How I work
One competence. Three moments. Never a menu.
Whichever moment you are at — weighing a franchise, running one that isn't working, or wondering whether your own business could be franchised — the same question decides it. This is not a full-service consultancy and does not try to be.
I know whether a franchise unit actually makes money — because I have run them.
Whether any of this is worth your time comes down to one question: has the person advising you ever run one of these?
A network of twenty outlets, built and exited. Four roles: franchisee, franchisor, operator, owner. A 10,000 sq ft central kitchen built to flight-catering standard, designed to supply twenty units, with company-owned, franchise-owned-company-operated and franchise-owned-franchise-operated formats all running at the same time.
I have been the franchisee whose brand was discontinued by its owner. I have been the franchisor trying to manage franchisees like employees, because nobody had built the structure that would have let me do it properly. I have taken an operation back in-house and, inside twelve months, it earned more than three times the rent it had been paying, and I have chosen to exit two businesses rather than compete on a dimension I could not win on.
Every read I give you comes from having lived the downside, not from having studied it.
What I don't do
I'm not here to sell you a franchise, and I won't recommend a brand because of what it pays. If you bring me a brand, I will test it. If you don't have one, we first work out what kind of business and what kind of franchise fit you; brands come after that, never before it.
I am not your agent, attorney, representative or point of contact in India. I don't sign on anyone's behalf and I don't hold client money.
I am not your lawyer or your accountant. I read agreements for commercial consequence and tell you what a clause does to you in practice — the drafting happens with your own advisers.
I don't guarantee outcomes. No franchise pays assured returns and no adviser can promise one will.
And I don't produce demand. I can tell you whether a sales problem is a demand problem. Generating demand is somebody else's job.
Who I turn away
People expecting assured returns, or a business that runs itself. Anyone buying a franchise for a spouse, sibling or child who has never been tested as an operator. Anyone who wants to be sold a brand rather than helped to decide. Anyone who has already decided and wants confirmation.
I would rather lose an enquiry in the first thirty minutes than take a fee to confirm a mistake.
What it costs
I don't publish prices, because the right engagement depends on your situation. The first conversation is thirty minutes and has no fee. If we go further, I will tell you what the work involves and what it costs before we start.
Start with a conversation
Tell me what you are weighing up. You will get a reply within one working day — usually with a straight view on whether this is worth taking further.
The first conversation is thirty minutes and has no fee. If I'm not the right person, you will be told so, and pointed toward whoever can help.
The risk of finding out whether we fit is mine, not yours.