This story appears in the November 2025 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »
There’s a magical stage of growth that every franchisee dreams of reaching. It’s the point where your business has enough scale and momentum to run without your hand on the wheel every minute of the day. Finally, you get to sit back and enjoy the ride.
Unfortunately, between the comfort of your first successful location and the stability of true scale, there lies a brutal and unglamorous stretch of growth. I call it the Hell Zone.
As a former chair of the International Franchise Association board, I’ve advised many franchisees through the Hell Zone. I’ve also experienced it myself.
My entrepreneurial journey began when I bought two KFC franchise locations. It was manageable and generally enjoyable, and the units made money. I knew every employee, every number, and every problem. Then I opened a third location, and my life became a whirlwind of chaos. Constant work. The business was too big to do everything myself and too small to afford the structure of larger organizations — area managers, HR, finance, marketing. Instead of me controlling the business, the business was controlling me.
Related: This Simple Strategy Will Help Franchisees Get Customers and Scale Faster
At the time, it felt like I was doing something wrong. But I’ve since learned that this is a normal part of multi-unit growth (and it holds true for people outside franchising too). The Hell Zone is the phase when your growth outpaces your resources, and you are the only thing holding the business together. You’re running two, three, maybe four locations — or juggling a handful of key clients — but you don’t have the financial or operational cushion to breathe. You’re scaling revenue faster than infrastructure, and every decision feels like a trade-off between short-term survival and long-term stability.
For most of us, this phase is unavoidable. The good news: It does not last forever. And if you approach it right, then you’ll find incredible growth on the other side.
Here is my advice for building through the Hell Zone.
1. Understand why the Hell Zone occurs, so you can focus on solutions to move beyond it.
... continue reading