Mike Mack

We all know how important it is for customers to be able to find your locations. And with the advent of technology, there's no excuse not to have a territory and store locator on your website. But what if you don't have the time or resources to create one from scratch? In this blog post, we'll show you how to use available code and an API to easily create a web-based store locator. Not only will this save you time and money, but it'll also allow you to fully customize your store locator to match your brand perfectly. So let's get started!

Making territories is hard, especially in unknown markets. To help plan your post-Covid growth strategy here is a handy way to create sellable territories today.

When it comes to territory mapping, franchise owners are looking for software that is quick and easy to use. I often hear them say how important it is to store the company’s data on the cloud so that team members can collaborate, reach agreements in shorter times, and ultimately put the right information at the franchisee’s fingertips.

Since the first humans gained consciousness, they have strived to answer one question: what comes next?

Pet services have been the fastest growing product segment for the Pet Stores industry over the past five years.* Pet services include full service grooming, haircuts, baths, toenail trimming and tooth.

Microsoft has discontinued MapPoint starting this year, which was used as a territory mapping software. This left many users with an option to replace it. However, the big question here is, what exactly does a business, like a franchise, need in a mapping package?

People, such as investors, are especially interested in your business plan for growth, and your retail sales forecast is a big part of what they take into consideration. It should show your predicted monthly sales for the next year and by year for the next two-to-five years.

Market share is your piece of the pie. It is important to investment banks, your partner, your sales team and your growth. But what is that pie and how do you calculate your slice?

Any manager or employee involved in outside sales knows the incredible joy of getting their territory right. It is simply tremendous to walk in the door of a prospective customer and know that your referrals are good, there are 30 more customers waiting for you down the street, and you have all the territory information you need to make a good pitch, from approach to close.

Much of the modern economy focuses on data, information and social networking, but in retail, the age old adage “location, location, location” still fits. For retail technology, the goal of any advanced data, information or social networking is to find and engage the perfect market, and in a physical retail space your location defines your target market.

Less than two years have passed since Apple first launched iBeacons in 254 stores across the country. In the past two years, retailers have used iBeacons to find out who is shopping at their stores and to reach out to those customers with real-time information on purchases. Available for Apple devices iOS 7 and above, iBeacon uses a Bluetooth connection. Here are a few ways that iBeacons are revolutionizing retail.

With the constantly evolving atmosphere of the business world, understanding the particular nuances of brick-and-mortar stores is imperative to establishing an image within consumer market any size.

What politicians have been doing since 1812, businesses have just begun to do. The term “gerrymandering” was named after Massachusetts Governor, Elbridge Gerry who, in 1812, signed a bill redrawing the electoral map of his state to benefit his party in the election. This is a sleazy practice in politics, but it is an effective tactic in business. Territory mapping is rationalizing the geography in which you do business to make it better fit the practice of sales and marketing.

Franchising is a complex relationship that can lead to great success for both parties. With a strong product, robust territory mapping, and savvy players this relationship can run smoothly and increase profits. Aside from a solid foundation, the Franchisor has a responsibility to equip their Franchisee with the best tools and training to ensure success. Here are a few power plays you can make to empower your Franchisee and make the best of this new business partnership.

Despite the name, the cloud has nothing to do with the sky above our heads and is instead more directly related to the world around us. It’s about taking pieces of information and making them available wherever you happen to be, regardless of where you happen to be, provided that you have access to some type of device with an active Internet connection.

There are many key demographic insights that can be achieved through the use of big data mining. Big data analytics are often utilized through cloud data warehousing solutions, which have the resources needed to analyze and keep tremendously large amounts of data.

It’s no secret that the world we live in is getting smaller every day due in large part to the technology that plays a more important role in our lives as time marches on. Statistically speaking, almost 80% of adults in the United States now carry a device in their pockets all day long that is more powerful than the technology that ushered the space program into existence in the 1950s and 1960s – their smartphones.

Historically speaking, one of the biggest challenges that professionals in the franchise industry face on a daily basis is one of logistics. Managing one location with dozens of employees, many of whom are likely spread out across great distances as they work both in a physical location and even potentially in the field, is difficult on the best of days – to say nothing of how hard everything becomes if you add two, three or even four additional locations.

Geographical analytics are at the core of many decisions that you’ll make about your business. Whether you’re trying to decide where you want to open a new franchise or who you want to advertise to, analytics will tell you where your customers are and what they’re interested in. Nevertheless, there are some mistakes that franchisees can make when they’re looking at their analytics. Data is only one part of a thorough analysis; you also need to be able to derive actionable, insightful information from that data as well.

There is a science behind predicting consumer behavior – literally. Customer behavior scientists forecast consumer buying habits by estimating how different segments of the population will respond to, use and purchase specific products and services. This is based on a black box model. People respond to a stimulus, which is the core of the black box model, but how do retailers create the right stimuli for their brand? Demographics play a big role. How can you put demographics to work enhancing your sales potential?

If you want your business to generate profit, you need to make sure the foundations are set right. In the case of brick-and-mortar business, that foundation is the physical location of your business. Your success or failure practically depends on this. One might be tricked into thinking “oh come on, I am about to open a McDonald’s, everybody loves it. All I need to do is just find an affordable location”. Well, try opening a McDonald’s in a vegetarian neighborhood. You know what will happen? RIP profits.

The franchising business carries a lot of risk alongside with the potential rewards. A successful franchise is basically a wild idea of somebody that was able to turn in into reality with the help of hard work and, most of the times, a healthy amount of luck. Naturally, young businessmen see an opportunity in these kinds of endeavors: if it worked once, it will work twice.

Territory mapping software (TMS) is used by retail businesses everywhere, from global billion-dollar organizations to small enterprises. Franchise territory mapping software has been fine-tuned over time to ensure it can meet the sales needs of any industry.

International franchise Association (IFA) is the world’s largest and oldest organization representing franchising worldwide. IFA utilizes its governmental relationships, policies, media and educational programs to defend the rights, promote and support franchising industry and over 780k franchise companies that hold close to 9 million jobs and produce $900 billion economic resources for the U.S.

Whether seeking expansion, optimizing sales, or restructuring your operations, territory mapping software is an essential tool. By properly leveraging sales territory mapping, organizations are better able to achieve maximum penetration and revenue without redundancy, overlap, or missed opportunities. Here are a few ways your organization can acquire accurate insights and achieve better business outcomes through territory mapping.

Mapping out franchise territories is one of the most critical decisions you make in this relationship called franchising. As a franchisor, you are working to develop territories that meet the needs of the franchise, but without losing potential customers and revenue opportunities. The franchisee, on the other hand, is working in dream mode. This person is establishing his or her own business that is the key to their future income – so understandably, they want the biggest piece of the pie as possible. The trick is to find a working solution that benefits both sides. Consider five tips that help make that happen.

When looking for the perfect location for your franchise business, it’s important to think about it from a wider perspective. Besides understanding your target buyers, getting a location that is most comfortable for them, taking into account your competitors and aiming to satisfy the needs of all potential customers in the given territory, there are also business specific factors that don’t stand out that much at a glance, but need to be considered seriously, as they can be a real deal breaker when it comes to the actual site selection process.

Depending on the type of business you run, choosing the right location can be of utmost importance. Any franchising expert (or even a beginner really) will tell you that choosing your location smartly is the first key thing you need to do, before jumping in on other matters.

Choosing the perfect territory for your franchise can be troublesome and seemingly difficult process. After all, you’re investing a lot of recourses into this step, which will ultimately decide whether your franchise business is going to succeed or not.

Careful and successful territory planning is the cornerstone of franchising success. In fact, not only the franchisors, but also the franchisees depend on expert planning. Since franchisors and franchisees depend on one another in business terms so much (which is pretty rare in the business world if you think about it), it’s essential not to mismanage territory mapping.

Picking a good franchisor and buying a franchise is only the beginning. Today, franchisees in almost any industry have to fight hard for customer attention, in order to keep themselves afloat and generate enough revenue to continue operating their business.

Did you know that technology made a hundred years’ worth of progress from 2000 to 2014? According to Ray Kurzweil, computer scientist, innovator and one of the leading AI experts in the world, the same hundred years’ worth of progress will be achieved from 2014-2021, in just seven years.

Customers.Today, customers decide everything – they decide whether your business/service/product/software is good or bad, whether it’s worth spending time on, whether they would like to recommend you to a friend, and ultimately, whether you are going to be profitable, just on the verge or survival/defeat or are destined to fail even before you get anywhere.

Let me ask you something.If you own a coffee shop and target families with middle income, aged 25-35, and a single guy, around 45-50, walks into your store – would you not sell him coffee? Exactly.

“Business space” is everywhere. Literally.Every retail business, online or offline, big and small, strives to make the best possible use of space (territories, locations, etc.), and with good reason.

If you’ve ever been to any business event, market share has probably been a major topic. Indeed, in today’s business world, market share practically defines success – you’re as successful as how much market share you have today…

In the past couple of years, some of the largest downstream focused companies have shifted their gaze towards the end consumer and started to explore the opportunities of investing into retail.Indeed, there is a lot of room for flexibility and gathering valuable sales data when it comes to retail, largely due to it providing a steady source of reliable income, and it’s also a great chance to establish a direct communication channel between an oil company and its audience.

If any company wants to go really big today, they have to focus on innovation and novelty. Simple as that.Multiple studies have proven that one of the top reasons for driving purchase intent among customers is innovation, or rather, the process of being exposed to something new.

With one of the biggest and most anticipated tech events of 2017 happening on March 19-22, we are thrilled to share some exciting news with everybody.

Internet can be considered one of the most explosive inventions of the world. It can easily be placed alongside inventions that radically changed how our world functions, such as combustion engine, printed press, and sliced bread.

The buzz.The buzz that sends fear into the hearts of retailers, suggesting that online shopping has come to replace offline, and there is no turning back.Indeed, with the technology available to the large public today, which allows to order anything from diapers and chips to perfectly fitting clothing and comfortable furniture, why would anyone bother to take the time to visit a physical store when they can simply order everything online?But then…

The buzz.The buzz that sends fear into the hearts of retailers, suggesting that online shopping has come to replace offline, and there is no turning back.Indeed, internet allows customers to order anything from diapers and soda to perfectly fitting clothing and even gardening tools without leaving the comfort of their homes, so why would anyone bother visiting a physical store while dealing with traffic jams, long travel times (and a dozen of other obstacles) to buy the same stuff?But then…

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become one of the most powerful tools a retailer can wield. From recommending an author to a customer to recommending a store location, AI empowers retailers to a degree that wasn’t thought possible 20 years ago. Mike Mack, Co-Founder and CEO of Fract, a geospatial AI platform for retailers, illuminated just how valuable AI technology is to the retail world and covered parts of its application in a recent conversation with Retail Technology Insider.

We are proud to announce the release of our Territory Scoring feature and our updates. Now you can immediately assess and compare your territory potential

We had a client that was a chain of boxing gym franchises that was looking to expand in a large city in the middle America. The gym wanted to do what every franchise does: grow the number of it’s branches and make the most money at each of its locations.

The future of geospatial technology probably isn’t a map. The future of geospatial tech might be an email alert, a report, a graph or an ordered list. In fact, it will be all those things and likely more.

Geographical analytics are at the core of many decisions that you'll make about your business.

3 Ways How Technology is Revolutionizing Predictive Analysis

‍“Decisions are the hardest thing to make, especially when it’s a choice between where you should be, and where you want to be.”