The International Franchise show at Excel (IFS) is perfect for our current drive to reach prospective franchisees from South-East and East of England.

Our franchise opportunity is elderly care and we believe even more than other franchisees, care franchisees deserve loyalty, passion, knowledge and commitment from their franchisor

The best franchise opportunities include teaching the best business skills.

How do franchisees build a customer base?

Recommendations and happy customers will share their stories and even though free editorial is becoming more challenging, newspapers need advertising revenue and journalists have very little time, it is still possible to get editors to cover a great story.

For Seniors Helping Seniors, news about our innovative service has reached a lot of potential customers through local press and we partnered Lisa from DoPR to share some tips through two workshops at the show.

How do you get free editorial and does it matter?

Yes it matters! When editorial talks about the benefits of your business, your customers pay attention.

You get free editorial content through well executed Public Relations.

Free content is called ‘earned media’. Earning it is a skill and it can be time consuming and hard work.

Public Relations

Public relations (PR) needs to be a cornerstone of business and we believe it should be a big part of the training and support for franchisees.

We place public relations support alongside core business functions.

Seniors Helping Seniors is lucky because our mission is media friendly and we have a strong foundation to build on.

Seniors Helping Seniors franchisees benefit from national coverage on the BBC TV, National newspapers, radio, regular mentions in lifestyle magazines, mentions in books about living well and ageing well and interviews by commenters on elderly care and employment of older people.

Our service is about local knowledge and local expertise, so the news makes great local stories.

Seniors Helping Seniors teach our franchisees Public Relations. Do PR believes in teaching businesses to do their own PR – just like giving a man a fishing rod, rather than one fish at a time.

Here’s what’s involved in the Seniors Helping Seniors franchise opportunity PR offer:

• Annual PR Planning
• Press Release templates and media lists
• PR training sessions for all franchisees
• 24/7 support for all franchisees includes access to our bespoke PR suite, PR expertise and social media

The same package is available to other franchisors. Lisa from Do PR is offering a 20% discount using code IFS19* for franchisors signing up by July 2019.

Other PR agencies are available but here’s why we’ve never recommended the PR Agency model for start-ups.

The benefits of franchising appeals most when job opportunities are more uncertain than ever and when 50% of new businesses fail in the first year, people are less inclined to go it alone. Read more from the BFA about 2018 Survey of best franchises here

Care is known to be a great sector to be in because of the ageing population and by re-invented retirement for local people, we have a sustainable and positive care model with massive social impact. We have earned good publicity in the UK for it and just as the service is about independence, we help our franchisees to formulate and tell their own stories for the world to see.

From being franchisees ourselves, we know franchisees need mentors, loyalty and skills as well as the promise of glittering futures.

PR is a skill that we are investing heavily in, and we’d be keen to see other franchisors do the same.