My name is Cassidy Ford, and I am a franchise nerd.
Over the years, I’ve learned a thing or two about franchise management solutions. I’m also long-winded, much to my team’s chagrin, so here is my story in brief.
I began my career in franchise sales with an emerging brand that had been on ABC’s Shark Tank the week before I started. I was super green and clueless about franchising, and I was in way over my head. We had thousands of leads pouring in from around the world with no CRM to track them.
We clearly needed immediate help. Unfortunately, we got ahead of ourselves and implemented a CRM technology that, in the end, was neither cost nor time-effective.
Learn from your mistakes.
I asked myself in retrospect how we could have been more successful, and I didn’t really know the answer until I transitioned to a second, much larger franchise brand. They had recently implemented FRM to manage the full life-cycle of their franchisees. I was now involved in operations, real estate and compliance on top of sales, and the stakes were raised.
The level of training and support I received was unexpected—and definitely a refreshing change. For once, I didn’t wait a week to get an answer to a question.
Our system was highly customized but since FRM is based on Microsoft Dynamics, and I was already familiar with Microsoft, I picked up on everything pretty quickly. In particular, the Outlook Plug-in to track emails literally saved my life, and often. Record retention, anyone?
I crossed over to the “dark side,” as I call it, to work with FRM a few years ago. I’ve seen the impact of FRM’s enterprise solutions from both sides. First as a client and now as I serve dozens of brands across many industries. I may be a little bit biased, but I know what the platform can do end-to-end. Honestly, at this point, I don’t think I could love another suite of management tools as much as FRM’s.
They say once you join the world of franchising, you’re in it for the long haul.
If it’s true we’re here for the long haul, it’s also true we will learn and contribute a lot to the community over time. Maybe I can contribute this to you: When it comes to CRM systems, my lesson learned and tip to offer is to know your requirements, check out all your options, do your full due diligence and make sure FRM is at the top of your list. I may be biased, but you’ll thank me later.
