Patton leads his troops at Punch Pub Company

Mark Stretton meets Francis Patton, commercial director of Punch Pub Company.

Sacking someone can never be a pleasant experience but few people are held at gunpoint for three hours as a result.

That is what happened to Francis Patton, commercial director of Punch Pub Company, while he was learning his trade.

A newly baptised area manager for Allied Domecq, he was called upon to send a crooked pub manager on his way. He went to visit the culprit at his Leeds pub.

"He had been fiddling the books and I didn't have any choice," said Francis. "As I broke the news to him, he ran out of the room and came back with a bottle of whisky in one hand and a gun in the other."

It was quite an introduction to man-management. "The next three hours were a complete rollercoaster ride of emotions - he swung from periods of remorse to anger, and back again, until he eventually gave it up."

Francis' people skills have come a long way since - as commercial director at Punch he is responsible for 4,200 lessees. He heads a team of directors who cover marketing, promotions, supplies, recruitment and training, lessee relations and quite a bit more besides.

At 38 he is the youngest director sitting on the main board of Punch.

Francis says his primary function is to make the people at the sharp end of the business as successful as possible.

"Through out our company there is a huge passion to help and encourage our lessees," he said. "If they are successful then we are successful."

Francis wants to encourage a culture of enterprise and innovation among Punch staff. "This company is about 4,200 entrepreneurs," said Francis. "We want to help them become a success as much as we can but they have to drive the business."

Some of the more creative ideas to come from Francis' lessees include a Welsh curry-pub complete with a cash machine, another which took control of the adjacent fish and chip shop and a pub which advertises its latest promotions on the back of Asda receipts.

Francis says more often than not the best ideas come from those behind the bar. "All the branded concepts start out as stand-alone operations," he said. "Quite often they are the product of a licensee's vision which is then rolled out by a pub company."

While actively encouraging more people to join the trade, the commercial director is keen to point out that this is not an easy business and anyone looking to break into the industry should not take the decision lightly. "Some people have a 'roses-round-the-door' image of running a pub - something to do in semi-retirement," he said. "It's rubbish. Running a pub means total commitment - early mornings, late nights and sheer hard graft. It's not just a matter of standing at the end of the bar for a couple of hours each night."

Francis wants to ensure prospective lessees go into an agreement with their eyes wide open. Punch's website does not, if you'll excuse the pun, pull any punches, with candid insight into the rigors of tenanted management. "We don't want revolving door licensees," he said. "It's in our interest to find the right people. This business is not easy but it's fun and if you get it right, it can be very profitable."

The web is proving to be a valuable way of introducing potential lessees to the company and Francis says a significant number of new licensees were discovered through the internet. It has made the company more accessible. Recently, leases have been signed with tenants returning to Britain from California, France, Germany and South Africa.

As the largest integrated pub company in Britain, Punch has considerable buying power, which in turn is passed on to the licensee, says Francis. For example, aside from product discounts, Punch operators only pay a third of the membership fee of the British Institute of Innkeepers.

That the company is still seen as merely a property company in some quarters is frustrating and another outdated perception that Francis is keen to discard. "It's insulting," he said. "We add value, we support, we generate ideas and we help people to be successful. If they win, we win."

What Punch is about is making money - a fact that people have to get used to, says Francis. "We are a business, not a charity," he said. "We provide £500,000 of assets so if people come to us then, yes, they have to sign a lease and yes, they have to buy beer from us. It's wide open - lessees have to make money but so do we."

Punch was recently referred to as a second division company by the chief executive of a rival operation. But the controversial comments did not provoke rage or ill feeling, as was perhaps intended. "We know how good we are - we have proved we are hugely successful," said Francis. "We have no desire to get involved in mudslinging nor do we need to jockey for position."

Turning attention to some of the wider issues concerning Punch and the rest of the industry at the moment, Francis has been using his business development managers to encourage lessees to implement the changes laid out in the charter for smoking in pubs.

He wants to get the majority of the pubs signed up by 2003, sensing the need to act before the government implements a total ban. "Banning smoking in pubs would decimate our business," he said.

"Yes, as an industry we have to act responsibly, especially towards staff, but to me it's going against people's civil liberties - it's a public house.

"The Government says it supports small businesses yet 55,000 will be affected by a ban. It's a total contradiction and we have to make sure that doesn't happen."

Francis says the Government should also offer help to the industry in other ways especially with regard to the minimum wage. "We still have to pay the same duty on alcohol so landlords and lessees were forced to raise prices to absorb the costs of rising wages," he said.

"We are a cash cow for the Government."

He also says the drinking laws are outdated and should have been amended years ago. "I am with the camp that says licensing should stay with local magistrates," he said. "They've done it well enough and besides planning applications through local councils take forever."

Francis says he is encouraged that the price gap between pub and off-trade is slowing down. "The price-gap on a pint of beer is roughly 85p," he said. "We encourage people to grow their business and offer more for that 85p. Food is really booming and something that can be used to attract people out of the home and away from the off-licence.

"Besides, people go on about the price of beer but how much do people pay for a coffee these days?" The commercial director believes real ale will make a comeback but subscribes to the theory that it needs to "get sexy". He is actively encouraging the brewers to launch marketing ploys, such as branded glassware.

Francis says he fell into the trade after studying geography at Liverpool University. "Like every student I enjoyed the odd pint and the idea of working in the industry appealed," he said. He joined Joshua Tetley, which was later bought by Allied Domecq, as a graduate trainee. As part of his Allied training he spent six months managing two pubs in Leeds and Wakefield.

When Allied was bought by Punch, he had risen to marketing director of Vanguard, the group's leased pub business.

The experience was a real eye-opener. "There were real social problems," he said. "People would come in and spend all the money they had getting drunk and there was trouble on a regular basis.

"Our best licensees are unpaid psychologists - they can sense trouble and stop it before it happens."

Francis says the industry is doing well and many underestimated its durability against foot-and-mouth, the fall in tourism and most recently the terrorist acts.

"The night of the attacks, sales shot up because people didn't want to be alone," he said. "People wanted to talk about i