Hands-On Know-How
Our firm's approach to consulting is "hands-on." That is, our principals get actively involved in assignments, knowing that this is the most effective way to bring a high level of value to an assignment. For example:

• We know the human dynamics of large corporations and how to design projects to succeed in this setting.
• We know what it's like to build businesses from the ground up, how to make them successful and how to position them for eventual sale or public offering.
• We know what kinds of walls new franchisors typically run into and how to avoid or solve them.
• We know what kinds of problems experienced franchisors encounter and how to move beyond them.
• We also know how to identify new opportunities and how best to exploit them.

Nurturing Uniqueness
Every business is unique, with unique opportunities and challenges. In franchising, uniqueness is a quality that must be carefully developed, nurtured and communicated: it's the core of the franchisor's offering to its customers and prospective franchisees. The importance of uniqueness in franchising is one reason we don't believe in tired, formulaic, "off-the-shelf" approaches to meeting clients' special needs. Mass production is for widgets, not ideas.
      This is not to say we're not systematic in our work. We're just committed to putting all our knowledge, experience and creativity to work for each client in a way that is appropriate to each client's unique organization and needs. In the right hands, third wave franchising approaches (see On Franchising for a quick overview) can offer powerful solutions to a number of the business challenges faced by 21st century corporations.

Relationships
When we talk to clients about franchising, we often emphasize the importance of the franchise relationship. We stress that managing the franchisor/franchisee relationship is one of the most critical success factors in franchising. We also believe in the importance of client-consultant relationship and that this relationship is best managed by working closely with our clients as a team.

How Size Matters
Janssen Ellison Company is, by design, not a big company. The reason is that "bigness" is not particularly important to meeting clients' needs in our field, even for large corporate clients. Being a "boutique" firm allows the firm's thought leaders -- Janssen and Ellison -- to be in the thick of things and do their most creative work for clients. If the firm were large, that wealth of knowledge and know-how would be focused on being the firm's ambassadors and managers.
      Our size-strategy is quite simple: be just large enough to be able to deliver the top notch work our clients need. And, after all, our assignments do not typically involve turning a client's company upside-down and inside-out in pursuit of the latest theory of management overhaul. We are a niche discipline and we are structured so we can be the best in our niche, not the biggest.

Where We Are
Reflecting our philosophy of savvy over size, our offices are located near Los Angeles in a retreat-like setting that is most conducive to doing our best, most creative work. Clients also find this to be an excellent location for project intensives and brainstorming sessions. And, of course, we travel where our clients need us to be, whether it's Washington, DC, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, São Paolo, Brazil or anyplace else in the world. Serving the needs of our clients is our number one priority. Period.

TO THE TOP

While some franchising concepts are built on or around "cookie-cutter" retail concepts, others have a more organic structure. Not unlike this "tree" fractal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our state of the art offices are half-hidden by stately pines, oaks and boulders.