What Prospects Say about the Franchise Sales Process
By: Michael Alston for Franchise Insights
August 19, 2026 – Individuals submitting inquiries about franchises were mostly satisfied with their experiences, according to franchise prospect surveys over the six months ending July 2026. Almost half (48.9%) said they were either “satisfied “or “very satisfied”, up from 43.4% over the same period in 2025 (see comparison below).
Of respondents, 48.9% said they were “satisfied or very satisfied” with the sales process.
Another third said they were “neither satisfied nor unsatisfied”, suggesting that their pursuits are still underway, or at least that their experience was mixed.
Only 18.2% said they were “unsatisfied or very unsatisfied,” showing improvement from the similar period in 2025. Nonetheless, these responses – along with the 33.0% who were neither satisfied or dissatisfied – suggest that there is potential room for improvement according to more than 50% of respondents.
An analysis of the six months of suggestions on that question yielded hints about action items consistent with prior surveys if you have been following the “Mystery Shopping” results and franchise lead generation best practices from FranchiseInsights.com over the years.
Less than a fourth of February to July 2026 respondents provided unstructured comments, a few representative samples of which are below.
There were a few comments about representatives not showing up, or showing up late for calls, or reports of “no contact” or “more timely follow up” as in previous analyses over the last few years. While lack of proper follow up is hard to excuse as a business practice, this is consistent with recent analysis showing that about 29% of inquiries receive no follow up within seven days and only about 40% are contacted by all the franchises they inquired about within that same window.
And the lack of follow up creates an opportunity for high-performing sales teams, since most franchise prospects ultimately inquire about only a few choices.
Some respondents expressed concerns about getting calls immediately, before receiving any information by email or text, and expressed their preference that they have the time to do a bit of research and prepare themselves before a call. We regularly repeat the suggestion from years of survey data showing the effectiveness of emailing before calling. This behavior is underscored in the significant share of prospects who go on to visit franchisor’s websites right after inquiring at a franchise directory site because they “wanted to learn more” or “prepare before a call.”
As in previous analyses, there were a number of responses relating to the topic of sales pressure. Initial contact before an introductory email continues to be a risky practice, as evidenced by the comment below.
A representative comment on initial contact: “No unsolicited phone calls and text messages. One email that provides a website link or contains a doc with the basic info such as capital requirements beyond the franchise license. If there’s any interest I will contact you, don’t spam me and keep calling around the clock.
As in analysis of responses in previous years, there were several comments about wanting more complete information about costs of startup and ownership beyond the initial franchise fee. Another suggestion was to provide “clear data and information such as business failure percent and why or success rate and why.”
The Franchise Insights monthly “Mystery Shopping” survey collects responses from individuals who have recently inquired about businesses or franchises for sale on the digital assets of the FranchiseVentures lead generation platform.
Franchise Ventures is the leading franchise lead-generation platform for potential franchisees to thousands of growing franchise systems in the United States and Canada. Its franchise lead generation brands include Franchise.com, Franchise Solutions, Franchise Gator, Franchise Opportunities, Franchise For Sale, SmallBusinessStartup.com and BusinessBroker.net, and together they provide the largest aggregation of prospective franchise buyers in the U.S.
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Published on Tuesday, August 18th, 2026.