TWO FIXED PRICES, ONE QUOTED AFTER THE CALL · NO FRANCHISOR PAYS FOR BUYER WORK OR COVERAGE
What this costs
A franchise broker is typically paid by the franchisor when you sign, and usually nothing if you walk away. I charge a flat fee either way. Everything I do, and what it costs, is below.
FOUNDING CLIENT RATE · FIRST 10 ENGAGEMENTS
Below market, on purpose. I'm building a track record, and a client who will vouch for the work is worth more to me right now than the margin. Rates go up after the first 10. Scope doesn't.
Intro call
Free
30 minutes
An educational session, not an engagement: what the public record shows on the brand you name, and which questions matter before you spend money.
- Its exit rate against its sector, from Item 20
- How its franchisees' SBA loans ended
- Audit opinion and litigation on file
- The questions to answer before you spend money
FDD Read
WHERE I'D START$750
5 business days
The document review you want before signing a ten-year agreement.
- Item-by-item read, with the terms that quietly cost owners flagged
- Item 19 stress-tested — what the earnings claim includes, excludes, implies
- Real cost-to-open vs the Item 7 range, and the working capital it omits
- Royalty and ad-fund drag over the full term, in dollars
- Litigation, bankruptcy and audit-opinion history, sourced
- My written view — proceed, renegotiate or walk — including the case against (the decision stays yours)
Deal Review
$2,000
10 business days
The FDD Read, plus the financial model, a financing summary for your lender, and 4.5 hours on the phone with me. New unit or resale.
- Everything in the FDD Read
- Resale? Three years of the seller's P&Ls tied out, each add-back tested, and what the unit clears after your debt service (an analysis, not an audit, review or quality-of-earnings attestation)
- Three-scenario pro forma with breakeven, sensitivity and month-by-month ramp working capital
- SBA 7(a), 401(k) rollover and HELOC compared, with your personal-guarantee exposure
- Entity and tax-structure options for you and your tax preparer (tax advice only where the engagement letter includes it)
- A financing summary and projections for your lender application — yours to share; every page carries a no-assurance statement
- A 90-minute session building the model with you
- Three one-hour calls when you need them: after a franchisee call, before the bank, before you sign
- 60 days of email questions
Full Validation
Let's scope it
≈3 weeks
The Deal Review, plus I call the people who already own one. Including the ones who left.
- Everything in the Deal Review
- Calls to a structured sample of current and former owners, sized to the system and quoted up front
- Scripted from the brand's own disclosures, so answers check against the record
- A written summary of what owners said
- Territory and saturation analysis for your location
- My written view — proceed, renegotiate or walk — with the reasoning (the decision stays yours)
WHY THIS ONE ISN'T FIXED-PRICEThe FDD lists current franchisees and those who left last year, so I will have the list. Whether they answer is another matter, and forty outlets is not nine hundred. Once I have seen the list I set the sample size and quote a fixed price before you commit.
An FDD Read and Deal Review on Wild Birds Unlimited for a fictional buyer: verdict, red flags, pro forma, breakeven and financing. Each section is marked with the service it belongs to.
See a sample report →How it runs
- 1
We talk first, free
Thirty minutes, educational, not an engagement: what the public record shows on your brand and which questions matter before you spend money. If paid work won't change your decision, I'll say so.
- 2
Engagement letter
Scope, fee and delivery date in writing, signed by both of us before you pay. Full Validation gets its fixed quote here. No hourly billing.
- 3
Payment on acceptance
Invoice with a card link. Work starts when it clears.
- 4
Delivered, then walked through
The document on the agreed date. Then we go through it. Projections carry a no-assurance statement on every page, and you can share them with your lender.
Don Drummond, CPA · Virginia #43775
Internal audit and controls: SOX programs at XO Communications, governance and risk at Deloitte. Reading an FDD is an audit problem, and that is the training. More about me →
Buyer engagements analyse the specific brand you name, using its public filings.
The fine print
The free 30-minute call is an educational session, not an engagement. It covers what the public record shows on the brand you name, and which questions matter before you spend money. It does not create an engagement or a client relationship, and nothing said on it is a recommendation about any deal. Projections, financing comparisons and take-home estimates are paid work.
Paid work is a non-attest advisory engagement under an engagement letter we both sign before it starts. I do not perform an audit, review, compilation or examination, and nothing I deliver expresses an opinion or any assurance on anyone's financial statements or projections.
None of it is investment or legal advice. Tax advice is given only where the engagement letter includes it.
You may share a deliverable with your lender as part of your own loan application. The lender receives it for information only, and no lender or other third party may rely on it. The lender package is your application, prepared with my help. It is not my representation to the lender.
No franchisor, broker or lender pays me for buyer work or for any brand's coverage on this site.
I am a CPA licensed in Virginia (#43775). Work for clients in other states is subject to those states' applicable rules.