maybe we buy a box of dog treats and we leave, you know, a treat for the dog. You know, everyone loves the UPS man that brings a treat.

So that sort of thing, which is, it's hard when it's day in and day out and you've got, you know, anywhere between five and 20 jobs in a day and you always have to bring that sparkle. I mean, that's going to wear on anyone. So being able to market that. And like I said, walk the walk, you have to provide that exemplary service, um, in order for any of your marketing to continue working, because it just takes one bad review. It takes, you know, it takes to, to, to bring down the whole system. So I think that that's what I'm seeing now is that customers were needy, were picky, and quite frankly, we're just very self-absorbed. Oh yeah. I mean, it's, it's a tough pill to swallow, but you're absolutely correct. It's,

it's fascinating when you think about that. It makes me think back to some of the franchise organizations that I've hired in the past. And our wife and I had a period where we were extremely busy traveling. So what we would do is we would have a chef come in and do meal prep at our house and leave it in the fridge. And it was interesting because there are a lot of services that do this. You can have stuff delivered to your front door. You can have people come in your house and prep things like that. We loved what our chef did for us. The food was great, but it was still food.

And it was easy to prepare in five, 10 minutes or whatever in the evening. But she would also leave a flower or something like that every time she came to the house. That was that little extra wow bit of love that she and her business would deliver to the customers and it made a difference. Nobody else in the space was doing that. So what is that little extra wow item? And obviously not all companies are going into people's houses.

The men in kilts, I don't know what extra wow they can deliver on the job site, but maybe there's something like they took and cleaned the front window or something before they left. Who knows what it is? Is this something we're starting to see more of, the little unexpected gift, or is it something you recommend? Because I frankly, I mean, it makes me feel great as a consumer. Well, it definitely goes back to even just the hiring is, you know, people want to feel seen. They want to feel special. They want recognition when customers are spending even a single dollar, you know, they want to know that it's, it's a hard earned dollar, no matter where it came from, legally speaking, is, is, you know, they want to, they want to get what they're what they're expecting.

And then if they see that dollar go a little extra mile, it just makes them feel, and this is not the right word, but it makes them feel comfortable. It makes it brings more of a human element to it rather than just the traditional Amazon exchange money box on my doorstep, money box on my doorstep. So when we're bringing kind of that human value to it, whether you are providing a product, a swing set, a cleaning a window, you know, there's always something, excuse me, that you can do that brings that human value. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a gift. You know, we had, I think our lawn guy came yesterday and he spent a couple extra minutes just petting the dog.

People like to work with people. And we forget that because we've got the computers, the Zoom, like I said, the Amazon. So making sure that you're remembering to bring the human to whatever you may be selling, I think is something that's here to stay because as we continue to automate you here, AI, AI, AI, what's going to make people different now is people. And maybe that changes again in the future as trends change and we go, you know, back and forth between humans and robots. But I think that that I highly recommend it. And I think that that is another thing that, you know, consumers are just going to continue looking for because life is not getting any slower, you know, so that little extra touch will go a long way. What's going to make people

different is people. That's one of those big aha moments. I think everybody needs to write that down. And ultimately, you know, it is about people. You mentioned AI. And it's funny because, you know, we want AI to do, we want AI to act like people. Right. So it's fascinating because that familiarity builds the trust and then we're more connected. We're more likely to do business. Real quick, I want to switch gears to lead generation. So we talk about small business, lead generation, franchising, things like that. Number one thing you're using, seeing whatever for generating new leads. And just to set this up, we did a grand opening

a week ago at one of our new franchises, Food Concept out in Scottsdale. And we generated leads with QR codes. We generated about 3,000 potential future customers with QR codes. We're knocking down 40 or 50 a day. Some days we had to have hundreds of people sign up to find out about our business coming because of the way we pre-marketed the grand opening. And then it was like, we blew it out of the water on the grand opening and still have a great deal of momentum going. So that was purely generated by people pulling out their phone and taking a picture of our QR code. What are you seeing as far as lead generation success in this day and age? Any quick recommendations for anybody that can make a tweak in their business? Yeah, again, I would say, you know, put yourself in your consumer shoes. So, you know, you've got a great new restaurant coming and you've got maybe some vans driving around. You food is on the corner? If you're opening a plumbing business,

probably not going to get hundreds of QR codes being like, oh, a new plumbing business is coming to town. You know, that sort of understanding, you know, setting realistic goals around that. And lead generation wise, I mean, if you are not on the digital landscape, I don't care if you hate social media. I don't care if you're a TikTok influencer. You have to be there because if you're not going to be there, your competitor is going to be there and people can't buy from someone that they don't know exists. So you have to be there to pay. I know it's like pay to play. It's super annoying. Trust me, I get it. But the fact of the matter is you have to be where people are. And once you're in front of them, then you can kind of start to get the data and decide let's build, you know, more goals. How do we, how do we scale this up? How do we scale this down in home services for our seasonal businesses,

yard signs work. And we're not talking 80, we're talking 800. Sure. That seems ridiculous, but people drive by, they're getting bit by mosquitoes in a park, they see all your yard signs, they give you a call, that sort of thing. And direct mail still does well in home services. But again, honestly, the direct mail probably wouldn't have done very well for your QSR because people see it, they have a fridge full of food and they're like, oh, that's good, that's great. But they're on the road, they're hungry, you know. So understanding, you know, where those customers are and you have to digitally you have to be there. What my recommendation quick for people listening is, you know, have your bulk of your budget be in digital, have maybe a fourth or a fifth of it to the other traditional means. And obviously this can change depending on your industry. But, you know, fourth or fifth, maybe it's a co-op mailer, a yard sign, and then leave a tiny bit

of your budget to experiment. Maybe you do want to try a regional influencer. Maybe you want to try a CTV ad. You can run a Hulu ad for as low as, you know, 50 bucks a day now, which is crazy for people to think about. So leave room for experimentation, but digital is gonna be your bread and butter no matter what you're selling. And digital being Facebook ads, Instagram. Primarily Google, you gotta be on Google. Google, okay.

And then social media as well. And what I also like, I said, my word of the month is patience. Mind you, personally, I have none, but patience in business, you can't expect to turn a marketing on and then the next day be like, I said, my word of the month is patience. Mind you, personally, I have none, but patience in business. You can't expect to turn a marketing on and then the next day be like, where are my leads? Where are my leads? Again, now we're seeing seven to 10 touch points.

That person needs to see your ad seven to 10 times before they say yes. And that's if you get a hundred percent conversion rate, which is unheard of. So you have to take that into consideration as be patient, let your marketing tell the story, and then let your data point the strategy. And by the way, for Google folks, Google My Business, make sure you have your setup in there. You need to have at least 10 reviews. So you need to be asking for reviews. Google, if you're under 10 reviews, Google has not legitimized your business yet. It's kind of the rule of thumb.

And this is all from my genius down the hall that does a great deal of our online marketing for us. And he says, you know, this restaurant has six reviews on it. We need to get it over 10 on Google. And for some reason, it all impacts and blows up the SEO and helps Google actually serve your business up quicker when somebody is looking for mosquitoes or house cleaning or whatever it might be. So think about that because it is a busy marketplace out there. You want to be legitimized in your business. Also, what else does Google like? YouTube. They like videos and not just one video, but consistent videos. So put out a couple of week and this video, the word for some reason scares the hell out of people. I don't know why, but anyhow, think about that folks.

Madeline, I have a question I ask all of my amazing guests on the show. And I know yours is interesting because you have an infant and a couple of other little ones running around the house and a whole bunch of dogs and all sorts of other fun going on around there. We were talking about family a little bit before we started recording here. But Madeline Zuck, how do you start your day with a win? So I'll give you the very thoughtful answer, and then I'll give you the kind of real look answer. So the thoughtful answer is you have to open the door. Most people sleep with their door closed. And I use that physically and metaphorically. You open the day, you open the door, you go out the door, and you're like, all right,

we're starting the day. And then metaphorically is you have to be ready for any opportunity that day can bring, you know, whether it's a podcast with you, whether I have to talk to a very angry customer on the phone, you know, or my kid's school, you know, needs a needs a speaker, that sort of thing. So be ready to to not only open the door, but go through it for opportunity physically, even if you need another five to 10 minutes before you have to go down and, you know, you've got little monsters running around asking for snacks, that too. But, you know, for me, it starts with opening the door.

Also, you know, most people with coffee, because I have a newborn, my day starts at 3am, 4am. So sometimes it starts with a mimosa and that's okay because you know, by that time it's already my afternoon. So don't be afraid to, you know, do what you need to do to take care of yourself as well. Awesome. And you also have the podcast, the art of franchise marketing. Where can we find you online? LinkedIn is where I'm always. So Madeline Zook on LinkedIn. And then the podcast is Spotify, Apple, anywhere you listen to your podcasts. Or you can go to netservative.com, which is my company's website. Awesome. Madeline Zook, the art of franchise marketing, great marketing mind here.

We had a lot of good conversation about getting people, making sales, doing marketing. Madeline, thank you for joining us today on Start With A Win. Thanks so much. Thanks for joining us on Start With A Win. Be sure to like and subscribe to this episode and share it with your friends. Also, be sure to check out Adam on YouTube, Adam Canto, CEO, as well as on all the social media platforms. And don't forget, start with a win.