“We’re literally courting potential partners on the Internet to see if there’s a match between our company and their own personal goals,” says Keith Toppazzini, company president.
Split into a public and private space, the first half of the site gives “a 30,000-foot view” of Topper’s Pizza and offers a series of interactive reading materials, videos and callouts. The private portal, which requires a user name and password, is where the franchisee qualification process begins with a virtual brochure that facilitates Topper’s eight-step process.
“Whether you go through steps zero to eight in a week or a year is entirely up to you as an individual,” notes Toppazzini. “In franchising, we always say that the franchisor controls the process and the franchisee controls the outcome; the virtual brochure is a perfect way to jumpstart that understanding.”
Meanwhile, the company will be leveraging FranConnect’s Captivate Franchise Recruitment platform to automate the process of collecting data from the virtual brochures, generating reports that will allow Topper’s Pizza to respond quickly to qualified leads. “If we receive a report that someone just went through 50 per cent of the qualification process in 24 hours, then that’s someone we want to talk to immediately,” says Toppazzini.
The dedicated franchise site, toppersfranchise.ca, is expected to go live in April.
