Every turnaround begins with a simple truth: if your team doesn’t understand where the money is made or lost, they cannot protect it. Once a brand learns to think with a profit-first mindset, transformation is not only possible - it becomes sustainable.

Hello all you talented brand builders! Today, I'm going to share a case study of one of my latest international projects. A famous brand and one of the largest in its country. Their revenue was fantastic, but they could not understand why there were no profits for their shareholders at the end of every quarter.
I cannot share their names, but I'm sure this case study sounds very familiar to many of you.

To their investors and shareholders, the brand looked like a winner. It had strong brand recognition, loyal customers, and busy locations. Yet behind the scenes, it was losing a significant amount of money every single month.

When the owners reached out to me, the mandate was clear: stop the bleeding and build a profit-focused structure that could actually scale.

Diagnosing the Real Issues

An initial tour of multiple stores across the network made something obvious: the problem was not sales, it was how the business was being run.

• Overstaffing at store level: Labour costs were bloated, with too many people on shift and no clear accountability for results.
• Management in firefighting mode: Middle management spent their days reacting to problems instead of preventing them with systems and standards.
• Weak financial understanding: Most key people didn’t grasp store-level economics, margins, or how daily decisions impacted the P&L.
• Ongoing monthly losses: With no real financial controls in place, the brand was burning cash at an alarming rate.

Does any of this sound familiar in your own organisation? Are your managers busy all day but still unable to explain why profit is not where it should be?
The issue wasn’t effort or passion. It was a lack of structure, discipline, and financial literacy.

Implementation of My Changes

To turn the situation around, the focus shifted from “working harder” to “managing smarter”. That meant equipping teams with the tools and knowledge to run each store like a business, not just an outlet.

• Financial education: Store and middle managers were trained to calculate break-even, read and analyse P&L statements, and track the KPIs that truly drive profit.
• Stock and cost controls: Proper stock procedures were introduced to cut waste, protect margins, and give clear visibility on food and packaging costs.
• Smarter marketing: Leadership learned how to direct marketing spend towards profitable traffic, rather than campaigns that looked good but didn’t pay back.
• Weekly accountability: Regular checks and balances ensured issues were spotted early, discussed openly, and fixed quickly.

Do your managers know your exact break-even point for today, this week, and this month? If you handed them a P&L, would they know how to turn it into action, not just look at the numbers?

Creating a Culture of Ownership

Systems alone are not enough; people need a reason to care about the numbers. The next step was to align behaviour at store level with the financial goals of the brand.

• Team-based bonuses: Each store received a performance-linked bonus system so that staff could share in the success they helped create.
• HQ training program: A structured training framework at head office level ensured new managers and key staff were consistently onboarded into the new profit-focused way of working.

Do your teams feel like owners, or like employees just clocking in and out? Is your bonus system actually driving profit, or just adding another cost to the P&L?
This shift changed the culture from “show up and do your job” to “own the result”.

Results: From Bleeding to Seeing Profits

Within months, the brand’s trajectory changed. The financial hemorrhaging stopped, and stores began to operate with far greater control, clarity, and confidence.

The payoff was significant: the system moved from monthly losses to delivering EBITA results above average. Profitability didn’t just return; it became part of the brand’s identity and a foundation for future growth.

Every turnaround begins with a simple truth: if your team doesn’t understand where the money is made or lost, they cannot protect it. Once a brand learns to think with a profit-first mindset, transformation is not only possible - it becomes sustainable.

Ready to Fix Your Profitability?

As you read this, are you wondering whether some of these issues are happening inside your own brand? Maybe you see overstaffed shifts, constant firefighting, or good sales with disappointing profit at the end of the month.

Does this case study sound familiar to you? Would you like to get on a Zoom call to have a friendly discussion? I'd be very happy to chat. Just send me a quick note here.