Key takeaways
- The consultation compares locations side by side, because a blended number hides the territory that is falling behind.
- It separates what the brand fund pays for from the local marketing you control and can measure.
- You leave with five ranked moves, each with an owner and a date, whether or not you hire us.
- Bring new customers by location and your local spend by channel, and the session goes much further.
A marketing consultant for a multi-location franchise should start by comparing your locations side by side, not by selling a package. Our free growth consultation does that. It finds where each territory loses new customers, separates what the brand fund already covers from what you control locally, and ranks the fixes by what each one is worth.
What a growth consultation covers
It covers every place a new customer can find, judge and contact one of your locations, checked location by location. We look at:
- Every location's Google Business Profile. Whether the primary category matches across locations, whether hours are right, how recent the reviews and photos are, and who holds owner access, you or the franchisor. Each profile earns its Map Pack place separately (Google's ranking factors), so a strong flagship tells us nothing about the newest location.
- The location pages on your website. Whether each location has its own page with its address, hours, phone and services, or shares one store locator.
- Your local ad spend. Search ads, Local Services Ads where your category qualifies, and Meta. Whether each campaign targets a territory and counts new customers rather than clicks (conversion measurement).
- Brand fund against local spend. What your contribution buys at the brand level, what your agreement requires you to spend locally, and whether that local money can be traced to results.
- Follow-up at each location. Who answers the phone, how fast forms get a reply, and whether every lead lands in the system your managers actually work from.
- Repeat business. Whether each location brings people back for the next visit, renewal or booking, because in most franchise concepts that is where a customer's value builds.
The most useful number is rarely the average. It is the gap between your strongest and weakest location, and what the strong one does that the weak one does not.
What happens in the session
- Confirm your goal For example revenue growth or new locations
- Review what you run now Google profile, website, ads and follow-up, live
- Your five next moves In order, with rough timelines
- Decide what happens next If we are a fit we say so. If not, you keep the plan.
What you leave with
You leave with five moves, ranked by impact, each with an owner and a date. Not a deck of forty ideas, and not a proposal dressed up as advice.
Here is the shape the list can take for a franchisee with three locations, one of them opened this year. It is an illustration, not a client's plan:
| Move | Owner | When |
|---|---|---|
| Align the primary category on all three profiles with the brand standard | Location managers, checked by you | This week |
| Publish a full page for the newest location, with its own hours, phone and photos | The franchisor's site team or your approved web vendor | This month |
| Split search ads into one campaign per location, each with its own budget | Whoever runs your ads | This month |
| Start a text review request after every first visit at the newest location | Front desk | Within two weeks |
| Pull new customers by location from the CRM every month | You | Before annual planning |
The plan is written so your own team, or a vendor your franchisor approves, could carry it out. If you want us to do it, we will say what it would take. If not, the plan is still yours.
Who runs it
Trevor Shirk, the founder of VETS Growth Marketing, runs the diagnosis himself. He is a U.S. Army veteran and a former Ranger-qualified engineer officer, with more than ten years in digital marketing and business strategy.
For a multi-location owner that means one thing. You talk to the person who reads your numbers and makes the call on priorities, not to a rep reading a script. Expect direct questions about the marketing clauses in your agreement, what a new customer is worth at each location, and why one territory trails the others. Expect a straight answer on whether we are the right fit, too.
How to prepare
- Export new customers by location. From your multi-location CRM or franchise management platform, pull the last twelve months of new customers per location, split from repeat customers if the system can.
- Find the marketing clauses. Mark the parts of your franchise agreement that set the brand fund contribution and any required local spend, plus the brand standards for ads, websites and profiles. Multi-location brands without a franchisor can skip this.
- List your local spend. Last year's spend per location and per channel, including anything paid to approved vendors.
- Check your access. Note whether you are owner or manager on each Google profile, and get view access to Google Ads and Analytics. Flag anything only the franchisor can change.
- Name the location that worries you. Tell us which territory is falling behind and what you think is wrong. We test that hunch first.
How VETS Growth Marketing helps
If the five moves make sense and you want them done for you, we scope them as a project with a start date, a finish date and an outcome, not an open retainer. Every account stays in your name, or your brand's where the agreement says so. Reports show new customers and the cost of each one, location by location, checked against your own platform export. Book a growth consultation, or read how we approach marketing for franchisees and multi-location brands first.
Sources
- Tips to improve your local ranking on Google, Google Business Profile Help
- About conversion measurement, Google Ads Help