At the beginning of August, I headed out to Las Vegas for an annual franchisee convention for one of our clients, Brain Balance. In my five years with Fish, I’ve attended my fair share of conventions and have learned that no two are alike, so I always approach each trip fully prepared for anything. Happy to say that I had such a great experience at the Brain Balance conference; so much so that I’m writing a blog post to share, in my humble opinion, what they did right. Here are the top five things other brands can learn from Brain Balance’s annual franchisee convention:
- Leadership was present and engaged. The convention opened with a speech from the CEO and each member of the executive team took turns introducing topics and speakers throughout the three days. Not only was leadership present on stage, they were always around in the hallways during breakouts, engaging with franchisees. From an outsider’s perspective, their entire leadership team was truly present, which can be hard to accomplish in this day in age. For that, I applaud them.
- They booked not just interesting speakers, but speakers that interested their franchisees. Two of the three speakers were in the midst of conducting research on the organization and shared new, insightful findings. And the third speaker, meant to incite motivation, spoke directly to sales techniques and provided tips the franchisees could actually take home and use in their locations.
- The food was top notch. Hands down the best conference food I’ve had. Brain Balance’s program calls for specific nutrition guidelines, so the catering had to be amended to offer those options. And I have to say, it was nice to have flavorful options that were gluten or dairy free. The takeaway: spend a little extra time with the hotel’s catering department to determine what options they have, because no one wants to spend money to eat cardboard chicken sitting in a questionable sauce.
- They not only awarded top-performing franchisees but recognized those that were on committees. Let’s face it, being a franchisee takes a lot of time. And for a franchisee to then devote even more time to sit on a committee certainly gains my respect. While top-performing franchisees are a common (and wonderful) award to give out each year, it was nice to see not just sales, but time, recognized. Because time is truly just as valuable.
- After convention, they put together a solid recap for franchisees that couldn’t attend. This recap included pictures, handouts, videos and slides from every presentation and breakout session. If a franchisee wasn’t able to attend, there’s surely no reason they couldn’t feel like they were there or gain all the insights shared.
