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Franchise consulting with Chris Hilgers

This isn’t about a business. It’s about your life.

Most people looking at franchising get handed a list of brands. We start somewhere else, with what you want your life to look like and why you’d want to own something in the first place. The business comes after that.

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Chris Hilgers standing among granite boulders and pines with his two German Shepherds

The hard part isn’t deciding to leave. It’s knowing where to go.

There are thousands of franchise brands and no easy way to compare them from the outside. And underneath all of it is the thing nobody says out loud at two in the morning: what if I pick wrong?

Fear and uncertainty are the real obstacles. Not capital, and not effort. You’ve never been short on effort.

Staying where you are can feel like the safe choice. But somebody else can still decide you’re moving, or that your job is gone.

I know where you’ve been.

I spent twenty-one years in the corporate world. Jenn-Air at Maytag. Toro’s international consumer business. Electrolux. I lived in Colorado and worked out of an office in Connecticut, in and out of airports Sunday and Friday. I know what it’s like to have somebody else decide where you live and what you’re worth.

Before that, I grew up in family businesses, so I know what it takes to turn the lights on every day. I can present to a board. I can also push a broom and hold a flashlight for somebody. For the last fifteen years, I’ve been helping people make this exact decision.

The measure I care about: a CFO I worked with years ago just referred me to his wife. A couple in Boston referred their son-in-law. People don’t hand you their family unless it went well.

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Chris Hilgers smiling, in a black quarter-zip, with pine trees behind him

How this works

  1. We start with your life, not a business.

    A conversation about what you want your life to look like and why you’d want to own a business at all. Then a questionnaire that takes about twenty minutes.

  2. You get a plan built around you.

    Not a list of everything for sale. A personal model with two to four companies chosen because they fit what you told me. Enough to compare, few enough to go deep.

  3. You have someone in your corner while you decide.

    Once you start talking to companies, I stop consulting and start coaching. I prep you before each conversation, debrief you after, and you’ll talk with owners already running the business. Your eyes go in wide open, or we don’t go in.

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A life that’s whole, and decisions that are yours.

You make the decisions that affect your family. Nobody relocates you, and nobody decides what you’re worth.

You get time back. It’s the one thing money can’t buy.

Maybe it’s a round of golf with your dad or your son. Maybe it’s something you can pass down to your daughter. It’s not just about money, and it’s not just about a title. It’s building something that makes you feel whole.

Chris Hilgers walking a mountain trail toward the camera with his two German Shepherds.

It can be the best brand in the world. If it’s not the right one for you, we shouldn’t do it.

What you’re agreeing to

It costs you nothing.

You never pay me.

You’re never being sold.

The companies have salespeople. My job is to make sure you’re asking the right questions.

You can change your mind.

We can add companies, take them off, or pivot. It’s your life.

If it isn’t right, you’ll hear it from me.

You won’t do this alone.

If something comes up, reach out. We’ll talk.

People who stopped letting somebody else decide

Everyone told him it wasn’t possible

Daniel had spent years running businesses for other people. Then the contracts his company depended on went away, and so did his job. He had real equity in his house and couldn’t touch it. Without a job, you can’t get an SBA loan, and you can’t get a home equity line either.

He could have gotten bitter. He didn’t. He found a banker through his networking group who understood where he’d been, and he found a way. He’s starting his business now.

In fifteen years of doing this, that’s one of the best stories I’ve been a part of.

Six months on a boat

Ben and his brother had moved from Seattle to Iowa to run pizza franchises. Three locations, working themselves into the ground, and it wasn’t paying them what it was costing them. I met Ben before he was married. Then I met Sarah.

Together they bought a window covering business and built it. Years later, they sold it and took their kids to live on a boat off the coast of Cabo for six months.

“I don’t know what you do, but I need to talk to you.”

Tom caught me coming out of a meeting one night and said exactly that. He was a CFO. He was traveling too much, wasn’t around his kids enough, and was being groomed for a seat the man in it had no plans to leave.

We started with what he wanted his life to look like. Along the way, I learned he also wanted to build something big of his own. He’s years into a restoration business now, and a few months ago he referred me to his wife. She’s buying a business of her own.

Names changed to protect their privacy.

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Podcasts I’ve been on

All appearances

Partnerships For Profit

Revealing how to find the right business

September 11, 2026Choosing a brand

Get Business Smart

Franchising success: unlocking opportunities in business ownership

June 19, 2026Getting started

En Factor Podcast

Find your franchise freedom with Chris Hilgers and Peak Franchising

June 11, 2026Choosing a brand

Fit, fulfillment, and freedom

All posts

Thinking about a midlife career change? Start with the life you want

Fifteen to twenty-five years into a career and wanting something more? Chris Hilgers on where a midlife career change really starts: the life you want.

October 8, 2026Leaving corporate

Why do people really want to own a business?

Freedom, time back and decisions that are yours. Chris Hilgers on the real reasons people want to own a business, and why the business comes second.

October 8, 2026Getting started

There’s risk in doing something. There’s just as much, or more, in doing nothing.

The people who never make the call are still in the same place, and they’re still stuck.

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Chris Hilgers crouching in an aspen grove with his two German Shepherds