SmartPA

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a franchise consulting firm. We help people franchise their business globally as well as recruit franchisees.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SmartPA?

Our business has upscaled and upsized as we’ve grown and diversified over the years. I saw SmartPA as a solution to build my team while also scaling up and down depending on the hours I need and the demands of our clients.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We originally started with one PA. Their role was to answer phones and be the face of our business as someone who’s personable, chatty, and fits in our culture. Deliverables include high-level customer service as well as being in line with our business values and culture.

Since then, we now have two more PAs who work in different aspects of our business. One PA does the same role as our first PA and the other works on our franchisee recruitment efforts. They help with appointment making, database management, lead generation, and resource signals.

Their deliverables include the number of appointments made. Those appointments are conversions into first meetings, deposits, and then signing franchise agreements. The second deliverable is the tracking, conversion, and placement of franchise candidates.

What is the team composition?

We work with our three PAs, and one of them is our key PA.

How did you come to work with SmartPA?

Sarra (Founder) was looking to franchise their business when I was looking at franchising one of my first businesses. We met at a networking event and became friends from there. It made perfect sense to engage with SmartPA when I was looking for this flexible support.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested approximately $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement started around November 2012.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Partnering with them has been a great way to develop our team. The onboarding process is very seamless and that’s a testament to the quality of franchisees that SmartPA has.

A couple of the PAs work on key accounts for us. We’ve successfully renewed some of our key contracts purely because of the results that SmartPA has achieved for our business. This shows how well-integrated they are in our business and how hard they work for us. We feel like they work solely for us but they have other clients as well.

How did SmartPA perform from a project management standpoint?

Our PAs are hyper-communicative and never miss a deadline. SmartPA always keeps us in the loop. They know our business so well that they’ve brought us new clients. They’ve been a huge asset to us over the years.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s their level of personal service. Our clients would never know that some of our team members are SmartPA business owners. They think the PAs are very much internal team members. That’s a testament to how seamless it is and how well our SmartPA support gets to know us and our clients.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there isn’t anything they can do better. I hope that SmartPA continues to expand globally because more businesses should be able to capture their expertise at such a high level. Not to mention, not having to pay a huge premium for those services is an attractive offering to many businesses looking to scale up.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to take the time to properly select your PAs. Ensure that they fit your culture, values, and the job at hand. If you make your PAs part of your business and not a third-party supplier, you’ll get the best results.