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September 23, 2025 40 mins
A big thank you to ClientTether for sponsoring this episode of The Advisory Board Podcast. Their balance of automation and human touch is exactly what today’s discussion is all about.

This week, host Dave Hansen sits down with Amanda House, Director of Franchise Development Marketing at Lightbridge Academy—a leading early education and childcare franchise with over 160 centers open or in development. With experience across more than 35 brands, Amanda brings a rare perspective from both the franchisor and supplier side of FranDev marketing.

Amanda shares why the industry is moving beyond chasing lead volume and instead focusing on fit—finding the right owners who align with a brand’s culture. At Lightbridge Academy, this means deliberate scaling, thoughtful discovery days with executive involvement, and a relentless focus on their “circle of care.” She emphasizes that data is the new scoreboard, where cost-per-lead and return on ad spend matter more than simple reach.

The conversation also explores how AI and SEO must work together. Rather than choosing one or the other, Amanda highlights the need for strong technical SEO and backlink strategies to ensure brands surface in AI answers, while also using AI tools to research, analyze, and tailor communication. Still, she insists that the human touch remains non-negotiable when building trust with future franchisees.

Reputation also plays a starring role. Prospects are looking at Google reviews, social content, and franchisee transparency before they ever pick up the phone. Amanda’s advice? Treat every touchpoint as proof of culture. And her favorite north star metric is simple but powerful: Would your franchisees buy in again? With Lightbridge Academy boasting a high “yes” rate and 70% multi-unit ownership, the results speak for themselves.

Her closing encouragement: if you can’t measure it, you can’t sell it. It’s never too late to start tracking data, refining your digital presence, and leaning into AI tools that amplify your efforts—without replacing the personal relationships that make franchising work.
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guys, I want to welcome you to another episode of
The Advisory Board, a podcast where we bring in experts
from the franchise industry to educate you about what the
best practices, what's changing, and how do you make a
brand that's going to stand out and thrive in our
dynamic franchise economy right now. And I've got a friend
of mine, Amanda House. Amanda, I think, man, Well, you
were at nine one nine when I first met you,

(00:20):
so it's been years since we first got introduced. But
kind of a wizard or which sorceress whatever in enfranchise marketing.
She's the director of friend of Marketing over at Lightbridge
Academy right now, and.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
She's been in the industry.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
She started with the z Bar Group in twenty ten,
so she's got some great insights to share with us today. Now,
if you don't know a Lightbridge Academy, they're a leader
in franchise, well they're a franchise. It's a leader in
educational childcare and a really interesting concept that's doing really
well right now. So can't wait for you to tell
us more about that, Amanda. Before we jump into that,

(00:57):
I got to tell you some things you might not
know about about this lady one. She's she serves on
the chair as a chair of the Women's Franchise Network
in Southeast Michigan, so in kind of Detroit area. If
you know Michigan, you know, do the hand thing. But
she also she's she's cool in other ways, like I did.
I got to know her a while ago. She does
some really neat things, volunteering at Camp Casey, which does

(01:19):
like horseback writing lessons for kids with cancer. And she's
also she's traveled internationally twice solo, which as a woman
I know is super intimidating. But if you know Amanda,
you won't be shocked by that. And and we dug
deep here too. I found out she was a band
geek in high school, a competitive dancer, but she also
played played college soccer as a true freshman, so kind

(01:41):
of a bad ay, but again, you won't be surprised
if you know Amanda. So anyway, fellow band geek, let's
push up our glasses on our nose, bridge and tell
us a little bit more about you about Lightbridge Academy.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, so, I mean you you summed up really nicely.

Speaker 4 (01:54):
Lakebridge Academy is a leading early education and childcare franchise
and we are known as the solution for working families.
So we're now with more than one hundred and sixty
centers either open or in development, and we really try
to stand out for our circle of care. So our
circle of care really focuses on supporting not just the child,
but also parents, staff, franchise owners and the community, so

(02:15):
that full circle, you know, supportive care and you know,
families just really trust like Bridge Academy for our innovative curriculum,
our technology, and just our commitment to exceless and excellence
in you know, nurturing young minds.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
It's an incredible brand.

Speaker 4 (02:28):
I'm very honored to have been with them for as
I mentioned on earlier two years now, just a.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Couple of days I celebrated my two year anniversary.

Speaker 4 (02:36):
So it's been an incredible journey with them, and yeah,
it's an amazing brand.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Well, congrats to you and also to them for having
you there for two years. I'm sure making a big
impact doing I know. So Amanda, let's we're going to
talk today, guys about what are best in class brands
doing to improve their friend of marketing And if you
don't know, we didn't really talk about your background too much.
But like Amanda's been on all sides of the house.

(03:01):
Started on the franchise or side, then went over to
nine one nine was on the supplier side. The beauty
of that, And I want to make sure this sinks
in the fact that she's been on supplier side means
she didn't just work in one brand for like years, right,
she worked How many brands have you actually worked with
on frand of marketing?

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Now?

Speaker 4 (03:18):
Oh, oh, I'd have to go back and double check,
but I believe the total scope of brands with you know,
obviously with bigger brands with multiple underneath them, I think
it was thirty five when I left.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah, So so consider the power of having someone who's
helped thirty five brands figure out their frand of marketing
versus somebody who's just been doing it.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
In a single brand for ten years. That's completely different.
So uh.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Anyway, so we're going to bring your supplier superpower to
Bay here, and we're going to have you just start out,
tell us a little bit about what's what's been changing.
FRANDIV is shifting rapidly, at least from my perspective. We're
on the catcher's mid side of all the marketing efforts
out there. But what do you see in right now
that's been dynamic.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
I think you nailed it right in the had everything
of absolutely changing. It's fast paced. It's also getting a
lot more eyes on it. So I mean a few
years ago, a position like mine I was few and
far between. You either had to be doing sales or
just consumer facing marketing. But the benefit of having somebody
solely dedicated to frand of marketing is really starting to

(04:18):
take off. And I think a big part of that
is understanding the background of the performance driven data, and
that's been something that's.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
Been just constantly. It's always been a thing.

Speaker 4 (04:29):
You know, we're always looking at the numbers, but really
digging into those numbers and understanding how the data is
driving the marketing on the back end has been just
absolutely taking off. And with every marketing dollar it has
to prove its value, right, so your cost for lead
and your return on ad spend are absolutely like those
new scoreboards.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
You know, it's no longer about reach, it's about results, right.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
So yeah, well let's talk about that. I mean data.
There are a lot of brands out there that are
old school or our new school and they don't have
any idea they're doing right, So for the photo with
them and everyone in between, can you maybe dive into
the data, like you said performance data first, right, Like
how do you define the performance data for frand of marketing?

(05:12):
And how is that different a little bit than consumer?

Speaker 2 (05:15):
Sure?

Speaker 4 (05:16):
I mean you know a lot of times everything is
kind of multifaceted, right, So you can't just spend money
get a lead and it's immediately a sale. You don't
always find that right person on the first drive. And
I've noticed over the years a lot of the goals,
right was lead count how many leads can we get?
And then how can we convert them at what percentage?

(05:37):
And that percentage of conversion was always kind of small,
so it was always a lead chase, how many leads
can I get because I only convert like in this way?
And really over the last several years, it's been an
absolute drive to how can we convert more efficiently? So
how can we take that maybe that lead number goes down,
but that conversion ratio, that conversion percentage starts to grow,

(05:58):
and how do we do that?

Speaker 3 (05:59):
Well, we have to understand the.

Speaker 4 (06:00):
People that we're targeting very similar to consumer marketing, right,
you want your dollars working for you, So it's just
spending money to bring in whoever.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
That's easy. Anybody can do that.

Speaker 4 (06:10):
Anybody can find leads, we all know that, but bringing
in the leads that actually convert and convert and stay
with your brand or from you know, obviously from the
fran dev perspective, convert to a franchiseee and become a
brand ambassador and somebody that you want to continue to
like replicate basically, right, finding those franchisees that fit your culture,

(06:31):
fit your model, fit the brand overall, and you want
to keep and you want to replicate. So it's absolutely
digging into more of that data and driving driving down
to the nitty gritty of where do they come from,
what do they like, what did they listen to, what
do they read?

Speaker 3 (06:46):
Do they have children? Do they not have children?

Speaker 4 (06:48):
You know, there's so many different facets and that's across
every brand, you know, really diving into every little like
micro demographic aspect of those people to figure out what's
really going to change and I.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
Mean baseline level for everybody listening to this.

Speaker 4 (07:04):
If you cannot measure it, you cannot sell it. And
that's just the reality.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Like, yeah, well, I want to take you back a
step because you I think you've already rattled off enough.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
We could talk about just this, probably for the whole podcast, but.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
We're going to focus on more than just the data side.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
When you say.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
You want to measure leads that are actually converting at
a high rate, and then you said, but we also
want to measure essentially the right leads the right owners,
because there are a lot of ways to get owners
in the door. But the reality is you also have
to be a safeguard, like a gatekeeper on the FRIANDEV
side to make sure you're not bringing in the wrong people.
And you guys are think it's done a great job
protecting the brand by bringing in excellent operators. We're going

(07:44):
to do an incredible job of treating you that the
circles of care you talk about perpetuating the culture of
that right like making sure they do that with their
their kids, their parents, their employees, et cetera. At the
local level, that's tricky. That's tricky profiled that person and
then dialed in around them, because that's you're talking now
not just demographics, but maybe psychographics, and there's a lot

(08:07):
more to us.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
So what have you learned so far about that?

Speaker 3 (08:10):
I mean, you nailed it right on the head.

Speaker 4 (08:12):
There's absolutely demographic, psychographics, all of those things. But at
the end of the day, for us, it's really our
team to a's an absolute incredible job of you know,
kind of filtering out people who may not fit in
with our culture. Our culture obviously surrounded by education, surrounded
by children, Like if you do not love and support
and want.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
To support the growth of children in this country, you
know this is not the brand for.

Speaker 4 (08:36):
You, right But I mean, honestly, the culture of this
company and the culture that's been built even before my
time here, it's absolutely speaks for itself.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
I mean, our franchisees, you know, bleed.

Speaker 4 (08:47):
This brand and the best way possible and finding those
people that fit that culture from the beginning become your validators.
You know, those are the conversations that you want when
franchises are coming through the process, potential franchises, I guess
I should say, are going through that process and reaching
out to others and saying, you know, why did you
get into this business, why did you choose this franchise?

(09:10):
You want nothing more than franchisees who are happy to
be there and love what they do, and that really
goes back to the culture of the brand at light
Bridge Academy. I think our team has done just an
absolutely incredible job building that and our process of finding
you know that those people are obviously you know, it
comes from the beginning, those leads, but our our sales

(09:31):
team is absolutely amazing and kind of filtering out those
people from the beginning. If we get people to that
discovery day, our team does a really nice job. We
have all of our you know, our executive team comes
in and meets with them. Our CEO is always a
discovery day, or she can't be there physically, she always
does a follow up call.

Speaker 3 (09:50):
You know. We want everybody to be.

Speaker 4 (09:52):
As confident with that choice of you know, potential franchisee
as the sales team was during the entire process of
the sale.

Speaker 3 (09:59):
Right.

Speaker 4 (10:00):
So it's an incredible an incredible thought process to be
that specific about our choices because a good and I
think that a lot of brands could learn from that,
like scaling fast is not always the right way to scale.
Scaling right with the right people is what's really going
to support that long term sustainability of a brand. And

(10:22):
I think that's across the board. I think that could
be in every industry. You know, in every size and scope.
It's you know, it's really at the end of the day,
who you sell to, right, and you.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Have to be I hear the word deliberate. Somebody's deliberate scaling.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
And I was just talking to a brand and they're
doing great, and he's like, we want to be to
one hundred open units. We've already got fifty three, We've
got fifty two sold, and we had this great conversation today.
I get to have these with my clients sometimes about
well do we want to do it?

Speaker 4 (10:50):
You know?

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Is the answers We just go and sell more units
and that way we can get to that open number
and fast enough. And as we're talking, he's like, but
that's not it, Like we don't want that. We need
to make sure it's the right oper like people get it.
But the challenge now comes back to the data of
row as CPL. How do you close the loop because
if you're if you can't close the loop in your
marketing right where you say, I've got the data coming

(11:11):
in from all these leads and then these particular leads,
the subsection of leads are performing better than others, and
they tend to be people who perform better down in
the sales funnel. How are you guys capturing that information
so you can then say, hey, this lead channel, this
key word. Have you guys been able to get it
that narrow or are you still working on that narrowing
of data and closing the loop on marketing?

Speaker 2 (11:32):
So there's a feedback cycle.

Speaker 4 (11:34):
Well, I mean, I'm not going to give away like
all of my secrets, but that's right. No, But I
think you the biggest thing about it is making sure
that once a franchise is sold, once a franchise ese
signs on that line, you don't just forget about them.
There is going to be future questions that you need
to ask them, more learning that you find out about
these people so as they're going through the process, it

(11:55):
really is what drives them and we utilize that in
for in the process of the sale.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Right.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
You know, we obviously know kind of the higher.

Speaker 4 (12:04):
Level, you know, who do we target, what age group,
what house holding on you know, all of those you know,
demographics that people go after, but we really try to
dig into who are the right people and where are
they and where are they in their life and what
are they looking for out of their future?

Speaker 3 (12:19):
And then we dig that, you know, we dive into
that deeper.

Speaker 4 (12:22):
So even after the sale, I'll you know, we follow
up with our franchisees and say, how are you feeling
now that you're in the construction process, you know, how
are you feeling now that you are about ready to
go into your grand opening event? You know, and what
are the things that you think made this decision the
right one for you? What are you struggling with Because
no one's ever going to be like one hundred percent

(12:43):
everything's great, right, You always want to what are you
feel like you're missing out on? What do you are
from an information perspective? And why did ultimately why would
you choose this again? One of my favorite questions to
ask franchises. And we've had some in the system, you know,
for a decade or more, and I will ask them
the same questions that I asked somebody who purchased a
year ago, what would you do this again? And I

(13:05):
have yet to find a franchise inner system that says no,
which is a wonderful thing to hear. But the reasons
why they picked it in the first place are what
drive them through what continue to drive their performance, and
is essentially the reason why they turn around and say,
I would absolutely do this again. Or it's also one
of the reasons why, you know, seventy percent of our

(13:26):
system is owned by multi unit owners. They're opening multiple
because they're so passionate about it, and that's really something
that's hard to find in just regular old data. We've
been utilizing some you know use of AI, which I
think will probably segue us nicely into our second section,
you know, but really digging into the profile of people

(13:49):
during the sales process. You know, we've got some tools
that we use and from an AI perspective during the
sales process to try to understand our you know, potential
candidates on a more personal basis, so we can answer
their questions the way that they need them to be answered.
But it also helps us to determine, you know, whether
or not it's going to be that cultural fit, uh

(14:09):
and you know, really diving into why somebody is making
that decision and utilizing some of those like kind of
creepy techie tools, you know, it has really been you know,
a great asset to our team and has helped us
to find people that are really going to fit in
with you know, with our family here.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
Yeah. I love that.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
And without getting into you know, proprietary stuff, because I
and if I probe even if I can't talk about
that one day, but but there are a lot of
tools out there that people used to do profiling and
and I want to get into that because this is
I come. That was one of my industries I've worked
in before is assessments.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
But are you guys, Have you.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
Guys taken kind of pro a profile assessment of all
your current owners and then you use that data to
try to match with future owners. Is that a part
of your flow?

Speaker 3 (14:55):
Absolutely? Yes, I did that back when I first came
on board.

Speaker 4 (14:59):
I kind have took you know, a subset of some
of our I would say, some of our like you know,
highest performing franchise ease and then all of our franchise
ease and and what was commonalities between them, what drove
them to purchase? And then you know their background, what
you know all of those like I said, those demographic psychographics,
and I utilized a little bit of.

Speaker 3 (15:18):
AI to assist with that.

Speaker 4 (15:20):
But that's absolutely I mean, if you don't look into
your system at the people that are absolutely the ones
you Like I said, you want to find people that
you want to replicate, Like, if I could have fifteen
of you in my system, I would never have to
look for another brand. You know, that's really the goal.
And finding that and figuring that out absolutely is comb

(15:40):
through your franchise ease that you have right now, comb
through people even that were you know, maybe candidates and
said it's just not the right time. I don't just
come through franchise ease. You know, yes, that's those are
the ones that you really want because you have the
most data from them.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
But we always do a full kind of scope through
of you know, who was looking and who.

Speaker 4 (16:01):
Was asking, and then why didn't they pick us? Because
that will also give you some data that you really
need to dive into.

Speaker 3 (16:09):
Is it because we weren't answering certain questions?

Speaker 4 (16:11):
Is it because they were afraid of being the first
in market? Or was it because they were afraid that
it was an oversaturated market? You know, you find out
a lot of things about your you know, potential candidates
if you just dig into them post conversation. You know,
if you get a lead in and they're like, yeah, no,
thank you. Yeah, you might not get a lot out
of them, but did they get your FDD, did they

(16:33):
comb through it, did they do some validation calls? And
then they were like yeah, you know this isn't for me.
Follow up and ask why.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
Yeah, it's so smart.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
You know what most people don't do that they're so
busy chasing the lead that they don't have someone who's
thinking and being strategic. And that's I just want to
reiterate how important it is one to understand who your realm,
who your real target is, and then also from people
that say no, Like that's the two best people you
can learn from other people who say yes and those

(17:02):
that say no.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
Correct.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
And you said something earlier that I just want to
come back to, which is asking would you do it again?
I feel like we need to have a new measurement,
like an F SAT, C SAT or N SAT Would
you buy this franchise again?

Speaker 2 (17:14):
If you could do it all over again.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
Really, if you ask people that question, you measured it,
use the same sort of data, you'd probably have a
pretty solid metric that you could I mean, I'd love
to see how you stack up against everybody else in
the industry, because you'd probably be pretty darn good.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
That'd be a great metrics.

Speaker 3 (17:29):
You gave me something to.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
Do, metrics to cool. Well, So let's shift.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
So a couple of things is the landscape has been
changing in franchise development marketing.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
One we've got to talk about.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
Is se O and a I e O or a
se O sounds like old McDonald had a farm when
we talked about So talk to us about what's changing there,
because this is important. Guys take note.

Speaker 4 (17:58):
Yeah, I think there's a lot of there's been so
much information surrounding AI lately, and there's been so much
good information surrounding AI that it's I feel like people
are starting to have a good grasp on it, but
there's still so much to learn, and I think that
it's still too siloed, and we're trying. I'm trying to

(18:20):
figure out how I can just kind of bring it
all together. So SEO is being left behind by not us,
but by you know, in the conversations, like some people
are saying, well, SEO isn't really a thing anymore because
AI is taking over, and well, neither of them are
really working, so we're leaning into digital and well, you know,

(18:40):
we have. We stopped really kind of focusing on the
website because AI is already answering those questions, and I
was like, we need to take all of that and
figure out how it goes in this nice little melting
pod and work it all together, because without SEO, you're
not going to show up an AI. Without showing up
an AI, you know all of these other things, it's
just like this domino of and they are all working together,

(19:03):
and if you are not optimizing for AI, then you're
missing out and you risk disappearing from that conversation because
it is absolutely rewriting the search game, but it's not
negating the search game in my opinion. So you know,
are you showing up outside of AI answers or inside
of AI answers and not just.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
In Google rankings, but are you still showing up in
Google rankings?

Speaker 4 (19:25):
Because they're all kind of plug and play tying in together,
and you know, they really need I think brands really
need to stop and ask, Like, for us, if it
was us stopping and stepping back and going, okay, when
somebody types best childcare franchise, is AI going to recommend
us or are they going to ignore us?

Speaker 3 (19:45):
And if they ignore us. Why are they ignoring us?
What did we miss out on?

Speaker 4 (19:48):
And some of the biggest things that I've been pulling
away from that research is that that campaign optimization, that
scaling of technology is all working together, and it's still
driven by that baseline of sc and it's still driven
by those quality digital campaigns, and it's still all driven
by them working together.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
Yeah, you still have to have a backlinking strategy, you
still have to have a good domain authority because the
AI bots are looking for those things, and that's all
driven the fundamentals.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
I feel like, you know, I storry to use a
football analogy because it is football season right now.

Speaker 3 (20:22):
But yeah, was that it's a goal lions, So the.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
It's like an offense that learns how to run an option. Well,
you don't have to stop blocking and catching football. It's
just because we added a new play, right It's it
blows my mind. I've heard people say it because there's
all this hype about well, AI SEO is taking over.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
It's taking over. You know what it represents.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
It represents like twenty five percent of the traffic to
my website. Here's data, right, so, but it used to
represent zero six weeks ago, So that's significant, But seventy
five percent still coming.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
From like SEO and social and other other references.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
Right, so everybody simmer down for a second, like, will
there come a day when it's fifty to fifty?

Speaker 2 (21:03):
Oh yeah, probably, But.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
Are you still gonna let go of those fifty percent? No?

Speaker 2 (21:09):
I want those too.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
So anyway, I do feel like people have to pay
attention because it is the rising trend, and especially younger
demographics as we start shifting down into millennials.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
When people are younger who are gonna be buyers.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
Of franchises, they're gonna be They're gonna have a propensity
to live on a perplexity app on their phone or
a chat GPT open AI app on their phone, and
that's okay.

Speaker 4 (21:30):
Well and use those tech and AI and advance like
tools to your advantage. I mean absolutely, it's not going
to be a throw money in SEO, throw money in
AI through like it all is working together. I mean
you mentioned it, you know, backlinking and your domain authority.
Where do we think that comes from. That's not going
to change from digital at you know, digital paid media campaigns.
That's going to come from a solid PR strategy and

(21:52):
a really good PR team working on your behalf to
get those back links? Are those back links searchable? Because
that's another thing is that some websites can turn them off,
so even though there's a link there, it might not
follow you.

Speaker 3 (22:04):
So how do we go find and whether or not
they can turn that on for us? And what are
we doing?

Speaker 4 (22:07):
And it all absolutely works together, and you know, what
is your digital campaign doing to send traffic to your website? Also,
you know boost obviously because we need traffic to our website.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
But then also at the end of the day, what's
that user experience?

Speaker 4 (22:20):
Is pr out here saying something completely different than what
your digital campaign's doing, And then what's your SEO strategy saying?

Speaker 3 (22:26):
And what is that doing? If it's not.

Speaker 4 (22:28):
Cohesive, supportive of each other and working on like full
cylinder at all times, you know, I think you're really
missing out on being able to scale with that. And
that's what technology is really giving franchisers, you know, franchisors
the ability to do without losing that personal touch in
all of those touch points.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
Like we you know, I think it However, long ago,
it was.

Speaker 4 (22:48):
What seven touch points before somebody becomes a lead, And
now it's like.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
Twelve, yeah, or more. I think it was twelve.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
More Like I saw some number reason not long ago,
maybe six months ago, I said it was like up
to twenty five now, which I mean we start to consider, like, well,
there are digital touches on like display ads in all
these different places in billboards. You're like, it might be
that high, but I don't think it's always that high.
But even twelve twelve touches, that's a lot of brand huparity, right, yeah, And.

Speaker 4 (23:16):
Don't quote me on that, but I feel because I'm
really bad with remembering numbers, but I feel like that's
the new kind of you know, standard of touch points.
But you know, I think that AI optimization and you
know those link large language learning models, you know they're
really driving content. But it's all still kind of intertwined
and working together. And you know, even so far as

(23:38):
to say, you know, your reputation and your social presence as.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
Well, you know, all of it is.

Speaker 4 (23:45):
Absolutely working together and needs to have just as much
of a priority as SEO used to, and you know
still should. It should have as much of a priority
as your digital marketing should have.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
A like it's all this like how much money do
you spend on what.

Speaker 4 (24:02):
I wish we could just go across the board and
be like equal opportunity, send it all. But that doesn't
work for every brand, So I'll say that with Goshen.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
But you know, knowing where your.

Speaker 4 (24:13):
Tech stack should be and knowing where your spend should
be based on obviously your target demographic.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
But yeah, well let's talk about that. I mean, because
we've been talking about.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
The value of a balanced SEO AI SEO strategy now right,
and you know, but you've been mentioning all these other facets.
Is still touch it and you said this early on.
It's a multifaceted issue, right, Let's talk about another one
of the facets, which is reputation, transparency, social proof like
these things, especially in franchise development. But I mean, actually,
forget that statement because you're in childcare. In childcare, it's

(24:47):
just as critical. I'm not going to take my kid
there unless I see oh, happy moms, happy dads, saving
couples saying great things about a brand, like all of
those are so critical.

Speaker 2 (24:58):
But let's focus it on the frand OFV journey.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
I'm not going to go invest a whole bunch of
money into a thing unless I feel confident is going
to work. How are you guys still continuing to harness
the power of reputation and social proof as you guys
are trying to build your strategy.

Speaker 4 (25:13):
I mean, I think that personally from a you know,
a franchise development perspective. Happy franchisees, you know, help sell franchises,
but so do happy customers because happy customers equate to
happy franchisees. So I think you're right on the money
with a reputation like I do not negate franchisees like
our center's reputation. If we have reput you know, if

(25:35):
we have centers falling under their reputation scores, you know,
there's obviously and that's a whole different team and we
could you go off on an absolute ledge with that conversation,
but we absolutely keep a priority marker on the reputation
of our franchisees because.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
Franchise leads are not just to your point. They're not
just reading your FDD.

Speaker 4 (25:56):
They're not just looking at you from a perspective of
let me talk to a franchise e that's in the
system and let me know more.

Speaker 3 (26:02):
They're doing exactly what you said.

Speaker 4 (26:03):
They're reading your Google reviews, they're watching your franchises on
LinkedIn and they're trying to find them on other social platforms.
There's authentic franchise ese stories that can be used there
and you know, visible success and transparent communication and that
all builds trust. But these people that are trying to
purchase franchises these days are using absolutely every tool imaginable

(26:24):
to determine whether or not you're going to be a fit.
And from a social media perspective, like I said, how
your franchisees are showing up, how your brand's showing up,
absolutely from top to bottom, in every single corner of
that sentiment, you need to have a pulse on because
to your point, yeah, if you were let's just use

(26:45):
Michigan because I'm in Michigan. If there was a franchise
looking to open up a franchise in Michigan and they
pulled up a brand and they had Freeze across the
board in the state, right, probably not going to look
further into that brand. Because if a franchisee from a
brand level can't keep their consumers happy, what are they
going to do for me?

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (27:06):
To keep me happy? So and it's it's meant to be.

Speaker 4 (27:08):
I mean, we really pride our you know, our brand
on like that family feel. And I know it can
be kind of like a scary buzzword for some people,
but that's honestly how brands should look at it, Like
you should be supporting from the base level of that,
and that's why we have that circle of care right.

Speaker 3 (27:24):
Coming back to the top of the conversation.

Speaker 4 (27:26):
So we support the children, yes, absolutely, of course, hands down,
no question. We support our franchisees absolutely, hands down, no question.
But we also support the community, hands down, no question,
the families, hands like. That's the thing, is like, and
that's really what kind of drives our culture, and it's
your reputation is so critical to franchise sales. It's like,

(27:51):
I hope that people realize that.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
Well, So I don't know if you know, it's my
wife and I bought franchises and we held those for
we actually groomed about eighteen months, and I had somebody
who wanted to buy them from us. He lived in
our territory. So for us, it's like the perfect story.
Right when it was getting big enough and busy enough
that I.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
Was like, oh, I need to go hire people to
run this thing. It worked out perfectly for us. But
it is I knew the brand, I knew some of
the operators. I talked to the owners like my thing.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
Like, I have hundreds of brands self franchise, Like, I
know how this freaking works. So I went and talked
to the guys and dug in deep to the franchise
owners to get a feel for what was really going on.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
I could look at what was happening.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
They didn't they were, they were emerging, and I knew that,
so I knew what I was getting there. But every
savvy buyer is going to dig deep, and frankly, eighty
percent of the research, ninety percent of the research happens
without you being aware of it. Like you're saying, like
they're looking at what are you What are your local
franchise owners saying on X? What they sing on TikTok?
What are they saying on Facebook? What are they saying
on LinkedIn? Are they saying anything on LinkedIn? Are they

(28:54):
do they have a Probably I will always look at
the Google review of any business I'm going to do
business with, or a tech and I look at like
G two Capterra.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
But anyway, it's critical as.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
A consumer from you know, David this consumer hat on
like I always check every time. Absolutely, yeah, great point.
So then talk to us a little bit about tech, right,
and you don't have to be you can be as
specific as specific as you're comfortable with. But in order
to do this, in order to balance these things out,

(29:25):
to check reputation, to manage all these different things, you
obviously can't do it all yourself, but there's all sorts
of stuff that can assist you. So how are you
guys using technology to facilitate this multifaceted approach and drive
it with scale?

Speaker 4 (29:40):
So I think, you know, this is something I can
say as someone who's been on the brand side, went
to this flyer, so I went back to the brand side.
A wonderful way to do that without having to say
I have all of this technology and I do it
all myself is finding the right fit with your supplier
partner as well. So obviously we know this, you know,

(30:02):
and not to like like hey, but our supplier partners
have a lot of that technology and the experience with
that technology to do it quicker and more at scale.
So if there's something that you don't have maybe the
knowledge or the capacity or the personnel to execute internally,
finding those critically significant partners is a huge part of it. Right,

(30:24):
that'll take a good chunk of that tech stack, you know,
off your plate, like at base level, from a tech perspective, right,
you want a working, functioning, consumer friendly, successful website and
who does that? Do you have a developer internally? Do
you have an entire website team internally? Then who can
you hire to support you there? And I feel very

(30:44):
confident with our you know, technology partner there, our web developers,
you know, our digital ad creation, our PR agency does
an incredible job, you know as far as getting us
placements and found and that back leaking strategy that we
talked about. But internally, you know, as far as technology,

(31:05):
what technology are we using to really support ourselves? And
that kind of goes back to that AI and goes
to those good tech partners.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
But what can I use for me?

Speaker 4 (31:14):
So from if we just dive it down to a
frand of marketing perspective, what technology can I use to
make my job easier? And that very much so kind
of falls into that AI perspective. So what can I
use to read reports? Quicker to cross compare fdds, quicker
to find answers? To where my competitors are or not,
or you know, what technology can I utilize to figure

(31:36):
out trends in keywords and growth and where those are changing.
So I keep a nice little tab open that follows
some of my favorite keywords across the board, and how
does that change every day over months, you know, kind
of three. I do a usually a ninety day span
of keyword trends and follow those along. I'm always checking

(31:56):
our reputation, so are if we have a you know,
a digital like a social ad, We're making sure to
utilize technology that pings me when somebody responds to that ad.
If they don't click it, but they respond to it,
we can answer them, so, you know, using technology as
touch points to maintain communication. Obviously, a nice solid CRM
is always a good business model to have that can

(32:17):
automate a lot of things for you from a franchise
sales perspective. But knowing I think too, one thing that's
incredibly important to remember is that, you know, enabling your
processes to be more efficient is absolutely about speed, consistency,
and data, but it also makes your execution easier and
more effective when you need to be personal. So our

(32:40):
biggest thing is I don't ever want to automate to
the point to where like a potential franchise lead is
coming through and they have to go through an automated
process before they talk to somebody. That's never anything that
I'm going to recommend. Like I said, we have an
incredible team. Speed to lead is one thousand percent something
that we really focus on and.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
That I feel from a personal.

Speaker 4 (33:00):
Touch perspective, is not anything that I would ever technology
use technology to automate.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
But if you can launch smart, consistent.

Speaker 4 (33:10):
Campaigns and do that quicker, and you can utilize data
and technology to give you kind of an ongoing loop
of feedback on how your ads are working, how your
website's working, did something go down?

Speaker 3 (33:21):
Is something broken? Do we need to tweak a keyword?

Speaker 4 (33:24):
Are people responding to our ads and asking us for
a job as opposed to responding to ads and asking
us about our franchise. So utilizing technology and those tools
to support what you're doing, but not losing out on
that human touch. I think that that's one thing specifically
in franchise development marketing that is still so key because

(33:46):
if somebody is going to hand over a chunk of
their life, which I will call their investment. They are
handing over parts of their life to you to enter
into your brand. Why would I want to hand them
the keys in the mail as opposed to handing them
the keys from my hand. So there's definitely a lot

(34:07):
of aspects of franchise development marketing that I think need
to remain personal and have a human touch, but lean
into technology for those you know, turnkey automated marketing tools
that can drive leads absolutely all day. But use it
for analysis, use it for review, use it for outreach
for you know, reputation, Absolutely utilize it in your business.

(34:31):
From a consumer marketing perspective, you know, lean into how
you can automate, you know, like automate your marketing tech
stack and marketing platforms and all of those things that
can support your franchise e so that they can put
out marketing quicker. That's absolutely all day lean into technology.
But I think with franchise development marketing it's still very
much so a human touch moment.

Speaker 3 (34:54):
And so when I always tell.

Speaker 4 (34:56):
People, yeah, technology, AI technology, go use it, utilize it.
Don't put an entire lean like you don't want it
to be a crutch, I.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
Guess, or a friction point right there.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
There are people out there that they really.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
Love this concept of almost no touch franchise development, and
I think that's crazy foolish.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
Right, So there are certain things I feel.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
Like, yeah, you can automate initial engagement, schedule appointment, but
once you've had a conversation, yeah, I mean you and
I are on the same page.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
Once you've had your initial conversation, you can't automate that.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
And you and you can't, and you don't want a
robotic experience because you got to read the nuance of
the human to know is this person like you're it's
like dating, right, like like sending a robot on a
date to tell you if you should marry somebody at
some point, like everybody on the planet that would trust
the robot to do that, because it's like does does
does she pick her nose?

Speaker 2 (35:50):
Does she spit when she talks? Does she? Like?

Speaker 1 (35:53):
A thousand things? Right that you're you're measuring subconsciously about
people and you interact with them. And that's exactly how
frandom is because you're trying to figure out are we
going to bring this person into a relationship. It's harder
to end than a marriage that's pretty serious and also
really critical to protect your culture, right.

Speaker 4 (36:09):
Correct, And I mean, and there's nothing wrong with utilizing
technology to support that personal touch. Use AI to tell
you whether or not the person that you're talking to
prefers long emails that are super detailed and tells a
story or if they want three bullet points and a
thank you, you know, like that is that's when technology
comes in, you know, tell me more about this person

(36:32):
that you know, maybe this AI model or this you know,
and there's a lot of you know, different platforms out
there like Casper and Crystal Knows and all of those things,
you know that can tell you more about a person
to support you in that personal touch process and maybe
and it will make it more efficient. So you know,
please don't misunderstand that me saying that a personal touch
is going to you know, still take up all of

(36:53):
this time. Like you can absolutely find efficiencies everywhere without
me without negating that personal touch or losing out on that,
you know, establishment of maintaining a culture for a brand.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
Yeah, yeah, which is really franchise marketing is the door,
right and the gatekeeper or as a friand have team
to make sure only.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
The right people get in, right.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
It's it's really it's really a two way street. And
this has been awesome. I mean, I think you and
I we could probably go another thirty forty minutes just
to talk about this. But guys, key things that I'm
hearing from Amanda, you got to pay attention to how
do you really leverage AI right in every facet of marketing?
How how do you balance AI or AI s e
O versus SEO Today? SEO is never going to go away,

(37:35):
never ever, So we've got to get that out of
our heads and make sure.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
But we're also embracing this change of AI S e O.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
We've got we've got to set up structures and which
it's on our websites that are going to support the
bots are going.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
To find right.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
But you talked about all sorts of other things. I
think our mission critical balancing out the effort reputation, how
important that is. And Amanda, tell me, is there is
there anything else that I didn't that I left out
there that we ought to make sure we wrap up with?
And how would you how would you advise a young
brand or even a growing brand that's trying to figure
this out where they start?

Speaker 4 (38:06):
I mean, well, like I said at the beginning. You know,
if you can't if you can't measure it, you can't
sell it. So use the information that you have now,
use the data that you have. It is never too
late to start collecting data. It is never too late
to start doing the work on the back end to

(38:27):
improve your SEO or your AI, you know, appearances.

Speaker 3 (38:31):
It's never too late, and it's not as difficult as
it sounds.

Speaker 4 (38:35):
But there are some really incredible people out there that can,
you know, dig into it a heck of a lot
deeper than I did today. You know, get on a panel,
or get on you know, get on a podcast, listen
to some podcasts, you know, hop into some of those
you know, round tables and webinars where people are digging
into it and just play around with it, and don't
you know, don't be afraid of it. That's the biggest

(38:57):
thing to just Sti'll be afraid.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
Of it and go put your head in the sand,
right because it is changing. So the worst saying I
think you do now is say, well, it's a fad,
it'll go away. I remember people saying that a couple
of years and some changes, and I was like, oh,
and here they are front and center, whoops.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
You left behind.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
So don't be lucky by being afraid or being too
busy to try. You you have to carve out deliberate
time to investigate, to play with them. Like you're saying,
I love I'm a nerd, but I just love testing
stuff out and playing with it. And I'm not even
a marketer, right sort of but not not like you.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
So, Yeah, the.

Speaker 4 (39:33):
Growth that I've been able to experience, I would say,
even in the last year, leaning into AI learning and
what AI can teach because that's the other thing too,
is AI can teach you. If you don't know how
to use AI, ask it, it'll tell you. So, you know,
that's something that's really incredible. And the things that I've
learned by leading into a you know, AI and not
being afraid of it has been absolutely critical to me

(39:54):
being able to keep my gears turning every day.

Speaker 3 (39:58):
You know, and not getting you know, not ending up drowning.

Speaker 4 (40:01):
In a workload, like utilize it and yeah, just don't
be afraid of it.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Yeah, agreed.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
If somebody wanted to reach out to you, what's the
best way for them to connect?

Speaker 2 (40:09):
If they will on LinkedIn LinkedIn.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
Find me on LinkedIn absolutely Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
That's the easy spot. I see that.

Speaker 3 (40:16):
Yeah yeah cool man.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
Thanks again for all your time. You've been fantastic.

Speaker 3 (40:20):
Thank you so much. It was so good chatting with you.
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