5 Bottlenecks Impacting the Close Rate in Your B2B Franchisee Proposal Process

Sponsored content by Proposify.

Franchisees are both ambassadors and barriers between your brand and customers. And the more franchisees you add to the mix, the harder it can be to ensure that proposals consistently reflect your branding, pricing, and values.

It’s tempting to personally review every single proposal or oversee each step of the process in minute detail, but this can create bottlenecks that impact revenue and hamper how many deals actually close.

Here are some of the most common bottlenecks we see in the B2B franchisee proposal process and how you can overcome them.

1. Long-Winded Approvals Processes

The more hands-on you are with your franchisees’ proposals, the harder it is for them to close deals when they’re warm.

If every proposal has to pass across the desk of an insanely busy person, there’s going to be a stalemate at some point. As soon as proposal numbers start ramping up, the designated approver is going to quickly get overwhelmed.

The Solution: Eliminate Unnecessary Parts of the Approvals Process

Removing yourself and other approvers from the process eliminates a crucial friction point. Create a template that franchisees can tweak and send out without needing to get approval from the higher-ups.

2. Clunky Copy-Paste Jobs

The manual work involved in copy-pasting proposals in Word, swapping out confidential information, and updating each proposal to reflect the opportunity is a lot. It’s repetitive and time-consuming at best, and a total productivity destroyer at worst. (Not to mention a breeding ground for errors.) And yes, it means fewer proposals and deals closed.

The Solution: Create a Standardized Doc to Work From

With a standardized format like a template, franchisees can drag and drop the correct info into each new proposal without needing to copy-paste from a previous version (we all know how Word handles that).

3. Multiple Versions of the Same Doc

The risk in using Word Docs and other standalone doc tools is you end up with multiple versions of the same proposal. Is v1 the right one? Or v25? Just finding out that information alone can take time, especially if your franchisees have to ask someone else for the answer.

The Solution: Cloud-Based Docs Accessible From Anywhere

Consider creating one cloud-based master doc that everyone can access and storing it in an easy-to-access, central place.

4. Over-Extended One-Person Franchisees

One-person franchisees can only get through so many proposals a week, and they’ll often set aside an hour or two to focus on the task. They not only manage the sales process, but they’re also out in the field performing the work. When they’re doing the work, they can’t be at their desk sending proposals and vice versa.

The Solution: Pre-Formatted Proposals

Use a tool that streamlines the proposal process. The less time franchisees spend formatting Word Docs and copy-pasting past versions, the more time they have to grow customer relationships and find more leads.

5. Lack of Transparency Around Franchisee Performance

Franchisors often struggle to get a full, transparent view of each franchisee’s sales performance. Failure to understand why leads aren’t converting or what common objections are can lead to confusion about the entire franchise sales process and make it tricky to move forward.

The Solution: Create a Central Source of Truth

Build out a space where you can store signed proposals, understand lead objections, and read franchisee conversations. This can help you identify which franchisees might need more support or coaching, and what isn’t working in their proposal process.

Banish Bottlenecks for Good

To eliminate bottlenecks in all shapes and sizes, your franchisee proposal process needs to be speedy without losing quality. Get rid of manual documents, multiple versions of the same files, and clunky copy-paste jobs by implementing one main tool.

With online proposal software like Proposify, you can create boilerplate content, shareable branded templates, and a central style guide that allows franchisees to set up and send on-brand proposals quickly and efficiently.