Full January Impact — Franchise Lead Generation Throttled By Natural Disasters
By: Michael Alston for Franchise Insights
February 25, 2025 – If your franchise development team noticed a marked decrease in lead generation and prospect responsiveness in January, weather across the U.S. and fires in California were key among the reasons. Historically, January is a great month for franchise lead generation as the holidays are over, and individuals decide that the time to act is now. Even California was experiencing a surge in franchise interest in the first few days of the year.
Retail sales dropped 0.9% in January 2025, the largest drop since March 2023, given that much of the country was covered with snow and the Palisades fires raged from January 7-31.
Looking at a large sample of lead flow by day by state, and comparing it to the same period in 2025, one can clearly see the impact in the chart above. Until the fire started the morning of Tuesday, January 7, lead flow in California was up a cumulative 9.5% for the year after a strong early start the first three days of the year and a typically slower weekend.
But by January 31, when the fires were completely out, leads from individuals in California were down a full 27.0%, despite recovering for four of the last five days of the month, according to proprietary data from the Franchise Ventures lead generation platform of franchise investment inquiries in the United States.
Franchise Lead flow from the State of California was down 27.0% in the month of January, with fires raging from January 7-31.
Fires devastated over 57, 600 acres in California through February 24, compared to 81 acres burned in the same period in 2024. The human suffering, displacement and economic loss are staggering.
Property and capital losses are estimated between $95 billion and $164 billion, along with a 0.48% decline in county-level GDP for 2025, amounting to approximately $4.6 billion. Many lives were lost, many were injured, and livelihoods were wrecked along with irreplaceable possessions.
The economic impact will be felt far beyond the damaged acres, in California as well as the US economy. With the state having more than 39 million residents, or more than 11% of the US population, it is too early to know the full impact due to lost productivity and sales, somewhat offset by rebuilding costs.
Note that the measures of lead flow presented here are where prospects are searching to buy franchises, which in most cases is the prospect’s current state of residency.
Similar effects were seen from Hurricane Helene on lead generation in Georgia and North Carolina.
In our most recent look at migration of franchise interest among the states in November, we noted declines in Georgia and North Carolina which are historically higher-growth states. This was the first time that Georgia and North Carolina showed declines in our analysis, and Florida barely notched a gain. These declines are probably due in large part to the devastation and aftermath of Hurricane Helene. The storm made landfall in Florida on September 26, 2024, and cut a path of devastation and fatalities through Georgia and North Carolina.
Texas, gaining 0.55%, and California, losing 0.51%, had the two largest absolute changes in percentage share of franchise prospects among all 50 states year over year for Q3 2024. Fires burned over 720,000 acres in California in Q3 2024, but it is difficult to isolate that impact on franchise development from the periodic decreases in relative franchise interest seen in that state since the pandemic began.
Eventually, the devastation will lead to regrowth as homes and businesses and livelihoods are rebuilt and restored. But our hearts and prayers go to families who lost loved ones, homes, businesses and jobs – and the hundreds of thousands of people who suffered the impact of necessary evacuation.
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, February 25th, 2025.