Sometimes when I’m talking to a potential franchisee, the discussion turns to which geographical area they want to cover. And a common perception is that the bigger the area, the better. Sounds sensible on the face of it – more territory equals more potential clients.
But actually, that’s not the case at all.
Marketing research has shown that it takes 7 ‘touches’ before a potential client buys from you. So if at least some of those ‘touches’ are in person, you can achieve that much more quickly and easily if you are covering lots of people at the same time in the same area.
A key part of HR consultancy building is referrals. So you need to build strong relationships with those key referrers. Again, doing that in a small geographical area is much easier. If you’re going to three networking events a week, and they are all within the same area, you’ll see lots of the same people and can build a relationship with them more quickly. If you’re attending three events in completely different areas, it will take a lot longer to build those relationships, if you even can at all.
Becoming the ‘go to’ person is a valuable marketing strategy. By really focusing on meeting lots of people in one smaller area, lots of whom know each other, and may therefore talk about you, your reputation will build more quickly. Being the ‘go to’ person in a small area is better than being just another HR consultant who pops up occasionally in lots of small areas.
Covering too big an area limits your income, if any of your work is in-person. You’ll use up large portions of your week travelling, thereby limiting how many clients you can physically work for.
Our territories are specifically designed to be the optimum size in terms of potential clients and geographically, to make marketing as efficient as possible to enable consultants to get to a good level of income as quickly as they can.
But whether you work with us, or go it alone, trying to cover an enormous area is likely to be an inefficient strategy for building a business, so consider focusing efforts on a smaller area as effectively as you can.
We’re actively looking for new partners to launch in September so if you like the idea of running you own HR consultancy and want to discuss joining us, do get in touch.