What Green Trends Taught Me About Building a Franchise Brand
Based solely on the supplied interview transcript. The prose is an editorial reconstruction, not a verbatim statement or an approved article by Dr Mathai. General lessons are drawn from the Green Trends account; no additional Green Trends operating practices are asserted.
When I moved from education into the salon business, one of the first things I had to work on was my own thinking. In the education franchises I had handled, the franchise fee was around ₹2 lakh to ₹3 lakh. At Green Trends, I had to sell a franchise for ₹6 lakh. That difference stayed in my mind for some time. Before I could confidently put the proposition before an investor, I had to become comfortable with what I was asking him to pay.
People sometimes assume that after years in franchising, you can enter another industry and immediately start producing results. Experience helps, certainly. But you still have to understand the business you are representing, the competition and the reasons someone would choose your brand. A salesman who has not worked through those questions will struggle when a prospective franchisee asks them.
At Green Trends, we were also trying to catch up with Naturals. That gave the work a very clear direction. We had an established competitor, investors who were comparing their options, and a brand we had to present convincingly. Over two years and six months, we sold 300 stores. I am proud of that experience, but I have always said that the achievement belonged to the company, its leadership and the people around me as well.
The principles I take from that period are useful whenever an entrepreneur is preparing to franchise a business.
Understand what you are asking someone to buy
The move from a ₹2 lakh or ₹3 lakh franchise fee to ₹6 lakh was a personal challenge. It took me a few months to adjust. I had to look again at how I was selling and how I understood the offer. If I was hesitant about the fee, how could I expect the person sitting opposite me to feel confident?
This is something founders should examine in their own teams.
- You may have decided what your franchise fee should be, but have the people presenting it understood the proposition?
- Can they explain the business with confidence?
- Have they thought about the questions an investor will ask, or are they simply repeating the amount you have told them to collect?
Confidence has to come from understanding. Raising the fee alone does not create a stronger offer. The person selling must be able to connect the fee with the business opportunity being presented. Otherwise, the conversation keeps returning to whether the amount can be reduced, because neither side has understood why it should be paid.
For me, that adjustment was part of learning a new industry. Previous experience did not excuse me from doing the work again.
Know why someone should choose your brand
Anyone considering a salon franchise could look at Naturals or Green Trends. We had to recognise that comparison. An investor was not obliged to choose us merely because we were eager to expand.
I studied the positives and negatives of the brands and worked on presenting the strengths of the company I represented. As a salesman, I needed to know what I could put before the prospective franchisee that would help him make a decision. That meant understanding the competition well enough to have a useful conversation about our own offer.
Many entrepreneurs are very familiar with their own business and surprisingly unfamiliar with the alternatives available to their investors. They know how much they want to charge and how many franchises they want to sell.
They have spent less time asking why someone would choose them.
The Green Trends experience made that question unavoidable. When an established competitor is already in the market, you have to be clear about your strengths. You cannot depend on enthusiasm alone. The investor needs a reason to take your proposition seriously, and your team must be able to explain that reason without making promises the company cannot support.
This preparation also improves the quality of the sales conversation. You spend more time discussing the business and less time trying to persuade someone through pressure.
Work with leadership that wants to build
Whenever I speak about the expansion at Green Trends, I acknowledge the vision of C K Ranganathan and the strength of CavinKare. My sales skills were part of the effort, but they operated within a company that gave the brand strength.
This matters because franchise growth is often discussed as though one successful individual made everything happen. The salesman signs the agreement and becomes visible. Behind him, however, there must be an organisation capable of carrying the business forward. I was fortunate to have leadership whose vision I could believe in and a company I was proud to represent.
For a founder, the implication is quite practical. Before asking someone to lead franchise expansion, consider what support you are giving that person. A good salesperson can communicate the opportunity and bring investors into the business. The company still has to provide the people and operating arrangements that make the proposition credible.
When those foundations are weak, selling more franchises places greater demands on an organisation that is already struggling. The founder must therefore remain involved in building the business behind the expansion. Hiring someone to sell does not transfer that responsibility away from the company.
Bring conviction to the way you represent the company
I remember wearing a tie throughout my two years and six months at CavinKare. In the salon industry, that was unusual. I have said that I was the only person wearing one. I did it because I was passionate about sales and proud of the company I represented.
The tie itself was a personal choice. What mattered was the seriousness with which I approached the role. I enjoyed selling a concept to someone who needed it, and I wanted my presentation to reflect the respect I had for the organisation.
Franchise sales require that kind of involvement. You are asking another person to consider putting money into a business. He will listen to the offer, but he will also form an impression of the people representing it. Their preparation, their confidence and the way they respond to questions all become part of his experience of the brand.
A founder should pay attention to this. If your own team appears uncertain about the business, an investor will have questions. If they take the company seriously and understand what they are presenting, the discussion has a better foundation. That confidence must remain honest; pride in a brand should make us more careful about what we promise in its name.
Give the sales effort something dependable to stand on
In describing what helped us sell 300 stores, I have specifically acknowledged the systems and processes, along with the brand, the owner and the team. All of these contributed. It would be misleading to present that expansion simply as a demonstration of my ability to sell.
This is a lesson founders should hold on to when they hear a growth number. It is tempting to ask how to reproduce the number immediately. The more useful question is what allowed the organisation to pursue that expansion. Who was involved? What could the team rely on? What gave the people presenting the franchise confidence in the company?
What I remember is how these things worked together. I could bring my sales experience to the role because there was a company behind me whose strength I could draw on. An entrepreneur planning expansion should examine how the people and processes in his own company will support the effort.
It is difficult to sustain confidence in the market if the people inside the organisation do not have confidence in one another. The sales team needs to believe that the company can support its offer. The company needs people who understand the offer and represent it responsibly. Growth asks both sides to do their work well.
Respect what a new industry requires you to learn
Before salons, my experience had been largely in education. I had worked with DSRC, SSI, Aptech, NIIT and CADD Centre. Moving into retail and salon franchising was initially difficult. There had been a time when people questioned whether salons could be franchised at all, while education franchising was already familiar to the market.
That background was valuable, but it could not answer every question in the new role. I had to adapt to a different business, a different fee and a different competitive situation. The willingness to make that adjustment was important.
Entrepreneurs sometimes underestimate this when they recruit experienced people. A person may bring strong skills and still need time to understand your industry. Equally, an experienced professional should be willing to recognise what he has yet to learn. In my case, acknowledging the difficulty of selling the higher fee helped me work through it.
There is no embarrassment in that. The problem would have been to carry on without examining why I was finding the transition difficult. Once I understood the challenge, I could work on the way I presented the business and on my own confidence in doing so.
Give credit where it belongs
The figure of 300 stores in two years and six months naturally attracts attention. It surprised me too. But whenever I explain that period, I return to the people and the organisation that made it possible. The vision of the owner mattered. The strength of the brand mattered. My colleagues and the systems we worked with mattered.
There is a useful discipline in remembering this. When a company attributes growth entirely to one person, it can overlook the things it needs to maintain as it expands. A founder who understands the contributions of his team is better placed to recognise where the next stage of growth will need support.
My experience at Green Trends gave me confidence in what a franchise business can achieve when the people selling the concept have something substantial behind them. It also reminded me to keep learning. I had to change my own thinking before I could do the job well, and I needed the strength of the company around me to turn that effort into results.
For an entrepreneur preparing to franchise, that is where I would begin: understand your offer thoroughly, give your team a business they can represent with confidence, and remain involved in the work that makes their promises possible.
