Already signed
The brochure is no longer the issue. Execution is.
You bought it, you opened it, and the business you are running is not the one you were sold. What breaks after launch is not what anyone discussed before it.
What you are dealing with
- 01
“The numbers are tighter than the plan and I can't see why.”
Unit economics are tighter than projected, cash is thinner every month, and the leakage is somewhere you cannot locate. Staffing churn and loose operating routines are usually part of it and rarely the whole of it, which is why the search stalls.
- 02
“I don't know if I have a demand problem or a management problem.”
Sales are below plan, and that is where the certainty ends. If the catchment cannot support the unit, better operating discipline will not save it. If the catchment is fine and the execution is not, no amount of local marketing will fix it. Most owners pick one and spend a year on it. The cost of picking wrong is the year.
- 03
“They went quiet after the cheque cleared.”
Attentive before you signed. Slow and generic since.
- 04
“I don't know whether to fix this or get out.”
Fix, scale, hold or exit — and every month of not deciding removes an option.
What getting this wrong costs
The cost is not the bad months. It is that waiting converts a choice into an outcome.
A unit reviewed at month six has four options. The same unit at month twenty-four has two, and one of them is a forced exit at whatever price is available.
Repeat business is the first thing you lose and the last thing that comes back.
What I do
You have been looking at the same numbers for months and the leak is somewhere you cannot see.
So the unit economics get rebuilt from the ground up, and the biggest leaks get found and priced in order of size. Then the question nobody has answered for you: is this a demand problem or a management problem? Fixing the wrong one costs you the year. And the fix-or-exit question goes on the table in the first session, while you still have more than one option.
Not a support desk. Not a general management consultant with a slide deck.
The reason I can tell a demand problem from a management problem is that I have run these units. Cinema concessions leased out for years, taken back in-house, earning more than three times the rent inside twelve months — same space, same customers. And a franchised outlet with four part-time owners and nobody authorised to decide anything, which failed on structure rather than on demand.
What you'll hold at the end
- A unit that works, or a clean exit — with the reasoning written down either way.
- The specific leaks found and closed — in priority order, with the money each was costing.
- A threshold you set in advance — the number and the date at which you stop funding this and act. Agreed while you can still choose.
- A unit with options again — a unit that works can be scaled, held or sold on your terms. A unit that does not work can only be exited, on somebody else's.
Ask yourself
Do I know, to the rupee, what my worst-performing month actually cost me?
If I stopped putting my own time in tomorrow, what would this unit earn?
What is the number at which I would stop? Have I written it down?
Am I fixing this, or am I waiting for it to fix itself?
Who this isn't for
Owners who want the unit validated rather than examined, and owners unwilling to hear that exit is the right answer.
The fix-or-exit question gets asked in the first session. If it cannot be asked, the engagement cannot work.