Well, I’d love to give you a perfect template but there are many factors to consider.
Location
You’re never going to please everyone but central locations or ones with great transport links are perfect.
I’m based in London and whilst I have run polls every few years on changing location the transport links to London from most areas in the UK just work to there. We have it at the same venue so it become familiar however I know many networks who change it up every year to move around the UK, if you’re a smaller network see if there’s a majority area to make it easy or larger ones then major cities are the best option, unless you make it into a country manor weekend away and then the world if your oyster!
Dates
Again we have it on the same last Sunday of the same month each year. You won’t be able to suit everyone’s diaries, but we pick a Sunday as hardly anyone runs classes that day of the week and many come down on the Saturday evening for a nice social too.
I’ve attended many conferences for other networks as a guest speaker though mid-week and this will depend on the operational set up if your business. We all want as many franchisees as possible to attend but if it causes a major disruption to the operation of their franchise then putting such barriers in the way is definitely a hindrance, especially if your business is predominantly an owner/operator set up.
We have ours in the Summer as I like the sun and coming to London for a sunny weekend is great so you’re off to a positive start before the conference has begun. But again consider the operations and if seasonal or termly then having it in a down time will suit their availability and get them raring to go for the next term.
Structure
Consider what education and ongoing support and in what format that is delivered and how often as to what you feel the network would benefit from on the day/2 days. We used to run a 2-day conference and crammed it in with lots of educational work, guest speakers and workshops however the pandemic meant we went online like everyone else so now host all of that monthly in bite size zoom calls each month so for us our conference is about face-to-face contact, networking, team building and awards. It’s great for any practical training and when we launched our baby classes it was vital but last year, we used it to enhance local networking.
We wanted to encourage even more peer-to-peer support and split the county into local groups and rand some hilarious games and challenges relating to the business knowledge but also dance and movement. So, think about your industry sector and can you make it fun but relative (you can also get some great media content from such elements apart from the usual interviews) how can you encourage bonds and boost morale, so they all go away feeling energised and motivated? Will awards for lots of different angles help rather than just the usual revenue-based ones, celebrate those who excel in difference areas of their business and shout about what they do to help inspire the others in the room.
Finally, content
As I mentioned briefly this is a great time to collect loads of it. Yes, the interviews to camera about how much they love being a franchisee, their backgrounds, why they chose your brand etc but also footage of the whole day that can be clipped up to show the support, the friendships and everything else that comes with being part of a network. You can jump on funny trends and video ideas that your customers can relate to, and this can really help inspire them all to create more video themselves too.
So, in summary, whilst it’s important to keep communication in various ways all year round, there’s nothing like a face-to-face event to really get your network fired up for their year ahead.
