When is a consultancy ready for a second branch?

When the first one runs for a month without the owner in it. If the office still needs you to decide things daily, a second one does not give you two offices; it gives you one office and a problem you cannot see.

Should each branch keep its own student records?

No. Separate records is the decision that makes head office blind, and it is very hard to undo later. Branches should see their own students, and head office should see all of them, from the same place.

How do I know whether a branch is actually working?

Not by revenue, which lags by a year. By whether enquiries are being contacted, whether promised call backs happen, and whether files move between stages. Those show trouble months before the money does.

Should branches have different prices?

Only with a reason you can say out loud. Students talk to each other across cities, and a price difference nobody can explain reads as one branch overcharging.

What is the first thing to standardise?

What gets written down when an enquiry arrives. If two branches record different things, you cannot compare them, and every report you build afterwards is guesswork.

Operations

Opening a second branch without losing sight of the first

The OfficeYak team, Written for consultancy ownersLast checked 26 September 20266 min

OfficeYak guide to running an education consultancy across several branches

A second branch does not double a consultancy. It halves the owner. Everything that worked because you were in the room stops working, and the first sign is usually not a problem you can see. It is a month where nothing is reported and you assume that means nothing is wrong.

What actually breaks

Not sales. Not the students. Three specific things.

You stop knowing what is true. In one office you hear the phone calls. In two, you hear a summary, and a summary is produced by someone who would rather report good news.

Process drifts within weeks. The new branch does the intake form slightly differently, records enquiries in a different place, and uses a different checklist for documents. Nobody decided this. It happens because nobody wrote the first version down.

Your best counsellor is now a manager. Usually promoted for being good at counselling, which is unrelated. They keep counselling, do the managing badly at night, and resign within the year.

Standardise four things before the lease

Not a manual. Four things.

What gets recorded when an enquiry arrives. Name, number, destination, intended intake, where they heard of you, who spoke to them. If two branches capture different fields, nothing can be compared afterwards.

What the stages are called. Enquiry, counselling, test preparation, applying, offer, visa, departed. Whatever your list is, it must be the same list in both offices, because "how many are at offer stage" is otherwise an unanswerable question.

The document checklist per destination. One version, centrally held. Two versions is how a file reaches an embassy missing the thing the other branch would have caught.

Who may discount, and by how much. Left vague, this is discovered later and always by accident.

Give the branch manager real authority

Half delegation is worse than none. A manager who must ring you to approve a discount has the responsibility without the ability, and students wait while a message sits unread.

Decide explicitly what they can do alone: discounts to a limit, hiring below a grade, spending to a monthly figure. Then let them, including when they do it differently from you.

What stays with you: partner agreements, pricing structure, anything that binds the company.

Watch the leading numbers, not the money

Revenue from a new branch is meaningless in year one. Commission arrives a year after placement, so a branch that is quietly failing looks identical to one that is quietly succeeding.

What tells you the truth within weeks:

Enquiries recorded per week. If this is low, the branch is not being found, which is a marketing problem.
Time from enquiry to first contact. If this is climbing, the branch is understaffed or disorganised.
Files with no activity in three weeks. The clearest single warning sign in any office.
Stage distribution. A branch with thirty enquiries and nobody past counselling has a counselling problem, not a lead problem.

All four are available weekly, and all four are invisible if each branch keeps its own records.

The head office question

At some point you will ask which branch is performing better, and discover you cannot answer it, because one branch counts an enquiry as anyone who walks in and the other counts anyone who leaves a number.

This is why records live in one place with a branch attached to each student, rather than in one place per branch. A counsellor in Pokhara should see Pokhara's students. You should be able to see both, side by side, without asking anyone to prepare anything.

The moment you have to request a report is the moment the report becomes a negotiation.

Before you sign anything

Run the first office for a month without going in. Not on holiday, just not in the room. See what still happens, what quietly stops, and what people ring you about anyway.

Whatever they ring you about is the thing that is not written down. Write it down, then open the second branch.

Common questions

When is a consultancy ready for a second branch?: When the first one runs for a month without the owner in it. If the office still needs you to decide things daily, a second one does not give you two offices; it gives you one office and a problem you cannot see.
Should each branch keep its own student records?: No. Separate records is the decision that makes head office blind, and it is very hard to undo later. Branches should see their own students, and head office should see all of them, from the same place.
How do I know whether a branch is actually working?: Not by revenue, which lags by a year. By whether enquiries are being contacted, whether promised call backs happen, and whether files move between stages. Those show trouble months before the money does.
Should branches have different prices?: Only with a reason you can say out loud. Students talk to each other across cities, and a price difference nobody can explain reads as one branch overcharging.
What is the first thing to standardise?: What gets written down when an enquiry arrives. If two branches record different things, you cannot compare them, and every report you build afterwards is guesswork.