What Gives You the Right?
In 1983, I walked into the world of franchising knowing almost nothing — except one thing: I wanted to build something that mattered. What I quickly learned was that wanting to be in business is not enough. The real question every business must answer is: what gives you the right to be here? When I was evaluating printing franchises in the US, I visited eight different companies. They all said they were great. Their brochures were slick. Their salespeople were confident. But when I looked closely, I couldn't find a meaningful difference between any of them. That's when I realised — and I still believe this today — that a business without genuine differentiation is just noise in a crowded market. Then I found American Wholesale Thermographers (AWT). It wasn't perfect. The system wasn't fully built. But it was different. It served a wholesale model, selling directly to print shops — not retail customers. That alone separated it from everyone else. And from there, we...