Franchise Your Business

Franchise Sales and Marketing Trends December 2025

• Big Sky Franchise Team | Tom DuFore

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This is a recording of a live webinar recorded on December 12, 2025, starting at around 1 PM Eastern Time USA.   

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Links from the episode are here:   

  1. https://www.ismworld.org/globalassets/pub/research-and-surveys/rob/pmi/turk202511pmi.pdf
  2. https://www.ismworld.org/globalassets/pub/research-and-surveys/rob/nmi/sl4yrob202511svcs.pdf
  3. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate
  4. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi
  5. https://www.sca.isr.umich.edu/charts.html
  6. https://www.sca.isr.umich.edu/files/chicsr.pdf
  7. https://www.census.gov/econ/bfs/current/index.html
  8. https://www.franchiseinsights.com/small-business-startup-sentiment-index/startup-sentiment-rebounds-in-november/
  9. https://www.franchiseinsights.com/franchise-development/franchise-lead-generation/despite-best-practices-spam-is-a-factor-in-your-franchise-lead-generation-results/
  10. https://www.franchiseinsights.com/franchise-development/franchise-lead-generation/assessing-the-lifetime-value-of-a-franchise-lead-generation-prospect/
  11. https://www.franchiseinsights.com/top-ten-business-opportunity-categories/

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Tom DuFore:

All right, everyone. Thank you so much for being here on another edition of our franchise sales and marketing trends. This is for December 2025. It'll be our last one of the year. And as folks are loading in here, I'd just like to say thank you again for hanging with us for another year. We're coming up on six years of doing this session in almost every month. There might have been a month here or there we missed, but in general, we've been doing that for six years. So uh just like to open this by saying thank you, thank you, thank you. So grateful for your participation and regularly being here. Uh also, uh, if I don't get a chance to say Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and happy holidays to all of you that as you tune in and watch this. Uh and our session today, and by the way, for those of you that are new to us here or just joining us for the first time, uh want to say thank you as well. This is our franchise your business podcast and webinar series where we like to bring timely relevant topics, uh, things that can help you put into action immediately. Try to be very direct and action-oriented with it. So, this information, hopefully, you can take this and apply it to your business. We go through a wealth of economic data uh to talk through to hopefully help you in your decision making to support your franchise system, your franchise network, um, and going through that. So, uh for those of you who are here, thank you so much. And for the live attendees uh that are not um uh that are not attending uh in person, what I'd like to do is uh just for those of you that are live, I should say, please feel free to raise your hand, ask questions, happy to support you with this. So let's go ahead and I will share my screen and we will start this program. Maybe. Okay, so our first report that I always like to share is from the Institute for Supply Management. If you were with us last month uh and the last couple months, uh, the Institute for Supply Management, they now have two reports. They did have three reports for about, I think it was about three years where they had a hospital PMI. They've since discontinued the hospital PMI, and they're back to the two reports that they've had for many, many years. Uh, the first is the manufacturing PMI, and the second we'll go through is the services PMI, and PMI stands for purchasing managers index. So this is a uh survey of purchasing manager purchasing managers across the country. Okay, so here is our first report, and this was put together by uh this analysis was completed by Susan Spence, and um it the heading reads manufacturing PMI at 48.2 percent. And it reads the U.S. manufacturing sector contracted in November for the ninth consecutive month after two months of expansion, preceded by 26 months of contraction. The manufacturing PMI registered 48.2 percent in November, a 0.5% point percentage point decrease compared to 48.7 percent recorded in October of the five subindexes that directly factor into manufacturing PMI. One is an expansion territory, the same number as in October. So uh essentially when we take a look at this, I uh uh you can if you're not looking at this live on the screen, you can see that it reads for the manufacturing PMI manufacturing economy breakeven line is 50%, while the overall economy breakeven line is 42.3 percent on this index report. So uh you can see we're hovering between the manufacturing break even and the economy break-even. And to me, it just means, in my opinion, that things are you know, uh they're maybe stale or stagnant. Um, they're just kind of there. It's it's not growing, uh, it's contracting a little bit, but the and so you we're we're feeling this in the overall economy. Could be if manufacturing was growing, we'd start to feel that a little bit better. Manufacturing tends to be a leading indicator. So to me, what does this say? Well, over the next call it maybe six to 12 months, uh, it seems like it's kind of flat and gonna stay kind of flat. And so for you, you and your franchise system, your franchisees, it's just something to be thinking about to say, well, just gear up, you know, we might have another year similar to what we've uh seen this year. And you can see back in 2024, it was much lower, uh, or or not much lower, but it was in general, you can see a typical trend line. It was less, maybe at the last few last quarter it started trending up, but in general, it was pretty flat. And this year is pretty flat, although this year seems like it's just above where it was in 24, and 24 looks like it was just above where it was in 23. So just slow ratchet up, just a slow ratchet, slow ratchet, slow ratchet. And so um, hopefully that means 26, we'll start to see this slow ratchet up again as well, and see what that looks like. So, in uh my opinion, and based off of this, so what we're looking at here initially, I'd say kind of expect more of the same. And that's okay. It's just be prepared for it. Communicate this to your franchisees, your prospective buyers. Um, and uh you can share and show that boy, in 23, it's where it was. 24 was a little better than 23. 25 is looking like it's a little bit better than 24. Not much, but a little bit. Okay, next up is the services PMI. Uh, and the services PMI is a report put together by Steve Miller. And the heading reads services PMI at 52.6 percent. And it reads in November, the services PMI registered 52.6 percent, a 0.2 percentage point increase compared to the October reading of 52.4%. A reading above 50% indicates the services economy is generally expanding, below 50% indicates it is generally contracting. So here we have a positive reading, and it was a slight increase from the previous month, and it's trending up. So we saw the first half of the year, we saw kind of this uh trend down. So the last half of 2024, it started kind of trending up, then it peaked, and then 2025. You kind of see this first half of the year was kind of trending down, it leveled out, uh uh right at about break even 50% is the services economy break-even line here. And now it's starting to trend up a little bit again. So, what do we take out of this? Again, I think it's very similar to what we were looking at with the manufacturing PMI. And hopefully we start to see this trend. May maybe we get another trend where we're at 52.6 again or 52.7 or 0.8 or 53 next, you know, uh, that we see in January's report. Um, so we will see if uh if we see this little surge and hope that this is not just a a little surge for fourth quarter sales for end-of-year closeouts, uh budget spending, uh deals being made for end-of-year deals. Hopefully, it's more than just that, that it's more of a stable. And we'll see what happens uh as we move into January, into December, or excuse me, into the first January, February, March for that first quarter and kind of see what happens there. Okay, next up we're gonna take a look at the U.S. unemployment rate. And this, the most current data is still available here on TradingEconomics.com is from September. And it reads the US unemployment rate increased to 4.4% in September of 25 from 4.3% in August, exceeding market expectations. Um, and so you can see this increase here that we see the unemployment rate steadily increasing a bit. Um, and I know there's been talk of uh, you know, are these their ghost job openings and things like that? So uh I don't know exactly what's going on there, but we'll we'll have to see um if you've been reading other other news sources and seeing that. Uh I I don't know what to quite make out of it. Uh, but in general, the unemployment rate is hovering between that around that four, four and a half percent. Uh, if I zoom out to a 10-year, um, we can look on here. If you see uh post-COVID, it really uh bottomed out around 2022 into 2023, and then we saw a steady increase starting to happen again in 24 into 25. So we're seeing this kind of tick up versus looking back at 2016, we saw a steady decline. It was at 5% in 2016. So, you know, just kind of keep things in perspective. October of excuse me, I'm sorry, October of 2015, it was 5%. And in September of 2025, it's 4.4%. Um, you know, the the difference when we look backwards is we see that that uh unemployment rate started just slowly dropping for several years before COVID. And now we're seeing since around 22, 2023, we're seeing the unemployment rate slowly increase a little bit. So um we'll it remains to be seen what what that uh means, but um in general, it probably means that finding staff is um, you know, it's gonna be a little bit easier to find uh folks today than it was two years ago in finding uh uh staff for your business. Okay, um, let's take a look at uh the inflation rate. So this is for the uh US inflation rate, and this is from September as well. This was the most recent uh updated data here. I'm trying refreshing here. Yeah, and part of this is the uh US government um they they with the shutdown that happened uh um uh what was that, a month or two ago. Um they are uh behind a lot of these departments, you know, they weren't working to update data and information. So hopefully that'll be updated by the first of the year. Um, but this shows 3%, you know, but we're we're seeing I'm gonna uh max out or go to 10 years for inflation. Um, and you can see uh big uh the giant increase post-COVID uh and then increasing. But remember these in in inflationary numbers, as as I always like to emphasize, these compound on the previous year. So this is 3% over September of 2024. So it was 3% in September of 2025. So let's go to September of 2024. Well, in September of 2024, it was 2.4 percent over September of 2023, which was 3.7 percent, which was over uh you know, 3.7 percent over what it was in let's see, September of 22, which was 8.2%. All of this is compounding. Okay. And so to me, when you think of this, if you are uh in franchise marketing, franchise sales, every month that ticks by with any form of inflation, your money is worth less. In my opinion, that's kind of this dirty little secret of inflation that people feel you feel it in your budgets, but it's hard to explain. Well, the reason it's hard to explain is because one what you could buy for one dollar uh last year, what your one dollar last year and in September of last year only buys 97 cents this year. That's why we continue to feel that pinch. Um, so that's the the key thing to to be uh thinking about and as as you're going through it. So for franchise sales, franchise marketing, you want to be thinking about okay, how can I be talking to my franchise buyers about this or to your franchisees about talking with their customers or maybe even purchasing inventory uh now versus later, because the uh the unfortunate reality is it the way that inflation is going, it's unlikely we see price decline. It'd be nice, it'd be wonderful, but it's unlikely we're going to see that, uh, in my opinion, in in any near time future. So um, you know, encouraging them to, if you're gonna buy something, it's likely going to be you're going to get more value for your dollar today than you will tomorrow and next month and the month after that, and next year and two years from now. Okay. Next up is uh the surveys of consumers from the University of Michigan. We're gonna take a look at the index of consumer sentiment. Well, I'm gonna click on this uh 10-year report here, and you can see this most recent report. I'll zoom in a little bit so it's easier to read, but you can see that we are uh at it looks like we are below the lowest number in the last 10 years. And the lowest number happened in mid-year of 2022. Now, the interesting thing was if we go back to our report uh on was that unemployment. Uh yeah, if we go back to our unemployment report, we can see that unemployment kind of peaked uh at its lowest number around that same time period. So I uh again, I'm not saying there's a causation there, but I just think that's an interesting note to see that we saw things uh tick up there. Um so maybe uh I don't uh, you know, uh I don't know what that means, but I just think that's interesting. So we saw that uh consumer sentiment start to increase, and then mid-year when uh likely when those uh tariffs uh talk all started, um, first quarter, early second quarter of this year, uh, you know, we saw consumer sentiment uh drop uh for the unknown. We just don't know what what's gonna happen, what it means, et cetera. Um okay, next up is the U.S. Census Bureau. And here's this from the US uh this is from census.gov. It says the U.S. Census Bureau is updating its economic indicator release calendar in coordination with other agencies and the Office of Management and Budget to address the impacts of the recent collapse of federal funding. We'll provide the update, updated release schedule as soon as it becomes available. For more information, you can click here. Okay, so we're gonna take a look at the business formation statistics, which fortunately for us came out literally today. Uh so if you're watching this live, it's uh December 12th, but um uh this literally came out today. So here is the uh census data for new business applications. This has been one of my favorite reports to evaluate and take a look at. And in November of 2025, we saw a huge surge, a total of 535,041 new business applications were filed across the country. That was a 7.1% increase over October of 2025. Um, that that's incredible to think. Uh 7.1% increase. Uh, so over 500,000 new businesses started. So for franchise ours, alert, you know, if you're wondering, are people interested in starting businesses? The answer is yes. This just reaffirms the uh entrepreneurial spirit, the American entrepreneur's entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well, and people are starting businesses. Uh, so are they all buying franchises? No. But some of them are, and some of them are considering franchises. So uh be aware that people you're talking to in the franchise sales perspective, in franchise sales, uh, in my opinion, you need to assume they're starting a business. Whether it's your franchise or something else, they're going to be doing something. Startup sentiment is on their mind. Okay, next up, we're going to take a look at some recent franchise data that's been released. Um, I really like this number here. This was about startup sentiment, uh, which I think is important. Speaking of sentiment, and this says startup sentiment, this is from franchiseinsights.com, and it reads startup sentiment rebounds in November. This is a report by Michael, Michael Alston and Franchise Insights. It was released December 3rd of this year. It says the headline reads 64.3% of prospects agree. Now is a good time for startup. Now, when we look at uh September, that was uh around 40 some percent. And uh in in September, uh or I should say October. Let's see here. It says, I'll just read it from the report. It says December 3rd, 2025. Business buyer surveys in the last week of November 2025 showed 64.3 percent of persons exploring ownership agree or strongly agree that now is a good time for startup, up dramatically from October, which was 43.9%. Uh, this is despite consumer confidence dropping sharply in November's uh confidence board survey, which has been trending down over the last several months. So, despite uh the overall consumer sentiment declining that we saw from uh the University of Michigan, uh, we're seeing that new business ownership sentiment is increasing. Okay. Um, here's another fun fact that this came out this week by Franchise Insights is by Michael Alston for Franchise Insights. This came out December 10th. And it says, Despite best practices, spam is a factor in your franchise lead generation. And uh it reads, despite following best practices for franchise lead generation and nurturing to reach qualified buyers, sales teams face massive interference from the torrent of spam emails, texts, and calls directed to anyone with a pulse. Uh it says the 2025 spam statistics report by Orbit Media and Question Pro is chock full of nuggets explaining why it is getting ever harder to reach individuals through the primary contact channels. The report is worth reading. And below are a few salient points for franchise sales teams. So uh here are some of the insights that were pulled out and discussed in this report. It says in repeated franchise insight survey, email is the best channel for making an introduction and availing franchise prospects to additional information based on their own preferences. Sadly, in the Orbit study, 24% of respondents say that 30 to 50 percent of all emails they receive are spam. And worse, 39% say that more than 50% of emails received are spam. That is a giant number to think that uh roughly we add those two together. What is that? 40. So that's about 63% are saying 63% of respondents, almost two-thirds of them are saying that 30% or more of all their emails are spam. Um that that's uh that's in uh I although I shouldn't be too surprised when I think of my own inbox, uh, especially for some of my long uh uh standing personal emails uh that I have. Um, it says don't be a cold caller. Cold callers go answered, unanswered. By 68% of consumers, and 39% proceed to blocking the caller. And finally, 29% of respondents say they receive at least one spam call per day, with another 9% receiving multiple spam spam calls per day. According to the Orbit survey, 48% of respondents just don't answer cold calls. Another 39% don't answer and then block the caller. Over 5% are impolite and respond with burning rage. Wow. So just uh uh if if you're a leader, if you're in charge of franchise salespeople uh at your franchise organization, I think this data is important to take into consideration and uh really challenge and and use this data as insight for you to challenge your team to say, what else can we do? How can we how what can we do differently uh to make sure we're not getting marked as spam by the people we're reaching out to, even though they've reached out to us, right? You're just responding to a warm in inquiry. Okay, the lat the last report before we uh get into my uh final closing uh report here is called Assessing. This is from Franchise Insights as well. It's called Assessing the Lifetime Value of Franchise Lead Generation Prospect. And the heading reads, When do franchise prospects expect to begin their startups? And this was published November 26, 2025 by Michael Alston for Franchise Insights. So the question was, when do franchise prospects expect to begin their startups? Well, 23% said next month, 28.4% said two to three months from now, 18.3% said four to six months from now, 14.5% said seven to twelve months from now, and 15.7% said longer, or they don't know. So approximately 85% of people are looking to get this thing going between now and the next 12 months. Uh, but what what I think is really telling is more than just over 50% of the respondents said they're looking to start now or within the next quarter, next three months. That is substantial. So the way whenever I read this, say, okay, about half the folks are thinking about starting now. Well, you need to assume, again, uh just like we saw in the start of sentiment index, uh, people being when when they expect to start, uh, the Census Bureau. You need, in my opinion, you ought to be considering or planning, assuming, I should say, that franchise buyers are serious about starting now. So um uh keep that in mind as a as you're talking through through this with your franchise sales teams, your marketers, etc. Okay, my last uh topic that I always like to show is the top 10 business opportunities produced by franchise insights. It says the following business opportunity categories showed the greatest inquiries in the last 90 days. I love this report because it just shows what service, what franchise or uh uh franchise categories and business opportunities are people inquiring about. Well, the category share home services accounts for 25.1%. So a quarter of all franchise inquiries are coming for a home services type of brand. Number two is business services at 19.4%. Number three is senior and health care at 10.3%. Number four is pet services at 9.5%, number five is cleaning and maintenance at 8.5%. Number six is food and restaurant at 6%. Number seven is child related at 3.4%, number eight is automotive at 2.9%, nine is retail at 2.6%, and number 10 is education at 2.4%. So what does this mean? Well, if your business falls in one of these top 10 categories, chances are it's gonna be easier for you to find leads. And especially if you are in the top five categories, you're you're gonna find it much easier to find leads of interested buyers. So what does that mean? Well, if you're in marketing and for franchises, you might be able to get by if you're in the top five categories or even in the top 10, you might only need one source or two sources or three sources to find the volume of leads you're looking for. Whereas if you're not in one of these categories, you might need to add more sources for leads in order to get to that same number. So the the buyers, the prospective buyers are going to be out there for you. You just need to take a look at maybe you just need to add a few more sources. So, all right, well, that is our session today. Um, we'll end a few minutes earlier than we normally do. I'd like to thank you all for joining us. Make sure you please subscribe to our YouTube channel. You can find us at Big Sky Franchise Team if you you search for us on YouTube. Please subscribe, like our video. Uh, and we'd love for you to subscribe to your to our podcast at your favorite podcast service, uh, whichever one that may be, chances are we're there. So thank you so much for being here. Uh, this, I believe, is our last wet live webinar session before the end of the year uh and before Christmas. So, once again, Merry Christmas, happy new year. I look forward to seeing you in 2026.

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Tom DuFore

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