As the new year approaches, it is a good time for franchise leaders to start thinking about how to make 2025 a success. Being customer-focused, setting the company vision, and staying proactive are all keys to success. As CEO of CertaPro Painters, I believe it’s crucial for company leaders to identify key areas to focus on in the new year and create goals and actions to achieve them.
Below are five strategies that have helped us consistently deliver results.
Clarify the Vision and Bring Values to Life
The end of the year is a great time to bring clarity to the vision of your organization, reaffirm what you stand for and ensure your core values are lived out daily. Everybody at the company must be rowing in the same direction to achieve success.
Set aside time to articulate the company’s overarching vision. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a revenue or profit goal. Instead, think about what is the most impactful change that could strengthen and benefit your team and your customers’ experience—something that truly reflects your values.
When clarifying your vision, ask good questions like what is one area we need to fix because it’s not working well? Or what is one substantial improvement we can make that will have an incredible impact across the organization? Once you identify these core aspects, the next step is to focus on actionable, measurable steps to support this vision. Clear metrics are essential because if they are not measurable, they will not work. Define the key actions that best support bringing this vision to life in the coming year.
Embrace Innovation
In today’s fast-paced world, change is constant and embracing it is essential to growth. Tech tools are really reshaping the franchise world in real-time. Think of innovations like AI, automation, and digital marketing, which are all opening new doors for franchises who are ready to embrace change. By adopting innovation through technology, franchises can streamline processes and improve efficiency resulting in increased productivity. Instead of working on repetitive tasks, tech solutions free up team members to collaborate, focus on creative work, anticipate customer needs, and stay ahead of the competition.
With the utilization of tech tools and investment in different areas of marketing such as social media, digital marketing, and search engine optimization comes a valuable edge.
A well-known saying in the marketing field is “content is king,” and that saying rings true even more in today’s digital age. Great social media content, for example, is now essential to a brand’s success. Social media content not only reflects your brand, but it also allows you to consistently deliver your brand message across various channels to build awareness. Video and images get the most attention on social media, but the challenge for any brand is to make a connection to the customer before they swipe away.
To maintain a connection with the consumer, a company must not only embrace innovation through technology and digital marketing, but also ensure it’s easy for customers to connect with them. To build a true and lasting connection with customers, brands need to provide content that is informative, educational, or entertainment-driven, but above all, stay authentic to remain successful. Making this connection seamless and accessible is key to fostering trust and loyalty.
Fine-tune the Customer Experience Journey
To really optimize the experience of your customer, focus on the areas that you can control—specifically, at each touchpoint along their journey with your brand. Touchpoints can include each encounter and interaction your brand has with your customer that shapes how they feel about your service and the memories they carry forward.
Touchpoints aren’t measured by the financials of how much the customer spends. They go beyond the financials and are measured by the interactions that shape a customer’s trust, loyalty, and perception of your brand. Ask yourself: What is enticing the customer to engage with your brand, making them trust your brand, recommend it to others, and motivating them to continue coming back? It is also essential to identify where you may fall short and the factors that are discouraging or disconnecting them from your brand.
Addressing both the positive and potentially negative pain points—from the very first interaction to the completion of the job—will help fine-tune the customer journey and align your customers’ expectations with the overall experience.
Develop a Community Involvement Plan
More consumers today are not just looking for products and services, they are gravitating toward companies that contribute positively to their communities and demonstrate a commitment to supporting social causes.
Franchises that focus on charitable initiatives and partnerships, and are engaged with their communities, are likely to build stronger and deeper connections with their customers.
CertaPro Painters’ flagship charitable initiative every year is Paint it Pink, a campaign that is dedicated to supporting breast cancer research. Since 2019, CertaPro’s Paint it Pink has raised $555,000, which equates to approximately 11,000 hours of BCRF research. Each October through November, CertaPro franchises that participate in Paint it Pink donate a percentage of every painting project completed and all donations go to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation in the U.S. and Breast Cancer Canada.
To help franchisees distinguish themselves as a brand that genuinely cares, they can also maximize their impact by participating in volunteer events, organizing fundraisers, and offering discounted services to community organizations.
Practice Continuous Improvement
As the saying goes, “excellence isn’t a destination, but a journey.” That journey of daily growth and improvement is what can truly set your franchise apart from others. We at CertaPro Painters embrace that philosophy wholeheartedly.
At CertaPro, we truly live, breathe, impart, and champion our company’s core values in everything that we do every single day. One of our core values is to “practice continuous improvement every day.” This means challenging stakeholders to get better at what they do, finding smarter ways to work, and pushing innovation. We believe that every member of our organization has the potential to make a meaningful impact, and we encourage ongoing development and innovation to drive excellence. Continuous improvement results in long-term success and should be a key focus for franchise leaders in 2025.
Author:
Mike Stone is President & CEO of CertaPro Painters®, North America’s Most Referred Painting Company®. He was appointed President & CEO in March 2015. Previously, Mr. Stone served as Vice President of Operations from January 2013 until his appointment as President. Mr. Stone also served as Regional Vice President from 2007 until 2013. He has been with CertaPro® since March 2003, first as a General Manager in Development and later as a General Manager in Operations. Prior to that, he was a Residential Sales Associate for a CertaPro Painters® franchisee for four years.