Why the boldest enquiries about Just Pizza & Pasta don’t just come from the UK anymore

However, something quite unexpected happened lately – I started receiving enquiries from people overseas who were interested in opening a Just Pizza & Pasta outside the UK. I was very surprised (albeit pleasantly), but when I started to think about it, I realised I shouldn’t be.

The mood is completely different once you step outside the UK

Talk to entrepreneurs in the UK right now and you’ll hear a fairly familiar story. Everyone is watching the news, wondering what the next headline is going to do to their costs, their customers, or their confidence. Some days it feels like we’re bracing for the possibility of another five Prime Ministers before Christmas rather than actually building anything.

Talk to entrepreneurs overseas, though, and the tone shifts almost immediately. They’re not any less aware of what’s going on in the world. If anything, they follow UK news more closely than most people give them credit for, but they don’t seem stuck in the same doom loop that we are over here.

Where a lot of us are waiting to see what happens next, they’re already asking how quickly they can get started.

I don’t think that’s because things are necessarily easier wherever they happen to be. I think it comes down to confidence – not blind optimism, but a genuine belief in their own ability to build something and make it work, regardless of what the wider economy is doing around them.

It’s a mindset, more than a market condition, and it’s been a real breath of fresh air to be a part of.

Maybe that’s the bit worth borrowing

It’s made me wonder whether we’ve got the balance wrong over here. None of us can do much about interest rates, or the news cycle, or who’s sitting in Downing Street next year (or whether he’ll be a Mancunian or a man with a bin on his head). But we can decide how much of that we let sit in the driving seat when it comes to our own plans. The people getting in touch from overseas aren’t ignoring the uncertainty, they’ve just decided it isn’t a good enough reason to wait.

There’s probably a lesson in that for all of us.

There’s also a very practical reason UK franchises appeal to them

It isn’t only about attitude, either. Several of the people who’ve got in touch made a point I hadn’t fully appreciated until I heard it a few times over.

The UK is seen internationally as a mature, well-regulated franchising market, and that reputation really matters when uncertainty seems to be the norm everywhere else. It means the systems, the standards and the legal frameworks that sit behind a business like ours have already been tested against a level of scrutiny that a lot of newer markets simply haven’t had to deal with yet. To an overseas investor, that translates into something very specific – a business model that’s been proven to work under proper conditions, and one that stands a good chance of being replicated successfully somewhere else.

In other words, they’re not looking at Just Pizza & Pasta and hoping it might work. They’re looking at where it’s built, seeing what that represents, and backing it accordingly.

And once they look closely at the numbers, the interest makes even more sense

Here’s the part that tends to seal it. Once people start asking questions, and I mean the serious questions, the conversation almost always turns to profit.

After all, that’s what it’s all about right? Not just how much money is coming through the door – how much actually stays in your pocket.

Our net profits average 20+%. In an industry where a good month for a high-end restaurant might land at 5%, that figure alone tends to stop people in their tracks. It isn’t a one-off – it’s what the business is designed to deliver, week after week, because of what sits behind the food rather than the food itself.

Every recipe is documented and every process has a purpose. Every labour hour is measured and every KPI is reviewed. It’s all built into the heart of the operation, which is exactly why it has so much potential when it comes to transplanting it to new locations to a new town, a new city, or, it turns out, a new country entirely.

So what does this mean if you’re the one thinking about it?

Whether you’re reading this from just down the road or from somewhere considerably further away, the opportunity is the same. You get a business with the systems, the numbers and the track record already worked out, rather than years spent figuring it out yourself.

If you’ve got the ambition and you’re serious about it, I’d very much like to hear from you, wherever you happen to be. Come and see the operation for yourself, ask the difficult questions, and look at the numbers properly before you make up your mind.

Get in touch by emailing me at mitch@justpizzaandpasta.com or WhatsApp me on 07973 493787.