What I Learned Inside a Private Equity Office: Truths About Scale and Standards

I just walked out of my first in-person board meeting inside a private equity office, and I learned three things that completely reshaped how I view PE, reporting, and what “standards” really mean.

If you’re an emerging franchise founder heading toward scale — or preparing for private equity someday — these lessons will help you walk into those rooms smarter, clearer, and more confident.

Key Takeaways
1. Private equity isn’t ruthless or all-knowing — they’ve been burned before too.
 Their tight reporting formats and detailed requests aren’t ego. They’re protection.

2. When you share bad news, specifics create credibility.
 The more general your explanation, the weaker your leadership looks.

3. Surroundings matter more than people admit.
 How your environment looks reflects your standards, your success, and the value you provide.

Time Stamps
00:00 Introduction to the Franchise Scaleup Show

00:48 Insights from a Private Equity Board Meeting

02:45 The Importance of Specificity in Reporting

04:48 The Significance of Surroundings in Business

08:23 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

If you’re scaling and want to be ready for rooms like this — whether that’s building your support infrastructure, tightening your reporting, or prepping for private equity — don’t guess your way forward.

Book a free franchise growth strategy call at guycoffey.com.

I’ll help you build a brand that scales without burning out, selling out, or losing control.

Connect with Guy Coffey:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/guycoffey
Website: www.guycoffey.com
Instagram: @guycoffey
YouTube: @guycoffey

Transcript

0:00

I never thought of private equity as like being worried about. Someone pulling something over on 'em. If you're an emerging franchise founder, you already know this. The jump from 10 to 100 units is where most brands stall out, not because the concept isn't strong, but because the founder is drowning in chaos. I'm Gee, coffee franchisor, franchisee, and growth strategist. I've been where you are and I know what it takes to build a brand that scales without burning out, selling out, or losing control. That's why I created the Franchise Scaleup Show. Every week I'll share the playbooks, the red flags, and the mindset shifts that separate the brands that stall from the ones that scale. So if you're serious about protecting your vision and multiplying your brand, hit subscribe right now. This is the Franchise Scaleup Show. I'm Gee, coffee. Let's get to work. I just got back from a board meeting in a fancy private equity office. It was my first one in office, and I learned a few things there by having conversations with the folks in the building. So the first thing is the perception of private equity being ruthless and all knowing is wrong. And there was a couple things that. Pointed that out to me. I was, I was asking one of the board members why the format for the reporting in the, the meeting was the same across their, all their platforms. And his first answer was, well, because we found that companies were able to hide things that we should have been made aware of if we didn't have this all encompassing format and asset in the way that we do. And so I never thought of private equity as like being worried about. Someone pulling something over on 'em. I just always kind of put 'em up on the pedestal and thought, well, they're gonna, they're gonna know everything. And the other thing was they had the coolest sign in a, uh, a private area, uh, restroom. It was called Lessons from the Loo, and it was a little. Micro summary of 10 deals where they had lost money, and then a little summary of things to look for that might indicate fraud in a, in a company. And I thought that was amazingly, transparent that yeah, we. We, we don't always get it right, but here's what we learned from each of these things. So they are not all knowing, and ruthless and wrong and, and all those kind of things. If that's what people are thinking sometimes depends. Different people have different, you know, opinions and I think a lot of 'em are ill-informed, um, because they've never dealt directly with private equity yet. Um. The second thing I learned is in reporting, you know, there's, there's tons of good news and there's some challenging news, and one of the themes that came out for me in this and listening to the presentations is, if you have challenging news or let's just call it bad news, the more general the reason you give for it. The less credibility you have. if someone says, oh, you know, sales were down because of the government shutdown that's been going on for, as of this date, like 29 days or something like that. Okay. That, that could very well be the case. But the next questions that come onto somebody's mind are, how is that affecting us? Is it because the SBA is shut down and there's no new lending? Or is it because you think people are worried, uh, and they're not spending money on these services? Like say what your hypothesis is and then also say like, and here's what we're doing about it. So I think if you have bad news, get as specific as possible on like why that bad news is affecting you, and then also come up with something that you're gonna do to try to overcome it one way or the other. Even if it's like an impo like you, no small business owner is gonna like be able to get the government going again. I get that. But what are we doing in our communications to say like, Hey, remember this has happened before. Like don't worry about it. Let's move forward with life. And, you know, whatever the, whatever the thing you have for sale is, you know, plug it, you know, just at least, at least adjust your communications. This is a quick break to thank you for listening. Every week, we are getting more and more people listening to the show, and this growth is helping me to improve it and make it even more helpful to you. My intention for this show is to help more people win in business and life. To that end, I have a favor to ask. If you know of an entrepreneur that would benefit, please hit the share button and shoot them a text with the link back to the show. Make this a great day. And the last thing, and this is more of a general thing, is that surroundings do matter. So at this, office, it was, you know, an elevator ride to the top floor. The surroundings were beautiful, the detail and everything was beautiful. Everything had its order, everything was in its right place. And someone could say. Wow, they must be making too much money. It's like, no, everything in that office and everything that was built there in in other places was, if you look at it this way, it was built on them providing value to other people. Like no one gets rich just by charging a lot. Like you have to provide value. And since this firm has been around since 1988, this is not a flash in the pan kind of thing. They're here to stay and they obviously provide a lot of value. And I saw all that. Fanciness and just top quality everything as a testament to their standards and to the fact that they provided so much value that they can do this and have no issue, you know, with spending the money on it. And those are the types of people and the types of companies that you wanna be around for sure. Like if they've been around a long time and they're. Level of surroundings is real. It's not on borrowed money or something like that. Those are the kinds of companies that stick around. They're also the kinds of companies that attract people that are gonna be of high quality and surroundings matter. It's like, yeah, and this is a private equity company, so they're also having to attract investors and you know, people with a lot of money are used to nice surroundings and used to being in that kind of environment, and you show 'em into a room that's not to their standards and they're not gonna have a ton of trust. So I think to a degree at this uh, business, it's important to have those surroundings and I look at it as a testament to success, um, that they've provided to other people, which they've gotten paid for. So, surroundings do matter. Um, I haven't met anybody that's not a professional in that kind of design area that's as good as someone that works in that design area. So hire the right people and, um. Be proud of, of your surroundings and make sure that you can be proud of 'em because it does say something about you, whether you like it or not. It's a fact. So those are three things. To sum it up, surroundings matter. It's a reflection of your standards and your success. If you have bad news to share, give a specific reason for it and what you're doing about it. Even the solution isn't in place yet. And then also realize if you're going down the path with private equity and they're asking for this and that and this, and in the same, in particular formats, it's because they've been burned before. And, this is a way for them to fill up that gap and make sure that that doesn't happen again. Because, um, like everybody else, they're, susceptible to getting duped and uh, they got a lot of people's money on the line so they don't wanna do that again. So reframe all those requests from while they're just asking for it in this particular format.'cause they're trying to flex their muscles or something to Yeah, ah, this must have happened to them before and they like it in this format for that reason. So, three things I learned at my big day at the private equity company. Hope it helps. That wraps up today's episode of the Franchise Scale Up Show. This gave you a strategy you can put into play. Please share it with one founder who needs the help. You might save them months of pain. If you're ready to go deeper, whether it's building your support infrastructure, accelerating territory sales, or preparing for private equity, go to gee coffee.com. That's G-U-Y-C-O-F-F. EY and book a free franchise growth strategy call. I only partner with founders who are committed to scaling without losing control. If that's you, I'd love to connect. Until next time, protect your vision. Move fast and scale smart. I'm Gee, coffee Talk soon.