Tavis Scholz — Fractional Operating Partner
Fractional operating leadership for franchise brands, multi-unit businesses, and growth-stage companies that need more than advice.
I help leadership teams build the structure, systems, teams, and execution discipline required to scale — and I stay through implementation.
The Situation
Most companies don't stall because the strategy is wrong. They stall trying to scale on structure built for a smaller company — the founder carrying too much, decisions made reactively, every new location harder than the last.
Nothing is broken enough to stop growth — yet. That's usually when I get the call.
The situations I'm typically brought into:
How I Help
These are operating engagements, not advisory sessions. Each one ends with something built — a system, a team, a process, a plan in motion.
Senior operating capacity inside your leadership team — translating strategy into plans, cadences, and accountability — without adding a permanent executive.
Outcome
A leadership team that executes without the founder in every decision.
The development engine behind a franchise offering — strategy, economics, sales process, and operating standards — from someone who has taken a system from zero to its first closed franchisees. Business support in coordination with your counsel, not legal advice.
Outcome
A franchise program that can recruit, close, onboard, and support — not just a document set.
The performance stack multi-location businesses run on: operating model, field leadership, sales planning, incentives, and the discipline to know which units to invest in, fix, or exit.
Outcome
Every location on a plan, and a portfolio you can steer instead of chase.
A system for expansion and occupancy decisions — market strategy, site selection, lease discipline, and the playbooks that turn a signed lease into a trading location on schedule.
Outcome
Location decisions made against a model, delivered on time and at standard.
Selected Results
Three builds from the same national retailer. No composite clients, no invented testimonials.
150 inquiries · 3 deals closed · 10 months
A national corporate retailer wanted to franchise and had nothing behind the ambition — no FDD, no territory model, no sales process. I built the entire development function, from US and Canadian FDDs with counsel to a 614-market territory model and an AI-augmented sales process one person could run. The first three franchisees closed in under a year, at roughly twice the benchmark rate for new franchisors.
173 locations · $38.5M sales · 94 retained
I helped grow a 21-store, $5.7M chain into a 173-store, $38.5M national footprint — then led the harder work of rationalizing it. A 154-store evaluation system drove a 94-keep / 48-close decision, occupancy costs came into the target band, and same-store sales returned to growth.
130 projects · 5-day retrofits · 10-person team
The development department had zero staff and a transformation ahead of it. I built a 10-person organization and the cross-functional playbooks behind roughly 130 site projects — 21 openings, 100+ wind-downs, and second-generation retrofits standardized to a five-day cycle with near-zero build errors.
Ways of Working
Ongoing executive operating capacity for a defined number of days per month — I join the leadership team, own an agenda, and run it.
A defined project with a defined finish line: a franchise sales process, a multi-unit operating system, a market strategy.
A diagnostic review followed by a prioritized 30-, 60-, or 90-day operating plan.
Engagements are scoped around the business problem, the level of involvement required, and the outcome you need — not a rate card.
About
I'm an operator who came up the long way: six leadership roles in twelve years, store manager to vice president, inside a national specialty retailer as it scaled from 21 locations to 173. I ran sales, operations, training, real estate, construction, and franchise development — usually building the department before running it.
That range is the point. Most scaling problems live between functions — where real estate meets operations, where sales planning meets labor cost, where a franchise promise meets what stores actually do. I've owned every side of those seams, and I build with modern tools — including AI where it genuinely compresses work — without making the technology the story.
The full operator trackWho I work with
In brief
Next Step
If you're a founder, investor, or executive team working through a constraint you can name — or one you can't quite yet — the first conversation is simple: what's breaking, what it's costing, and what would have to be built to fix it.
