December 13, 2024 • 30 mins
Don't Miss This Exclusive Interview with Brigham Dallas, Founder of Hello Sugar!
Join us as Brigham Dallas, the visionary behind Hello Sugar, takes us on his incredible journey from digital advertising to dominating the Brazilian waxing industry. Learn how he started with minimal resources, created a unique client experience, and quickly expanded from one location to a national franchise.
Discover Brigham's growth strategies, from automating operations to building a strong business model, and hear how he keeps Hello Sugar both affordable and attractive to franchisees. Plus, get insider knowledge on how he supports franchisees through mentorship, efficient marketing, and cost reduction.
Listen now for the secrets behind Hello Sugar's explosive growth and how Brigham's approach can inspire your own franchise success!
Hello Sugar franchise
Wax franchise
Top waxing franchise
Sugaring franchise
Visit www.weboughtafranchise.com to subscribe.
Send us your questions for an upcoming episode at 305-710-0050.
From your pals in franchise ownership, Jack and Jill Johnson.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi everyone.
Welcome back to the we Bought aFranchise podcast.
I'm Jack Johnson.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Jill Johnson.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
And we are here today with a very special guest.
We've got Brigham Dallas fromHello Sugar.
Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
So great to be on your podcast.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
We've been so excited to start working with your
brand and, for those of you thatdon't know, jill and I, of
course, are franchise owners ofPink's Windows in Palm Beach
County, and on this podcast, weshare our sort of journey, you
know, building our franchise.
And, brigham, just for yourknowledge, we're franchise
consultants.
We've been franchiseconsultants since 2017.
(00:37):
And we're former franchisors.
We've been on your side too,wow.
So the whole idea of thispodcast, though, was for us to
sort of bring people along onour journey of building our
franchise, and so we kind of doepisodes where we talk about our
growth of our franchise, thestruggles that we face, as well
as the victories and, I'm happyto say, we were the highest
performing franchisee for pinkslast month.
(01:00):
Of course, that's awesome wealso love to bring on
franchisors like you, as well asfranchisees to learn from you
and get best practices.
So you know, tell us a littlebit about your story.
How did this all come to be?
What?
What led to starting HelloSugar.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Yeah, it's not a journey that was intentional.
It wasn't something that I waslike okay, I want to build a
franchise, I want to build this.
I was working in a digital adsdiet space so I was like selling
diet pills online and Iabsolutely hated it and I was
working for somebody and I waslike I got to get out of this.
And one time I was talking to afriend and she was like I had
to pay $20,000 in taxes.
I'm like whoa, like $20,000 intaxes, like how much do you make
(01:38):
?
And she's like I made a hundredgrand.
And I'm like what do you do?
Like I thought you were like ahairstylist.
And she's like, no, I do waxing.
Like run those economics by me.
And she goes well, I do 15minute Brazilians, so I can do
for an hour at $45 a piece.
And so I was like wait, youmake $180 an hour doing
Brazilian waxing.
Like how much is your cost?
And she's like it's just wax.
It's like three bucks a service.
(01:59):
Whoa, you like make more than alawyer does.
This is like incredible, like Ihad no idea.
She's a part-time worker withlike a single mom, and I'm like
this is amazing.
And so I you know, I startedtalking to her.
I was like hey, would you bewilling to come down to Phoenix?
She lived in Utah and helped melike open this, like just train
my first staff member.
(02:19):
She said yeah, so I flew herdown, spent $3,000 on the first
build and it was in the back ofa plastic surgeon's office and I
got started.
I was 26 years old.
It was a one room studio.
I didn't even know what aBrazilian wax was.
I was so like I Googled itafterwards and I was like, whoa,
like people do this?
This is crazy.
Like it was not like this likeintentional business.
I just wanted to get out of thediet space.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
And so it started the first year I didn't have a ton
of money.
I had that one room studio andI just built it and I started
figuring out the process youknow we want to do memberships
instead of packages and figuringout who to sell to.
And with my digital adsbackground, I was really good at
like trying to identify a brandbecause I could post an idea on
Facebook, see the engagement ofit and then see what worked
(03:04):
Right.
And I noticed that all of likeour reviews and the reviews of
competitors that were positivesaid that she makes me feel
comfortable, and so I.
I noticed like all the otherbrands were like high fashion
and, like you know, on a beach Ijust wanted people to feel like
it was real.
So I use like real women.
I didn't use like models, Ididn't use attractive people, I
(03:24):
just use real women coming in,and I got three times the
engagement, so I knew it wasonto something and so I built
that up for about six months andthen I was like, okay, I feel
good about this.
I know I can at least pay rentbecause I'm making enough on my
space to pay rent.
And so then I took my lifesavings, every credit card, I
had every loan I could get, andthen my line of credit and maxed
(03:45):
all of it.
And then I built my firstlocation.
And you know, I went to thatlocation like 10 times middle of
the night, daytime.
I mean I just like sat outthere and I was like is this a
spot like that's going to likeruin me Not?
Like I'm not going to like makethis like is it going to ruin
me, like I don't know, like I'mgoing to lose everything if this
doesn't work Right.
So I feel what franchisees feelwhen they put their like their
(04:07):
savings into this, and I takethat sacredly Like I don't, I
don't think of that as like asmall thing.
And so I built that firstlocation and I moved the suite
that I had inside the back ofthe plastic surgeon's office
over, and I at least knew that Icould pay rent at that point.
And so then, at that point, mymom bless her heart, right,
southern girl from SouthCarolina flew out.
(04:29):
I moved into a two bedroomapartment and she lived in one
bedroom, I lived in the otherand we worked reception.
So she worked reception one day, I worked reception the other
and we just built it and builtit and that was like six months
until I could afford areceptionist.
So it was really like you know,bare bones.
I was like six months until Icould afford a receptionist, so
it was really like you know,bare bones.
Five years in, I've got 10locations.
It's 2020.
And I'm teaching how to start asmall business at a university
(04:52):
and I'm teachingentrepreneurship and I loved it.
It was like my calling in lifeand I was like you know what
this would be cool to like helpothers start the business I'm
most passionate about, which isHello Sugar, and I felt like it
was a good business at thatpoint.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
So I went and started franchising in 2021.
So did you sorry to interrupt?
Did you say you had 10corporate locations before you
started franchising?
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Were they all in the same area?
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yeah, so what I do is , every year I would build one
more suite.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
And then after that I would like turn it into a
flagship.
And when I'm turning into aflagship I'm building one more
suite.
So every year I just did thatsame formula of just suite to
flagship.
And then at some point I hadmultiple suites and I was like,
okay, this one is doing betterthan this one.
I had like, basicallyincubators.
You know, like when people goto market they like do a big
promo, they like try to get alot of pre-sale members in.
(05:43):
The incubator was the pre-saleLike I could know that something
was working and feel like I wasgoing to be okay moving into
this heavy rent and these suitesonly took like two months to
put up and so I could get thosethings with my advertising
profitable like within months,like right away.
It almost I mean, you guys arein a rest like a home service
business, right?
Is that what Iy is Like?
It almost felt like a homeservice business.
(06:04):
I'm up and running in twomonths.
I'm like driving people.
It was super fast and had greatmargins to it and I could take
that and build it into theflagship model.
That like worked really well.
So I did that for five years.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
That's awesome.
You know, when I was on thefranchisor side at a franchise
called Home Care Assistance,which provided in in home care
to seniors, we had multiplecorporate locations and we would
use them to test new, newservices for our franchisees,
which I always thought wasreally cool.
You know, we would talk.
You know, for example, like westarted doing things, like you
(06:38):
know, chair based yoga forseniors in our office and we
would test, like cookingprograms, and I think that's
such a cool thing forfranchisors to do to be able to
have their own corporatelocations where they can test
new innovations and be familiarwith running the business.
So kudos to you.
So I'm sorry, I didn't mean tojump in on you there.
So we're 2020, we've got 10locations.
It's time to franchise.
(06:59):
What happens next?
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, so, jack, I mean, but to that point, like I
think it's also important that afranchisor knows what the
franchisee goes through.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
It's like there's this likedecision.
There's a lot of decisions thatlike I didn't realize that
franchisor has to make about howto charge and what to charge
for and like how to buildtogether, and the franchisee is
is is different than afranchisor's motivations, unless
(07:23):
the franchisor has franchiselocations as well.
So I pay all the same fees asthe franchisees do.
So I'm thinking just like afranchisee.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
I mean it's a great point because we, as franchise
consultants, living thelifestyle of a franchisee, I
think, keeps us sharp for whatour clients are going to go
through and for those franchise,for those people out there,
those franchise consultants outthere who haven't been a
franchise owner, it's just awhole different life as you're
building a business, as you'rescaling a business, as you're
(07:52):
hiring, as you're going throughthe ups and downs, and so I
think to your point, as afranchisor, sleeping and
breathing the same lifestyle asa franchisee, I think that
really goes a long way because,you know, having a focus on
franchisees, profitability,making that such a priority, is
huge.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Yeah, well, and I think, like you said both of you
said having the experience justmakes a huge difference.
So you know, as Jack was saying, when you know, as franchise
consultants, having PINX is veryhelpful to us now when we're
trying to help people findfranchises, because we've now
been on the other side, or youknow, kind of see, our whole, I
(08:32):
think, approach and how wecommunicate to our clients has
changed a lot since we've beenin their shoes On the flip side.
When we started FranchiseInsiders, we have a similar
story to you.
You know, we went right in, wesold our house, we did all the
things you did too.
So when we would talk to ourclients, in that sense it was
also like, yes, we haven'tnecessarily bought a franchise,
but we started our company.
(08:52):
So we understand the fear, weunderstand the excitement of you
know putting everything you owninto a business.
Yeah, you know, I love hearingthat you have that experience.
I think that's really helpfulfor anyone that comes on board
because you've been there,you've done it.
Like you said, you're stilldoing it, which I think is
amazing.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Yeah, I've got seven.
I'm opening my 17th location inJanuary.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, I love that.
How many franchise locations doyou have?
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Wow, yeah, how many franchise locations do you have
All right.
So in 2021, I'm going to keepkind of like the growth model of
this, cause people think it'slike really crazy where it is
today.
In 2021.
I wasn't expecting to build anational company.
I think people have these likegrand ambitions.
My stuff's a little bit morelike I just wanted my friends to
do the same thing.
I was doing Like, so I wasteaching and I had a couple of
(09:41):
friends that were like Brigham,you've got a great business Like
any way, like we could like bepartners.
And I was like, oh, maybe likefranchising could work for this
and this could allow therelationship for that.
And so the first year I justwent to my friends and so my
friends started HelloSugars intheir markets in different areas
.
And that was it, and a lot ofit was my former students at the
school I was teaching at, andso by the end of year one, we
(10:02):
had maybe 15 locations open andwe were testing things and
learning a ton.
And when my friends opened, Idecided, you know what, I'll
walk the walk as well.
Like I'll open one in adifferent market.
So I opened in Nashville and Iopened three locations two
locations out there and uh, andstarted like building those and
I'd go there every month andlike you know the whole thing.
And then the next year westarted like offering it to the
(10:24):
public, cause I felt like thebusiness was strong, so it
wasn't like just go out and haveanybody, it was like I gotta
make sure this is good first,right, and then we're now three.
So we started 2021.
We're coming up to the end of2024.
So it's like three years, threeand a half years, since we
started and, uh, we're 110locations.
Yeah, it's, uh, I think, thefastest growing beauty brand
(10:45):
right now in the us.
Um, certainly, in the waxingspace.
I mean, we're, we're absolutelycrushing it.
We're almost, we're almostdoubling again this year and
we've doubled every year in size, and so it's been.
It's been a compelling story,and I think it's compelling
because of the product offeringkind of hybrid, kind kind of
like a restaurant, like aservice, home service company.
It's quick to get up, it's lowcost to start, high returns and
(11:07):
the amount of work needed from afranchisee is like minimal,
because we automate almosteverything in this business.
It's just relationships theyhave to manage, and so people
are very attracted to that.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
So when you talk about automating things for the
franchisee, what does thatinclude?
Where are you guys helping?
Is that in terms of the supportto get locations open, the
advertising?
Talk about that if you would.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Yeah, I'd love to.
So I think as a franchisor, Ithink about my friends and I'm
like, why would they do thisinstead of just doing it
themselves?
And I thought about this for along time.
I was looking at salon, waslooking at like a salon suite
concepts like salons by JC,phoenix salons and I'm like,
okay, that first year thefranchises or franchisee loves
them because they help them getup and running, they give them a
(11:48):
business plan, everything butyear five through 10, they just
hate them because they're likepaying this royalty and they're
not doing anything for them, youknow.
And so I was like I've got tomake this business so valuable
to my franchisees that it's apartnership and they want me as
a partner and they're willing todo a 6% equity stake let's call
it in their company for thatpartnership, right.
(12:09):
And so I was like, how do I dothat?
And so I looked at every singlepiece of the business
strategically and said how do weautomate this for them to take
it off their hands?
And if we could do that, maybewe could be a great partner for
them and lower their costs.
That's what a franchisor shoulddo.
It should take economies ofscale and lower the cost for all
segments of a franchise.
That's my personal opinion.
(12:29):
So let's start off with thebasics.
We help with all the products.
We were buying sugar for $28 acan.
Now it's like $16 a can.
We almost halved it and we'vedone that across all of our
product mix.
So our products are cheaperthan they could buy for
themselves.
Then, on the advertising front,that was my background, you know
.
I taught at a universityadvertising.
I did it.
(12:50):
I ran a company for 10 years onlike Fortune 500 level
advertising.
I know this space really well.
We can open a salon and fivedays before they open, start ads
and we can fill that salon bythe time they open five days
later and we can do thatthroughout the whole thing.
And so instead of running likea brand fund which I think I'm
(13:10):
like, vehemently opposed to,like, I think they're like
scamming a little bit we don'tdo any kind of advertising where
they have to pay a royalty onit, pay for performance.
So unless they get a completedappointment, they don't pay us
any kind of management fee.
So $7 and 50 cents If theycomplete an appointment.
If they don't complete anappointment, they don't pay
anything.
So everything's like and we cantrack the ROI on this all the
(13:31):
way through, all the way fromleads to bookings to completeds
to memberships, the ROI all theway through on these ads.
And I'm happy to say for every$1 that people spend on ads
they're getting $50 in revenueand $12 in profit.
Like it's plenty of money forus right now, yeah.
And so on the ad side, likemost companies, most franchisors
, like that's a big deal, theydon't, they don't even think
(13:51):
about it.
Like literally 95% of peoplejust use our advertising and
that's it.
And then, on the other side ofthings, we also run the
reception.
So I remember I told you likewe ran reception in the
beginning for them, or like forourselves, like I had my mom
come out Reception sucks, likeit's so it's a sucks, like it's
the worst thing about a retailbusiness.
40% of your staff are reception, they're minimum wage, they
(14:13):
don't care about your business,they're all part-time, they're
going to college, they quitwithin three to four months.
I mean, I could go on, but itsucks.
And so we went through and saidI just said to myself, what if
we just didn't have reception?
What if we just got rid of them?
And so I fired all ourreceptionists.
I had a ton of them.
It was costing me $6,000 amonth per flagship.
I fired them all.
I mean I was nice, I gave themlike two months.
(14:34):
You know, I was like, hey,you're gonna have fun at another
job.
We started outsourcing to thePhilippines and did only text.
I didn't want like the accentto like bother it, so we did
only text.
And then the next year westarted automating it.
And then, once ChatGPT hit andlike AI, instead of investing in
an app, I put a quarter millioninto AI technology and built
(14:57):
our own robust system and I'mhappy to say today Hulu lemons
at like a 70% automation ofe-commerce.
They're best in class.
And we're at 64% automation inthe service space.
So not e-commerce, service isway harder than e-commerce.
We're at 64% completeautomation.
So for our franchisees, we'reable to handle all of the
reception.
It's like the like 40% of thebusiness is taken out.
(15:19):
They don't even have to thinkabout.
They're like half the employeesand it's so much easier now
that that's gone and we chargeper completed appointment.
So it's $3 and 25 cents percompleted appointment.
So you have full-time reception, day and night.
If you had a hundredappointments it'd be $325 a
month, and that for me is abouthalf the cost, as if I did it
(15:39):
in-house and had to manage allthose employees.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
So you don't have anyone sitting at like a front
desk no-transcript.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yeah, yeah, what.
What would you say?
The range of opening, you know,getting getting one of these
things off the ground and openin terms of costs is and and
let's really put time to this,like let's say all right, we're
having this great conversation,jill and I are like dude, you
got boca raton available, let'sgo.
What?
What kind of investment, whatkind of time frame does are we
(16:10):
looking at?
Speaker 3 (16:12):
yeah, I'm gonna go through those two things and
then site selection.
That's okay, that's a big part,so we could go two routes.
Some franchisees are like Iwant to do a suite.
It's way less risk, itincubates, but it doesn't make
as much money as a flagship.
So it makes about three timesless.
Right now on the item 19,.
(16:35):
We're about $65 65 000 a yearin profit on a suite.
So that takes about 110 000 toopen up 65 000 on the after it's
mature, so after one year.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
so anyone open over one year and I'll tell you this
suite as you're building.
I would just, I would imaginethe suite as you're.
You're building up the flagship, right yeah?
Speaker 3 (16:48):
so you could build two suites, find out which one's
better and then go put theflagship in that location, right
, like, go ahead and get thedata, and then it might take the
other one a little longer, buteventually that will become a
flagship too.
We just got to make sure youknow we build at the right pace.
Other people are like, hey,let's do a flagship right out
the gate.
We're just going to spend a lotof money on marketing and we're
just going to get up andrunning faster.
Because to me, like, the suitesare not the end game
(17:11):
Franchisees for us.
They're using suites to hedgerisk and not to.
I want to live on $65,000 ayear, right, yeah, and the
profits for the flagships aremuch higher than that.
So it's like $150,000 to$250,000 is what we're seeing in
the profit range for flagshipson our item 19.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
And that's what you show on your item 19,.
Correct?
Yeah, and by the way, for thoseof you listening, we're not
making any types of offers tosell franchises here, and if
you're in a registration state,hello sugar may not be available
for you, okay thank you.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, class was like let's lawyer this.
Yeah, we, we, we believe inradical transparency.
We publish every singlefranchisees, pnl that qualify in
that one year mark.
Wow, I don't care if it's goodor bad, it's getting published.
And the reason why is I wantradical transparency.
I want people that are going tobe my partners to know exactly
(18:02):
what they're getting into.
I will tell them.
If it's a bad market, I will saydon't go there.
Like I had a guy come up to meand he was like hey, this
thing's like already built out.
It was like a competitor salon,like it would just be cosmetic,
and I just said no, like Idon't want the business, I don't
want you like failing onsomething because it's a bad
location, right.
And so I think that's anotherreason why we grow Like I've.
I've turned down locations thatshould be open because they just
(18:24):
won't make the person asprofitable.
I don't, I don't care about themoney on the side for the
franchise or side, I just wantour franchisees to be super
profitable.
Yeah, so, and then, like yousaid, like you can use the suite
, incubate it and then turn thatinto a flagship.
That's freaking cool becausethat takes all the risk out that
that, for me, was like mesitting there at the McDonald's
of the first location I had atmidnight thinking, oh my gosh,
(18:45):
is this going to work?
Well, I know it's going to workbecause I can at least pay my
rents.
That was a comforting to me.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Yeah rents.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
That was a comforting to me.
Yeah, cool, wow, I have to saywe had done our pre-show sort of
research on you and we've beenworking with you guys now for a
few months, but everythingyou're saying is so cool.
I really love your dedicationto the brand.
Let's pretend I'm a potentialfranchisee and I want to do it
right.
What kind of liquid capitalshould I have access to?
And really, you know for me todo it right, starting with the
suite but also building aflagship?
(19:19):
You know what sort of timeframeshould I should I have in my
mind If I want to be a greatfranchisee for you?
Give it to me straight, tell meyou know what I should ideally
have.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Liquid capital depends on themarket.
We are just entering intoCalifornia and I'm a little
scared of all the regulationsthere, so I'm requiring more
capital for California than Iwould for other areas and I'm
also out the gate saying, hey,these are the challenges that
we're facing.
Moving into California, Likethe minimum wage is higher, yeah
, and so you know, for a suite,we can get a suite up and
(19:49):
running with a run rate for$110,000.
That gets you the franchise feeand everything to get you up
and running.
And people need to realize thatsuite.
You're putting money into itwhile it's building, but you're
also making money while it'sbuilding.
So it kind of feels like lessthan actually just needed to get
this up and running.
For a flagship a flagship iscosting about $350,000 for a
(20:13):
brand new build on average inthe country that's what I'm
seeing and it qualifies for SBAloans so you can put 10% down on
an SBA Runway.
Rate-wise it might be another$50,000 to $60,000 that I want
just like six months of likeworking capital to make sure
that I'm getting off the ground.
Now I'm finding second-genspaces.
If I'm careful and this is thenice thing about the suite to
(20:39):
flag model is.
I can build the suite and thenbe patient to look for a flag
and sometimes like 50% of thetime for me in Phoenix I'm
finding a prebuilt space ofeither a competitor or a doctor
that has like multiple rooms orlike a massage place or
something that already has abuild out, and then it's a
cosmetic change and it's not 350, it's like much less than that
and it's quicker than itnormally would be to open.
So those come about and we canbe patient if we have the suite
(21:00):
to like, move into those as wellthat's awesome.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah, tell me about your support team for for
franchisees.
You know how how deep is yourteam.
What kind of uh support uh canfranchisees expect you guys have
?
You know how how deep is yourteam.
What kind of uh support uh canfranchisees expect you guys have
?
You know, have sort of uh likesomeone assigned to them.
Is there a weekly conferencecall where all franchisees are
involved?
You guys have an annualconference.
Tell me about that.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Yeah, uh, people love the support.
I think when we did thefranchise business review we
ranked in the top fivepercentile don't call me on that
10 to 5 to 10 percentile forsupport.
It was like so, so good, andwe're like in the top 50 of
brands, I think on there in FBRbecause of like the brand itself
is really strong.
But what we do is when somebodycomes on, we assign them a
(21:46):
rockstar franchisee who's gotlike eight locations and meets
with them every single week.
We put an entire coursetogether on Kajabi where they
can learn everything about thebusiness fully.
They do the weekly meetingsfrom negative three months to
opening till three months afterthey open or just as long as
they need to get to that point.
Then we pass them off to ourgrowth team and the growth team
(22:07):
works with them on a monthlybasis or however frequently they
would like to work with us.
If there's a problem we canwork more often, but most people
choose once a month for a calland then on top of that I don't
show it here, but I have a fullpodcast room and so every week
you know the old CEO, it's likesend a newsletter out or you
know, for us I do a video everysingle week and I go over case
(22:30):
studies, I go over people I'mtalking to, I'm going over new
updates of my entire team isdoing and I'm sending that out
to the company.
And then there's like commentsthat people can make.
I use a software called loomit's phenomenal and I send I
sent 227 videos out this yearalready at just like
broadcasting Cause I think a CEOneeds to be in front of the
company and they, they need toknow what's going on.
(22:51):
And at first I was like scaredto do this.
I was like nobody's going towant to like listen to me for
like 20 minutes a week.
But I'm like, no, bring them.
Like literally 20 minutes isall they get right with the
brand.
They want to hear about thesethings, you know, and it's been
wildly like important to ourcompany that I keep doing these
and so I send those out everyweek.
Our advertising team sends itout once a month, so they get
videos there.
(23:11):
And we do an annual conference.
It's very different from mostconferences.
There's no lectures, it's wejust pick like an epic place.
So we did the first year we didTahiti.
We're like 24 people.
We did Tahiti, we did Iceland,then we did Belize.
This year we're doing Kona,hawaii, and we just go spend
some cool time together.
And you know, I think it's.
(23:36):
I think it's important thatpeople are on a hike and they're
just like so what are you doingto make it work?
And they build thosefriendships.
I think that means a lot morethan like a, you know, a
conference in a conventioncenter and they bring their
families.
It's like it's.
It's very cool, it's a veryspecial.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yeah, that's cool.
I mean I feel like you're doinga great job of responsible
franchising You've got.
It's incredible that the sortof the ramp that this business
has, how quickly you can ramp upthe need for it, the demand,
and how you guys have grown,it's all really impressive.
And to have that kind ofsupport I think is outstanding.
(24:05):
When people start to exploreyour franchise right now and
speak to franchisees, how's thathappening?
Are there like weeklyconference calls?
Like how do people, once theystart to engage in your process,
how do they learn more?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Yeah, every Wednesday there's a leadership call where
there's franchisees that comeon and they like talk about
their experience so they canjust join those.
We have a full sales team ordev team business development
where, like, if anyone'sinterested in learning about the
franchise, like we can takethem from A to Z, and we want
transparency.
So we want new people lookingin to talk to everybody.
If they want to talk tosomebody, we're going to try to
(24:40):
make it happen for them, becausewe want them to get into the
business, thinking I knowexactly what I'm getting into, I
know the pros, the cons,everything, and so we try to
keep an open channel withfranchisees so they can speak to
them.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Cool.
I mean, listen, look at thetransparency, all the locations
in the item 19,.
Good, bad and ugly.
I think that's fabulous.
You have a franchisor thatoperates multiple locations, so
they know what they're doing.
It's a fun culture.
It's a great looking brand,thanks.
There they're doing.
It's a fun culture.
It's a great looking brand,thanks.
There's so many positives here.
What haven't we asked on thispodcast that you think is
(25:12):
important for people to knowthat we haven't covered?
How much time are?
Speaker 3 (25:15):
you gonna have to spend in this franchise yeah,
how much time.
Let's hear it.
So most franchise owners have afull-time job and do this on
the side until this becomestheir full-time job, so you
don't have to stop your job.
This is the cool thing aboutthis, right, like, if you think
about what makes this businesswork, right, people are coming
in, they're getting services andthen they leave.
So we've got to get the techreally, really dialed in the
(25:39):
nudges, the appointmentreminders, the like back-end
communication it's all handledoverseas.
You don't have to manage any ofthat.
We've got to get the marketingreally solid and our marketing
is like best in class.
Like, trust me, there's no oneeven close to what we're doing
on the marketing side.
It's insanely good.
So you gotta get that down.
You gotta build a beautiful boxyou know business in a box,
this whole idea of a franchiseand then you've got to manage
(26:01):
people and if you can do thosethings well, you've got a really
good business.
We have to stock the rooms oncea month.
It's not like this business is,like you know, really hard to
get up and running and liketakes.
It's not like a sushirestaurant where you're like
flying fish in every day, right,and so if you can manage like a
couple of people, well, that'sit, that's your times.
(26:23):
You know, I have a weeklymeeting with my team.
If I'm managing a we, I have aweekly meeting with my team.
If I'm managing a location, Ihave a weekly meeting with my
team.
And then, oh, one more thing Iforgot.
This is what's really cool.
So we noticed like a gap in likemanagement with our franchisees
.
So we, we, we tried to automatethis as well.
So we, we created a companycalled remote works and we, we
(26:43):
outsource and find the bestoverseas people to manage salons
here.
And I started looking at thisand I was like, okay, what is it
that you really need to manage?
And I went down the list andI'm like every single thing on
this, besides talking to people,could be done overseas the
scheduling, the inventory,purchasing, the no-shows, the
on-calls, the talking to clientsthat are upset, if you get the
(27:03):
right person.
I'm not talking like entry-levelperson, I'm talking like
somebody with a degree, hrresources, economics, like
really smart people.
They just happen to live in thewrong country, not the wrong
country, but the country wherethey don't make as much money.
We can find like best in classthere and then have them manage
the salons.
And so when somebody starts atHelloSugar, we give them, like,
(27:24):
the opportunity.
They don't have to take it, butit's $14 an hour and these are
not like entry-level workers.
These are like really, reallystrong candidates that, like,
would be paid like 60 to $80,000here in the States, and so for
$14 an hour, they can buy fivehours at a time and so, as their
business scales, they can buythese overseas managers that
manage practically 80% of theentire business for them, except
(27:47):
for, like this, theinterpersonal skills that are
happening here, so they canfocus on just like building
relationships with their teamand make something really
awesome.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
That's great.
That's great.
I mean again, it's like for us,I would say with our pinks
franchise, we're probablyspending a couple hours a day
sort of managing the manager, ifyou will.
Some days it's more, some daysit's some days people quit.
You got to get more involved,yes, but the other side of it
too is we're always thinkingabout the business, and I bet
you feel the same way.
(28:15):
It's like, even if you're notengaged in the business, you're
constantly thinking about it.
How can we improve?
How can we get better?
So I would say to all of youout there, even when you have a
model that is more sort oflife-work balance friendly,
still know that your mind isalways going to be on that
business.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
I think you got to be thinking about like so a
business owner could be spendingtheir time in two areas.
They could be spending it inoperations the day-to-day, the
routine stuff that you're doingall the time or they could be
spending it on growth, and Iwant our business owners
spending 80% of their time ongrowth and 20% of operations,
and not the other way.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yeah, that's smart.
It's smart.
You've got to be growth minded.
It's like someone was asking methe other day you know, let's
have a conversation about themargins and this and that, and
I'm like your first couple ofyears, you've got to be focused
on the growth of gross revenue.
Okay, to be focused on thegrowth of gross revenue?
Okay, you've got to get revenue.
You've got to get cashflow.
If you're already so stuck inthe minutia, you're never going
to grow.
Yeah, well said.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Well said.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Jack, Awesome.
Well, this has been great Jill.
Anything else on your.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
No, I think.
I mean I love hearing the story.
I just I think it's so coolwhat you've done and you know, I
think this is really enticingfor potential.
You know franchisees, so I'm soglad to be able to do this.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah, of course, so glad wecould spend some time with you.
Thank you for joining us on thepodcast.
For those of you that wouldlike to know more about Hello
Sugar, you can, of course, go totheir website.
If you'd like to work with usat the Franchise Insiders on
exploring Hello Sugar andhundreds of other franchise
opportunities, the best way todo it text us 305-710-0050.
(29:53):
That's a lot of zeros or go tothefranchiseinsiderscom or
weboughtafranchisecom.
Hi everyone.
Welcome back to the we Bought aFranchise podcast.
I'm Jack Johnson.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Jill Johnson.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
And we are here today with a very special guest.
We've got Brigham Dallas fromHello Sugar.
Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
So great to be on your podcast.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
We've been so excited to start working with your
brand and, for those of you thatdon't know, jill and I, of
course, are franchise owners ofPink's Windows in Palm Beach
County, and on this podcast, weshare our sort of journey, you
know, building our franchise.
And, brigham, just for yourknowledge, we're franchise
consultants.
We've been franchiseconsultants since 2017.
(00:37):
And we're former franchisors.
We've been on your side too,wow.
So the whole idea of thispodcast, though, was for us to
sort of bring people along onour journey of building our
franchise, and so we kind of doepisodes where we talk about our
growth of our franchise, thestruggles that we face, as well
as the victories and, I'm happyto say, we were the highest
performing franchisee for pinkslast month.
(01:00):
Of course, that's awesome wealso love to bring on
franchisors like you, as well asfranchisees to learn from you
and get best practices.
So you know, tell us a littlebit about your story.
How did this all come to be?
What?
What led to starting HelloSugar.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Yeah, it's not a journey that was intentional.
It wasn't something that I waslike okay, I want to build a
franchise, I want to build this.
I was working in a digital adsdiet space so I was like selling
diet pills online and Iabsolutely hated it and I was
working for somebody and I waslike I got to get out of this.
And one time I was talking to afriend and she was like I had
to pay $20,000 in taxes.
I'm like whoa, like $20,000 intaxes, like how much do you make
(01:38):
?
And she's like I made a hundredgrand.
And I'm like what do you do?
Like I thought you were like ahairstylist.
And she's like, no, I do waxing.
Like run those economics by me.
And she goes well, I do 15minute Brazilians, so I can do
for an hour at $45 a piece.
And so I was like wait, youmake $180 an hour doing
Brazilian waxing.
Like how much is your cost?
And she's like it's just wax.
It's like three bucks a service.
(01:59):
Whoa, you like make more than alawyer does.
This is like incredible, like Ihad no idea.
She's a part-time worker withlike a single mom, and I'm like
this is amazing.
And so I you know, I startedtalking to her.
I was like hey, would you bewilling to come down to Phoenix?
She lived in Utah and helped melike open this, like just train
my first staff member.
(02:19):
She said yeah, so I flew herdown, spent $3,000 on the first
build and it was in the back ofa plastic surgeon's office and I
got started.
I was 26 years old.
It was a one room studio.
I didn't even know what aBrazilian wax was.
I was so like I Googled itafterwards and I was like, whoa,
like people do this?
This is crazy.
Like it was not like this likeintentional business.
I just wanted to get out of thediet space.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
And so it started the first year I didn't have a ton
of money.
I had that one room studio andI just built it and I started
figuring out the process youknow we want to do memberships
instead of packages and figuringout who to sell to.
And with my digital adsbackground, I was really good at
like trying to identify a brandbecause I could post an idea on
Facebook, see the engagement ofit and then see what worked
(03:04):
Right.
And I noticed that all of likeour reviews and the reviews of
competitors that were positivesaid that she makes me feel
comfortable, and so I.
I noticed like all the otherbrands were like high fashion
and, like you know, on a beach Ijust wanted people to feel like
it was real.
So I use like real women.
I didn't use like models, Ididn't use attractive people, I
(03:24):
just use real women coming in,and I got three times the
engagement, so I knew it wasonto something and so I built
that up for about six months andthen I was like, okay, I feel
good about this.
I know I can at least pay rentbecause I'm making enough on my
space to pay rent.
And so then I took my lifesavings, every credit card, I
had every loan I could get, andthen my line of credit and maxed
(03:45):
all of it.
And then I built my firstlocation.
And you know, I went to thatlocation like 10 times middle of
the night, daytime.
I mean I just like sat outthere and I was like is this a
spot like that's going to likeruin me Not?
Like I'm not going to like makethis like is it going to ruin
me, like I don't know, like I'mgoing to lose everything if this
doesn't work Right.
So I feel what franchisees feelwhen they put their like their
(04:07):
savings into this, and I takethat sacredly Like I don't, I
don't think of that as like asmall thing.
And so I built that firstlocation and I moved the suite
that I had inside the back ofthe plastic surgeon's office
over, and I at least knew that Icould pay rent at that point.
And so then, at that point, mymom bless her heart, right,
southern girl from SouthCarolina flew out.
(04:29):
I moved into a two bedroomapartment and she lived in one
bedroom, I lived in the otherand we worked reception.
So she worked reception one day, I worked reception the other
and we just built it and builtit and that was like six months
until I could afford areceptionist.
So it was really like you know,bare bones.
I was like six months until Icould afford a receptionist, so
it was really like you know,bare bones.
Five years in, I've got 10locations.
It's 2020.
And I'm teaching how to start asmall business at a university
(04:52):
and I'm teachingentrepreneurship and I loved it.
It was like my calling in lifeand I was like you know what
this would be cool to like helpothers start the business I'm
most passionate about, which isHello Sugar, and I felt like it
was a good business at thatpoint.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
So I went and started franchising in 2021.
So did you sorry to interrupt?
Did you say you had 10corporate locations before you
started franchising?
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Were they all in the same area?
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yeah, so what I do is , every year I would build one
more suite.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
And then after that I would like turn it into a
flagship.
And when I'm turning into aflagship I'm building one more
suite.
So every year I just did thatsame formula of just suite to
flagship.
And then at some point I hadmultiple suites and I was like,
okay, this one is doing betterthan this one.
I had like, basicallyincubators.
You know, like when people goto market they like do a big
promo, they like try to get alot of pre-sale members in.
(05:43):
The incubator was the pre-saleLike I could know that something
was working and feel like I wasgoing to be okay moving into
this heavy rent and these suitesonly took like two months to
put up and so I could get thosethings with my advertising
profitable like within months,like right away.
It almost I mean, you guys arein a rest like a home service
business, right?
Is that what Iy is Like?
It almost felt like a homeservice business.
(06:04):
I'm up and running in twomonths.
I'm like driving people.
It was super fast and had greatmargins to it and I could take
that and build it into theflagship model.
That like worked really well.
So I did that for five years.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
That's awesome.
You know, when I was on thefranchisor side at a franchise
called Home Care Assistance,which provided in in home care
to seniors, we had multiplecorporate locations and we would
use them to test new, newservices for our franchisees,
which I always thought wasreally cool.
You know, we would talk.
You know, for example, like westarted doing things, like you
(06:38):
know, chair based yoga forseniors in our office and we
would test, like cookingprograms, and I think that's
such a cool thing forfranchisors to do to be able to
have their own corporatelocations where they can test
new innovations and be familiarwith running the business.
So kudos to you.
So I'm sorry, I didn't mean tojump in on you there.
So we're 2020, we've got 10locations.
It's time to franchise.
(06:59):
What happens next?
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, so, jack, I mean, but to that point, like I
think it's also important that afranchisor knows what the
franchisee goes through.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
It's like there's this likedecision.
There's a lot of decisions thatlike I didn't realize that
franchisor has to make about howto charge and what to charge
for and like how to buildtogether, and the franchisee is
is is different than afranchisor's motivations, unless
(07:23):
the franchisor has franchiselocations as well.
So I pay all the same fees asthe franchisees do.
So I'm thinking just like afranchisee.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
I mean it's a great point because we, as franchise
consultants, living thelifestyle of a franchisee, I
think, keeps us sharp for whatour clients are going to go
through and for those franchise,for those people out there,
those franchise consultants outthere who haven't been a
franchise owner, it's just awhole different life as you're
building a business, as you'rescaling a business, as you're
(07:52):
hiring, as you're going throughthe ups and downs, and so I
think to your point, as afranchisor, sleeping and
breathing the same lifestyle asa franchisee, I think that
really goes a long way because,you know, having a focus on
franchisees, profitability,making that such a priority, is
huge.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Yeah, well, and I think, like you said both of you
said having the experience justmakes a huge difference.
So you know, as Jack was saying, when you know, as franchise
consultants, having PINX is veryhelpful to us now when we're
trying to help people findfranchises, because we've now
been on the other side, or youknow, kind of see, our whole, I
(08:32):
think, approach and how wecommunicate to our clients has
changed a lot since we've beenin their shoes On the flip side.
When we started FranchiseInsiders, we have a similar
story to you.
You know, we went right in, wesold our house, we did all the
things you did too.
So when we would talk to ourclients, in that sense it was
also like, yes, we haven'tnecessarily bought a franchise,
but we started our company.
(08:52):
So we understand the fear, weunderstand the excitement of you
know putting everything you owninto a business.
Yeah, you know, I love hearingthat you have that experience.
I think that's really helpfulfor anyone that comes on board
because you've been there,you've done it.
Like you said, you're stilldoing it, which I think is
amazing.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Yeah, I've got seven.
I'm opening my 17th location inJanuary.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, I love that.
How many franchise locations doyou have?
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Wow, yeah, how many franchise locations do you have
All right.
So in 2021, I'm going to keepkind of like the growth model of
this, cause people think it'slike really crazy where it is
today.
In 2021.
I wasn't expecting to build anational company.
I think people have these likegrand ambitions.
My stuff's a little bit morelike I just wanted my friends to
do the same thing.
I was doing Like, so I wasteaching and I had a couple of
(09:41):
friends that were like Brigham,you've got a great business Like
any way, like we could like bepartners.
And I was like, oh, maybe likefranchising could work for this
and this could allow therelationship for that.
And so the first year I justwent to my friends and so my
friends started HelloSugars intheir markets in different areas
.
And that was it, and a lot ofit was my former students at the
school I was teaching at, andso by the end of year one, we
(10:02):
had maybe 15 locations open andwe were testing things and
learning a ton.
And when my friends opened, Idecided, you know what, I'll
walk the walk as well.
Like I'll open one in adifferent market.
So I opened in Nashville and Iopened three locations two
locations out there and uh, andstarted like building those and
I'd go there every month andlike you know the whole thing.
And then the next year westarted like offering it to the
(10:24):
public, cause I felt like thebusiness was strong, so it
wasn't like just go out and haveanybody, it was like I gotta
make sure this is good first,right, and then we're now three.
So we started 2021.
We're coming up to the end of2024.
So it's like three years, threeand a half years, since we
started and, uh, we're 110locations.
Yeah, it's, uh, I think, thefastest growing beauty brand
(10:45):
right now in the us.
Um, certainly, in the waxingspace.
I mean, we're, we're absolutelycrushing it.
We're almost, we're almostdoubling again this year and
we've doubled every year in size, and so it's been.
It's been a compelling story,and I think it's compelling
because of the product offeringkind of hybrid, kind kind of
like a restaurant, like aservice, home service company.
It's quick to get up, it's lowcost to start, high returns and
(11:07):
the amount of work needed from afranchisee is like minimal,
because we automate almosteverything in this business.
It's just relationships theyhave to manage, and so people
are very attracted to that.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
So when you talk about automating things for the
franchisee, what does thatinclude?
Where are you guys helping?
Is that in terms of the supportto get locations open, the
advertising?
Talk about that if you would.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Yeah, I'd love to.
So I think as a franchisor, Ithink about my friends and I'm
like, why would they do thisinstead of just doing it
themselves?
And I thought about this for along time.
I was looking at salon, waslooking at like a salon suite
concepts like salons by JC,phoenix salons and I'm like,
okay, that first year thefranchises or franchisee loves
them because they help them getup and running, they give them a
(11:48):
business plan, everything butyear five through 10, they just
hate them because they're likepaying this royalty and they're
not doing anything for them, youknow.
And so I was like I've got tomake this business so valuable
to my franchisees that it's apartnership and they want me as
a partner and they're willing todo a 6% equity stake let's call
it in their company for thatpartnership, right.
(12:09):
And so I was like, how do I dothat?
And so I looked at every singlepiece of the business
strategically and said how do weautomate this for them to take
it off their hands?
And if we could do that, maybewe could be a great partner for
them and lower their costs.
That's what a franchisor shoulddo.
It should take economies ofscale and lower the cost for all
segments of a franchise.
That's my personal opinion.
(12:29):
So let's start off with thebasics.
We help with all the products.
We were buying sugar for $28 acan.
Now it's like $16 a can.
We almost halved it and we'vedone that across all of our
product mix.
So our products are cheaperthan they could buy for
themselves.
Then, on the advertising front,that was my background, you know
.
I taught at a universityadvertising.
I did it.
(12:50):
I ran a company for 10 years onlike Fortune 500 level
advertising.
I know this space really well.
We can open a salon and fivedays before they open, start ads
and we can fill that salon bythe time they open five days
later and we can do thatthroughout the whole thing.
And so instead of running likea brand fund which I think I'm
(13:10):
like, vehemently opposed to,like, I think they're like
scamming a little bit we don'tdo any kind of advertising where
they have to pay a royalty onit, pay for performance.
So unless they get a completedappointment, they don't pay us
any kind of management fee.
So $7 and 50 cents If theycomplete an appointment.
If they don't complete anappointment, they don't pay
anything.
So everything's like and we cantrack the ROI on this all the
(13:31):
way through, all the way fromleads to bookings to completeds
to memberships, the ROI all theway through on these ads.
And I'm happy to say for every$1 that people spend on ads
they're getting $50 in revenueand $12 in profit.
Like it's plenty of money forus right now, yeah.
And so on the ad side, likemost companies, most franchisors
, like that's a big deal, theydon't, they don't even think
(13:51):
about it.
Like literally 95% of peoplejust use our advertising and
that's it.
And then, on the other side ofthings, we also run the
reception.
So I remember I told you likewe ran reception in the
beginning for them, or like forourselves, like I had my mom
come out Reception sucks, likeit's so it's a sucks, like it's
the worst thing about a retailbusiness.
40% of your staff are reception, they're minimum wage, they
(14:13):
don't care about your business,they're all part-time, they're
going to college, they quitwithin three to four months.
I mean, I could go on, but itsucks.
And so we went through and saidI just said to myself, what if
we just didn't have reception?
What if we just got rid of them?
And so I fired all ourreceptionists.
I had a ton of them.
It was costing me $6,000 amonth per flagship.
I fired them all.
I mean I was nice, I gave themlike two months.
(14:34):
You know, I was like, hey,you're gonna have fun at another
job.
We started outsourcing to thePhilippines and did only text.
I didn't want like the accentto like bother it, so we did
only text.
And then the next year westarted automating it.
And then, once ChatGPT hit andlike AI, instead of investing in
an app, I put a quarter millioninto AI technology and built
(14:57):
our own robust system and I'mhappy to say today Hulu lemons
at like a 70% automation ofe-commerce.
They're best in class.
And we're at 64% automation inthe service space.
So not e-commerce, service isway harder than e-commerce.
We're at 64% completeautomation.
So for our franchisees, we'reable to handle all of the
reception.
It's like the like 40% of thebusiness is taken out.
(15:19):
They don't even have to thinkabout.
They're like half the employeesand it's so much easier now
that that's gone and we chargeper completed appointment.
So it's $3 and 25 cents percompleted appointment.
So you have full-time reception, day and night.
If you had a hundredappointments it'd be $325 a
month, and that for me is abouthalf the cost, as if I did it
(15:39):
in-house and had to manage allthose employees.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
So you don't have anyone sitting at like a front
desk no-transcript.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yeah, yeah, what.
What would you say?
The range of opening, you know,getting getting one of these
things off the ground and openin terms of costs is and and
let's really put time to this,like let's say all right, we're
having this great conversation,jill and I are like dude, you
got boca raton available, let'sgo.
What?
What kind of investment, whatkind of time frame does are we
(16:10):
looking at?
Speaker 3 (16:12):
yeah, I'm gonna go through those two things and
then site selection.
That's okay, that's a big part,so we could go two routes.
Some franchisees are like Iwant to do a suite.
It's way less risk, itincubates, but it doesn't make
as much money as a flagship.
So it makes about three timesless.
Right now on the item 19,.
(16:35):
We're about $65 65 000 a yearin profit on a suite.
So that takes about 110 000 toopen up 65 000 on the after it's
mature, so after one year.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
so anyone open over one year and I'll tell you this
suite as you're building.
I would just, I would imaginethe suite as you're.
You're building up the flagship, right yeah?
Speaker 3 (16:48):
so you could build two suites, find out which one's
better and then go put theflagship in that location, right
, like, go ahead and get thedata, and then it might take the
other one a little longer, buteventually that will become a
flagship too.
We just got to make sure youknow we build at the right pace.
Other people are like, hey,let's do a flagship right out
the gate.
We're just going to spend a lotof money on marketing and we're
just going to get up andrunning faster.
Because to me, like, the suitesare not the end game
(17:11):
Franchisees for us.
They're using suites to hedgerisk and not to.
I want to live on $65,000 ayear, right, yeah, and the
profits for the flagships aremuch higher than that.
So it's like $150,000 to$250,000 is what we're seeing in
the profit range for flagshipson our item 19.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
And that's what you show on your item 19,.
Correct?
Yeah, and by the way, for thoseof you listening, we're not
making any types of offers tosell franchises here, and if
you're in a registration state,hello sugar may not be available
for you, okay thank you.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, class was like let's lawyer this.
Yeah, we, we, we believe inradical transparency.
We publish every singlefranchisees, pnl that qualify in
that one year mark.
Wow, I don't care if it's goodor bad, it's getting published.
And the reason why is I wantradical transparency.
I want people that are going tobe my partners to know exactly
(18:02):
what they're getting into.
I will tell them.
If it's a bad market, I will saydon't go there.
Like I had a guy come up to meand he was like hey, this
thing's like already built out.
It was like a competitor salon,like it would just be cosmetic,
and I just said no, like Idon't want the business, I don't
want you like failing onsomething because it's a bad
location, right.
And so I think that's anotherreason why we grow Like I've.
I've turned down locations thatshould be open because they just
(18:24):
won't make the person asprofitable.
I don't, I don't care about themoney on the side for the
franchise or side, I just wantour franchisees to be super
profitable.
Yeah, so, and then, like yousaid, like you can use the suite
, incubate it and then turn thatinto a flagship.
That's freaking cool becausethat takes all the risk out that
that, for me, was like mesitting there at the McDonald's
of the first location I had atmidnight thinking, oh my gosh,
(18:45):
is this going to work?
Well, I know it's going to workbecause I can at least pay my
rents.
That was a comforting to me.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Yeah rents.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
That was a comforting to me.
Yeah, cool, wow, I have to saywe had done our pre-show sort of
research on you and we've beenworking with you guys now for a
few months, but everythingyou're saying is so cool.
I really love your dedicationto the brand.
Let's pretend I'm a potentialfranchisee and I want to do it
right.
What kind of liquid capitalshould I have access to?
And really, you know for me todo it right, starting with the
suite but also building aflagship?
(19:19):
You know what sort of timeframeshould I should I have in my
mind If I want to be a greatfranchisee for you?
Give it to me straight, tell meyou know what I should ideally
have.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Liquid capital depends on themarket.
We are just entering intoCalifornia and I'm a little
scared of all the regulationsthere, so I'm requiring more
capital for California than Iwould for other areas and I'm
also out the gate saying, hey,these are the challenges that
we're facing.
Moving into California, Likethe minimum wage is higher, yeah
, and so you know, for a suite,we can get a suite up and
(19:49):
running with a run rate for$110,000.
That gets you the franchise feeand everything to get you up
and running.
And people need to realize thatsuite.
You're putting money into itwhile it's building, but you're
also making money while it'sbuilding.
So it kind of feels like lessthan actually just needed to get
this up and running.
For a flagship a flagship iscosting about $350,000 for a
(20:13):
brand new build on average inthe country that's what I'm
seeing and it qualifies for SBAloans so you can put 10% down on
an SBA Runway.
Rate-wise it might be another$50,000 to $60,000 that I want
just like six months of likeworking capital to make sure
that I'm getting off the ground.
Now I'm finding second-genspaces.
If I'm careful and this is thenice thing about the suite to
(20:39):
flag model is.
I can build the suite and thenbe patient to look for a flag
and sometimes like 50% of thetime for me in Phoenix I'm
finding a prebuilt space ofeither a competitor or a doctor
that has like multiple rooms orlike a massage place or
something that already has abuild out, and then it's a
cosmetic change and it's not 350, it's like much less than that
and it's quicker than itnormally would be to open.
So those come about and we canbe patient if we have the suite
(21:00):
to like, move into those as wellthat's awesome.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah, tell me about your support team for for
franchisees.
You know how how deep is yourteam.
What kind of uh support uh canfranchisees expect you guys have
?
You know how how deep is yourteam.
What kind of uh support uh canfranchisees expect you guys have
?
You know, have sort of uh likesomeone assigned to them.
Is there a weekly conferencecall where all franchisees are
involved?
You guys have an annualconference.
Tell me about that.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Yeah, uh, people love the support.
I think when we did thefranchise business review we
ranked in the top fivepercentile don't call me on that
10 to 5 to 10 percentile forsupport.
It was like so, so good, andwe're like in the top 50 of
brands, I think on there in FBRbecause of like the brand itself
is really strong.
But what we do is when somebodycomes on, we assign them a
(21:46):
rockstar franchisee who's gotlike eight locations and meets
with them every single week.
We put an entire coursetogether on Kajabi where they
can learn everything about thebusiness fully.
They do the weekly meetingsfrom negative three months to
opening till three months afterthey open or just as long as
they need to get to that point.
Then we pass them off to ourgrowth team and the growth team
(22:07):
works with them on a monthlybasis or however frequently they
would like to work with us.
If there's a problem we canwork more often, but most people
choose once a month for a calland then on top of that I don't
show it here, but I have a fullpodcast room and so every week
you know the old CEO, it's likesend a newsletter out or you
know, for us I do a video everysingle week and I go over case
(22:30):
studies, I go over people I'mtalking to, I'm going over new
updates of my entire team isdoing and I'm sending that out
to the company.
And then there's like commentsthat people can make.
I use a software called loomit's phenomenal and I send I
sent 227 videos out this yearalready at just like
broadcasting Cause I think a CEOneeds to be in front of the
company and they, they need toknow what's going on.
(22:51):
And at first I was like scaredto do this.
I was like nobody's going towant to like listen to me for
like 20 minutes a week.
But I'm like, no, bring them.
Like literally 20 minutes isall they get right with the
brand.
They want to hear about thesethings, you know, and it's been
wildly like important to ourcompany that I keep doing these
and so I send those out everyweek.
Our advertising team sends itout once a month, so they get
videos there.
(23:11):
And we do an annual conference.
It's very different from mostconferences.
There's no lectures, it's wejust pick like an epic place.
So we did the first year we didTahiti.
We're like 24 people.
We did Tahiti, we did Iceland,then we did Belize.
This year we're doing Kona,hawaii, and we just go spend
some cool time together.
And you know, I think it's.
(23:36):
I think it's important thatpeople are on a hike and they're
just like so what are you doingto make it work?
And they build thosefriendships.
I think that means a lot morethan like a, you know, a
conference in a conventioncenter and they bring their
families.
It's like it's.
It's very cool, it's a veryspecial.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yeah, that's cool.
I mean I feel like you're doinga great job of responsible
franchising You've got.
It's incredible that the sortof the ramp that this business
has, how quickly you can ramp upthe need for it, the demand,
and how you guys have grown,it's all really impressive.
And to have that kind ofsupport I think is outstanding.
(24:05):
When people start to exploreyour franchise right now and
speak to franchisees, how's thathappening?
Are there like weeklyconference calls?
Like how do people, once theystart to engage in your process,
how do they learn more?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Yeah, every Wednesday there's a leadership call where
there's franchisees that comeon and they like talk about
their experience so they canjust join those.
We have a full sales team ordev team business development
where, like, if anyone'sinterested in learning about the
franchise, like we can takethem from A to Z, and we want
transparency.
So we want new people lookingin to talk to everybody.
If they want to talk tosomebody, we're going to try to
(24:40):
make it happen for them, becausewe want them to get into the
business, thinking I knowexactly what I'm getting into, I
know the pros, the cons,everything, and so we try to
keep an open channel withfranchisees so they can speak to
them.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Cool.
I mean, listen, look at thetransparency, all the locations
in the item 19,.
Good, bad and ugly.
I think that's fabulous.
You have a franchisor thatoperates multiple locations, so
they know what they're doing.
It's a fun culture.
It's a great looking brand,thanks.
There they're doing.
It's a fun culture.
It's a great looking brand,thanks.
There's so many positives here.
What haven't we asked on thispodcast that you think is
(25:12):
important for people to knowthat we haven't covered?
How much time are?
Speaker 3 (25:15):
you gonna have to spend in this franchise yeah,
how much time.
Let's hear it.
So most franchise owners have afull-time job and do this on
the side until this becomestheir full-time job, so you
don't have to stop your job.
This is the cool thing aboutthis, right, like, if you think
about what makes this businesswork, right, people are coming
in, they're getting services andthen they leave.
So we've got to get the techreally, really dialed in the
(25:39):
nudges, the appointmentreminders, the like back-end
communication it's all handledoverseas.
You don't have to manage any ofthat.
We've got to get the marketingreally solid and our marketing
is like best in class.
Like, trust me, there's no oneeven close to what we're doing
on the marketing side.
It's insanely good.
So you gotta get that down.
You gotta build a beautiful boxyou know business in a box,
this whole idea of a franchiseand then you've got to manage
(26:01):
people and if you can do thosethings well, you've got a really
good business.
We have to stock the rooms oncea month.
It's not like this business is,like you know, really hard to
get up and running and liketakes.
It's not like a sushirestaurant where you're like
flying fish in every day, right,and so if you can manage like a
couple of people, well, that'sit, that's your times.
(26:23):
You know, I have a weeklymeeting with my team.
If I'm managing a we, I have aweekly meeting with my team.
If I'm managing a location, Ihave a weekly meeting with my
team.
And then, oh, one more thing Iforgot.
This is what's really cool.
So we noticed like a gap in likemanagement with our franchisees
.
So we, we, we tried to automatethis as well.
So we, we created a companycalled remote works and we, we
(26:43):
outsource and find the bestoverseas people to manage salons
here.
And I started looking at thisand I was like, okay, what is it
that you really need to manage?
And I went down the list andI'm like every single thing on
this, besides talking to people,could be done overseas the
scheduling, the inventory,purchasing, the no-shows, the
on-calls, the talking to clientsthat are upset, if you get the
(27:03):
right person.
I'm not talking like entry-levelperson, I'm talking like
somebody with a degree, hrresources, economics, like
really smart people.
They just happen to live in thewrong country, not the wrong
country, but the country wherethey don't make as much money.
We can find like best in classthere and then have them manage
the salons.
And so when somebody starts atHelloSugar, we give them, like,
(27:24):
the opportunity.
They don't have to take it, butit's $14 an hour and these are
not like entry-level workers.
These are like really, reallystrong candidates that, like,
would be paid like 60 to $80,000here in the States, and so for
$14 an hour, they can buy fivehours at a time and so, as their
business scales, they can buythese overseas managers that
manage practically 80% of theentire business for them, except
(27:47):
for, like this, theinterpersonal skills that are
happening here, so they canfocus on just like building
relationships with their teamand make something really
awesome.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
That's great.
That's great.
I mean again, it's like for us,I would say with our pinks
franchise, we're probablyspending a couple hours a day
sort of managing the manager, ifyou will.
Some days it's more, some daysit's some days people quit.
You got to get more involved,yes, but the other side of it
too is we're always thinkingabout the business, and I bet
you feel the same way.
(28:15):
It's like, even if you're notengaged in the business, you're
constantly thinking about it.
How can we improve?
How can we get better?
So I would say to all of youout there, even when you have a
model that is more sort oflife-work balance friendly,
still know that your mind isalways going to be on that
business.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
I think you got to be thinking about like so a
business owner could be spendingtheir time in two areas.
They could be spending it inoperations the day-to-day, the
routine stuff that you're doingall the time or they could be
spending it on growth, and Iwant our business owners
spending 80% of their time ongrowth and 20% of operations,
and not the other way.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yeah, that's smart.
It's smart.
You've got to be growth minded.
It's like someone was asking methe other day you know, let's
have a conversation about themargins and this and that, and
I'm like your first couple ofyears, you've got to be focused
on the growth of gross revenue.
Okay, to be focused on thegrowth of gross revenue?
Okay, you've got to get revenue.
You've got to get cashflow.
If you're already so stuck inthe minutia, you're never going
to grow.
Yeah, well said.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Well said.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Jack, Awesome.
Well, this has been great Jill.
Anything else on your.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
No, I think.
I mean I love hearing the story.
I just I think it's so coolwhat you've done and you know, I
think this is really enticingfor potential.
You know franchisees, so I'm soglad to be able to do this.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah, of course, so glad wecould spend some time with you.
Thank you for joining us on thepodcast.
For those of you that wouldlike to know more about Hello
Sugar, you can, of course, go totheir website.
If you'd like to work with usat the Franchise Insiders on
exploring Hello Sugar andhundreds of other franchise
opportunities, the best way todo it text us 305-710-0050.
(29:53):
That's a lot of zeros or go tothefranchiseinsiderscom or
weboughtafranchisecom.
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