⏳ Read time: ~3 minutes

I used to think people had short attention spans.

Marketers love saying this. One to two seconds. Anything longer and you lose them.

I believed it for years.

Then I started talking to new franchisees in training.

We get 100 to 120 new franchisees through training every three weeks. And they keep telling me the same thing.

"I listened to 100 podcast episodes before I even inquired."

"I listened to 200 episodes before coming to training."

That changed everything I thought I knew about franchise recruitment content.

The myth versus the reality

The myth: People want quick, polished, three-minute testimonials.

The reality: People investing their life savings want to know everything.

They want transparency. They want to hear from franchisees, not recruiters.

They want the challenges, not just the wins.

Those slick testimonial videos with B-roll and the best franchisee in the system saying how fantastic everything is?

People do not believe them.

What they believe is a franchisee talking for 45 minutes about what the experience is actually like.

The good and the bad.

It is very hard to hide in long-form content. And that is exactly why it works.

What we did

When I started the Jim's podcast, I had no studio. No fancy equipment. No budget.

I used Zoom. I gave vouchers to franchisees who wanted to share their experience. And I recorded 10 podcasts a week.

That was it.

The production quality was average. The internet connection dropped out sometimes. None of that mattered.

No one has ever said to me, "It was the production value that got me across the line."

They say it was the transparency. The authenticity. The fact that we kept in the challenges, not just the highlights.

We now have more than 350 episodes across the Jim's Group podcast and the Jim's Mowing podcast.

This has been one of the biggest drivers of our franchise growth in recent years.

We have grown from 3,600 to over 5,700 franchisees.

Not the ads. The podcast.

Why this works

Your franchisees sell for you.

You do not have to push. You do not have to do the hard sell.

The prospect listens to a franchisee talk about their real experience, and they sell themselves.

Podcasts also fill the trust gap. A lot of people think franchising is a scam.

They want to know what the catch is.

Having a franchisee talk in an unfiltered way for an hour bridges that gap faster than any sales call.

And here is the bonus.

One podcast becomes 100 pieces of content.

You record a 45-minute interview.

From that, you get shorts for YouTube. Clips for paid ads. Blog posts for your website. Carousels for Instagram. Audio for Spotify. FAQ content that might surface in AI search results.

One recording. Months of content.

The one thing that will kill your podcast

Inconsistency.

Most brands post one video or run one campaign, then stop when it does not go viral.

That is not how content works.

It is a system.

You post weekly. You repurpose. You optimise.

And over time, you build a trust asset that works around the clock.

People listen for months. Sometimes years. Before they even inquire.

If your last episode was three years ago, that tells them something. If your competitor has fresh episodes every week, that tells them something else.

I know which brand they are going to trust.

The takeaway

If you want to grow your franchise brand, start a podcast.

Do not wait for the perfect studio. Do not wait for the perfect equipment. Do not wait until you feel ready.

Start with Zoom. Interview one franchisee this week. Keep it simple. Keep it consistent.

The production does not matter. The authenticity does.

What story could your franchisees tell if you gave them an hour to share it?

Joel

Each week, I interview marketing experts or share insights from the strategies I have used to help grow Jim’s by 2,000+ franchisees.

Listen on Spotify and iTunes.

If you would like to be a guest or would like me to cover a specific subject in an episode, please reply to this email.