Let's have a straight conversation.

Usually 15–20 minutes. Long enough to understand your situation and give you something useful, short enough to respect your time. If it needs to go longer because the conversation is productive, it will.

Nothing formal. It helps to have a general sense of your investment range, your timeline, and what you want your day-to-day life to look like — but you don't need to have those figured out precisely. Part of the first call is working through exactly those questions together.

If it makes sense to continue, we'll go deeper on your profile — goals, skills, financial picture — and I'll use that to identify franchise candidates worth exploring. From there we move into investigation: reviewing the FDD, conducting validation calls with existing owners, attending Discovery Day if the fit looks strong. Every step is yours to accept or decline. There's no pressure to keep going at any point.

Yes — early. Without the support of your spouse or significant other, it makes no sense to go through this process. I've seen it many times: one partner does all the work, gets close to a decision, and then the spouse shuts it down. That's months of your time lost. Your partner doesn't need to be excited about it — but they need to be willing to engage with the process. If they want you to get a job instead, it's better to know that now.

"It's not right for me" is always a valid answer — at any point. You don't need to justify it or worry about hurting anyone's feelings. This is what the process is for: to help you figure out if this is actually the right path. If it isn't, finding that out before you've signed anything is the best possible outcome.