A franchise exhibition is either a national, regional or local event held to bring together the many members within UK franchising. It is a great opportunity to gather information for aspiring franchisees or even those who are just on the cusp of deciding if they want to pursue a career in franchising.

Benefits of Attending a Franchise Show

The benefits of attending a franchise show ranges, depending on which side of the franchising world you lie. For a franchisor, it is a great opportunity to increase brand awareness amongst potential future franchisees and also a chance to meet and evaluate any applicants currently in their franchise application process.

The more important benefits are there for the visitors to the franchise exhibition:

Franchise Specific Seminars

Most shows will hold some kind of seminars during the course of the exhibition. These seminars will mainly be aimed at providing useful information to either current, new or aspiring franchisees. The purpose of these seminars is purely to provide helpful tips in some common areas for franchising such as:

• The Application Process
• Investigating a Franchise Opportunity
• Assessing the Franchisor
• Franchise Funding Options
• Running a Franchise

Expert Franchise Advice

At any franchise exhibition you will find many experts attending the show and these experts can share a range of valuable insight for anybody considering a career in franchising. You have the ability to converse with a range of franchisors and franchisees in a wide range of industries. This will give you an idea of what type of franchises are out there and what is normally involved in running these franchises.

You can also gather advice from the many consultants at these events ranging in specialties, but all revolve around different areas of franchising or the franchise application, such as those experts that offer advice for funding options available for applicants. Whatever you are seeking to learn, as long as it’s around franchising, you will find an expert at most events that is happy to speak to you and offer advice.

Latest Franchise Developments

Experts want to come to this event to demonstrate their knowledge in franchising, often in hope that you use their services or invest in their business. This is great for aspiring franchisees as it offers a chance to gain valuable information about what’s happening in the franchising world right now and what they can expect in the future.

Seeing as those considering franchising are likely to stay in this career for the foreseeable future, the forecast for the industry is incredibly important in deciding which franchise model or industry they should choose.

Recommendations for Attending a Franchise Exhibition

The benefits of attending a franchise exhibition may be very useful for any individual but unless you prepare on how to gather and utilise this information you won’t maximise its potential benefit.

Research the Exhibitors

Before you attend or even register to attend you should look at who it is that will be exhibiting at the event. This will give you a list of names, companies and seminars that you can use to prepare any questions or research topics. As the seminars will be throughout the day you should schedule what you are planning to attend before as to ensure you don’t miss anything important.

As you will have a list of franchisors at the event you should pick the ones that interest you and prepare some questions for them. They will be happy to answer any questions you might have, and this is a great opportunity to gather comparable answers in your process of selecting which franchises to apply to.

Collect Information

This may seem obvious to most, but a lot happens at these events and it’s easy to get caught up speaking to people and navigating the event and totally forgetting to jot down notes for you to review later. There is an abundance of information available at these events and, unless you’re lucky enough to have an identic memory, you will likely forget something when you are reviewing everything afterwards.

Review Everything

After the event, take a period to sit down with your notes, review who it is you spoke to and what franchises you demonstrated interest for. Often a franchise that you expressed some interest for at the event will contact you in the days after, this is a good indicator of a franchise that’s actively working on the growth and prosperity of its future.

A lot of information is on offer and to maximise the benefits of attending a franchise exhibition you need to plan, prepare and review.

If you have a franchise exhibition in mind, then take a look at the exhibitors and see if we have any of those that are actively seeking new franchisees right now here – UK Franchise Opportunities