Having been involved in the franchising industry I have seen a lot of well-intentioned advertisements that simply did not pull and often I would cringe when I looked at some of those ads. But it was not just our franchise company franchisees that needed help, truly it is most all small business people.

We finally instituted a plan that our franchisees had to fax us a copy of their ad 24-hours prior to sending in for publication, if they did not hear back from us in 12-hours it was automatically approved. The turn around had to be fast, as we did not want our franchisees to miss a deadline or marketing opportunity and we know people wait until the last minute. Also we wanted sales and for them to make money as that is the goal in business.

That first year we rejected about 50% of the advertising display type ads and radio blurbs. A funny thing happened by not too unpredictable. You see the franchisees would send fax in the ads on Saturday night at 10 PM hoping we would not see them and they would be automatically approved for fear we might reject them at HQ. It was obvious we needed some help here. So, we revised the advertising in our Confidential Operations Manuals.

Still we had to consider regional variation and ads do not work the same everywhere you see. So, as a small business person you might wish to consider doing it right and perhaps hiring a professional Yellow page advertising lay-out, design and strategist, indeed that is something most small businesses can use. Please consider all this in 2006.