The Infinite Group: the real Never Never Land

I am one of the majority of failed “partners” of one of Ian Johnson’s franchise schemes. My memories and experience of The Infinite Group is that of sleepless nights, worries about finances and sheer terror and panic of how I was going to make ends meet. Since I left, all I wanted to do was to forget that nightmare, but it doesn’t seem to want to forget me. When I was asked to contribute to this blog, all those memories came flooding back… I am, however, glad to talk about my dealings with Ian Johnson and hope that the truth about him and his so-called “franchise” helps all those who are still his franchisees and those, who consider joining his schemes or doing business with him.

When I first met Ian Johnson, he exuded an aura of knowledge and success. Understatedly and almost shyly Ian Johnson told me about his long and brilliant career when he had been a chartered accountant and had run a very successful practice in Toowoomba, Australia, employing hundreds of people, which he had sold for a lot of money; he told me how proud he was of bringing Action International (now ActionCOACH) into the UK and Europe; he talked about how he had helped thousands of small business owners around the world to turn their ventures and fortunes around and that was how he decided to “franchise” his extensive knowledge and help more SMEs to benefit from his experience through handpicked quality “partners” of The Infinite Group who worked as one close team. He convincingly spoke about his franchisees’ successful work with SMEs and how much business there was for all to enjoy because his business model was recession-proofed and in demand. With calm confidence he told me that I would make a perfect addition to his team and that business owners would greatly benefit from my knowledge and experience (and with his close continuous support and all the tried-and-tested tools he’d make available to me), which will enable me to be successful and make a lot of money by charging at least £1,500 per month per client. It all made perfect sense and I was seduced by what sounded like a great opportunity. 

As the time went by and more franchisees joined, I started to realise that some “handpicked quality” franchisees were indeed carefully selected, but not for their knowledge, skills or experience. It was becoming more and more apparent that as long as they had a chequebook and a pulse (and pulse was optional), they were welcomed. In fact, even a chequebook wasn’t really necessary either, as in most cases all that new franchisees had to do was to pay a portion of License and Training fees upfront and the rest (including monthly royalty fees, or Monthly Service Fees (MSF)) were deferred or offset against future earnings. With very little or no business experience they were expected to contribute to the overall "success" and "knowledge" of the franchise and, more shockingly, to advise business owners on how to develop and grow businesses. 

Following Ian Johnson’s processes, backed by the non-existent support (including marketing) from the franchisor, the “tools” that did not work and dubious materials that were mostly downloaded from the interenet (and some were openly branded and copyrighted to other organisations), I, like most franchisees, was struggling to find and retain a sufficient number of clients and charge the level of fees prescribed by Ian Johnson to earn a decent living or ever see any kind of return on my “investment”.

With still some time to go before the end of my franchise agreement, no system or support provided by the franchisor and huge debt, the dream I was sold by Mr Johnson turned into a nightmare. I was wasting my life. Needless to say I could not carry on like that any longer. I had to get my sanity back! So, I cut my losses and left The Infinite Group. 

Unlike fairy tales, I haven’t been living happily ever after. I still feel the ripple effects of the devastation that Ian Johnson’s lies left behind. The Infinite Group turned out to be the real Never Never Land for me.