The economy for the past few years has certainly taken us all on a wild ride. First huge highs, then crashing lows, and now the possibility of a return to what passes for normalcy.

Unfortunately, this wild ride has brought back an old refrain I used to hear a lot in the early '90's - "If they have the cash and they fog a mirror, we'll accept them." This time though, franchisors are wording things a little differently. The current version of the old "Fog a mirror" saying is: "We're trying to find franchisees. Not weed them out."

Today, many franchisors believe that going for the "low hanging fruit" - targeting as many applicants as possible, and having staff follow up with all the resulting applicants is the way to go. After all, the more applicants your recruitment staff talks to, the better the chance for increasing sales, right? In reality, what happens is your staff ends up wasting time dealing with unsuitable applicants... and that ends up costing you money.

This kind of recruitment policy leads to:

• A large number of low quality applicants.
• Wasting time working with unqualified and unresponsive leads.
• High recruitment costs.
• Decreased profitability.
• Unnecessary lawsuits, and
• Unflattering media exposure.

Over the next several months, I'll give you my take on different selection methods starting including several different types of interview methods, personality profiles, knowledge and skills assessments and finally job specific assessments. I'll cover the pros and cons of using them and how to get the most out of each method.

Our goal is to help you:

• Increase franchise sales,
• Increase profitability,
• Lower recruitment costs,
• Have happier franchisees, and
• Increase royalties.

If you'd like to be informed about each selection issue as it's posted, fill out the sign up form on the right side of the screen. You can unsubscribe at any time.