ROS® Communications

Franchise Recruitment 2025: Key Strategies to Start Strong and Stay Ahead

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Table of Contents

As we close out the year, franchise recruitment teams have a valuable opportunity to reflect, reset, and prepare for a successful 2025. In a recent interview, Miles Bentley, ROS® Advisory Board member, shared actionable insights on how franchisors can approach recruitment strategically, ensuring they hit the ground running in January.

Key Performance Metrics Matter

To measure success and identify development opportunities, tracking performance is essential. Miles highlights the importance of focusing on the following:

  • Reflect on your end-of-year 2024 results against your initial plan. What are your key takeaways?
  • Reviewing each KPI against ROS® Targets will help with that.
  • Utilize ROS® Reports and Dashboards to uncover any gaps and opportunities.

By being data-driven rather than emotion-driven you will have the best chance of delivering your plan.

Pipeline Health is Everything

A healthy, well-managed recruitment pipeline is critical for franchise growth. Miles stresses the importance of maintaining a robust pipeline. It should always have as many candidates in it as your annual recruitment target.

The ideal pipeline breakdown includes: 60% of candidates in Phase 1, 30% of candidates in Phase 2, and 10% of candidates in Phase 3.

Maintaining this number and balance will maximize the opportunity to deliver your target in a predictable way that aligns with the business goals.

Aligning Recruitment with Business Objectives

To ensure recruitment delivers against the brand’s overall business goals, alignment at every level is critical. Miles recommends the following best practices:

  • Present ROS® Executive Report – Weekly Insights during board meetings to highlight recruitment progress.
  • Keep focus on the lifetime value of signed franchisees, reinforcing recruitment’s long-term impact.
  • Break down silos between recruitment, operations, and finance to create a seamless connection across all organizational functions.
  • Keep emphasizing how recruitment directly influences cash flow, onboarding success, and future royalty revenues. 
  • Recruitment is challenging, the team needs support from the whole organization.

Clear communication and alignment will help recruitment teams gain the internal support they need to meet your goals.

Inspiring and Preparing Recruitment Teams for 2025

A motivated and well-prepared team is the cornerstone of recruitment success. As January approaches, Miles advises franchise leaders to:

  • Hold individual meetings with recruiters to set expectations and review pipeline opportunities for Q1.
  • Develop personalized recruitment plans tailored to each team member’s goals and strengths. This should be based on the data analyzed from 2024
  • Provide a clear and transparent roadmap to success, ensuring everyone knows their targets and responsibilities.
  • Data and metrics should lead every decision, but remember that the solution may not just be about skills, recruitment is a hugely challenging role and external factors can and will impact performance if not understood.
  • Do not forget though, that 2025 has already started, the pipeline for the first quarter, right now,  will determine the start of the year. Make sure any plan maximizes that pipeline if it doesn’t support the plan.

Setting the tone early with clear direction and support will inspire confidence and momentum for the months ahead.

Final Thoughts

Franchise recruitment success doesn’t happen by chance—it requires a thoughtful, strategic approach. By focusing on performance metrics, maintaining a healthy pipeline, aligning recruitment with business goals, and inspiring teams, franchisors can position themselves for a strong start to 2025.

The groundwork you lay today will determine your success tomorrow. Take the insights from Miles Bentley and ROS® best practices to close out the year strong and step confidently into 2025.

Here’s to a productive, growth-focused, and successful new year!

The Recruitment Operating System® (ROS®) is a proven system to help franchise companies implement and execute a predictable, repeatable, and sustainable franchisee recruitment program.

Based in Temple, Texas, we work with brands worldwide.

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