The Franchise Insiders "Inside Scoop" Podcast
Jack and Jill Johnson are two of the most experienced franchise experts in the industry, and their podcast The Inside Scoop is a must-listen for anyone considering investing in a franchise. Here are five reasons why:1. Jack and Jill have over 20 years of experience in the franchise industry. 2. They sell franchises, so they know which ones are actually making money. 3. They're not afraid to tell it like it is - you won't find any boring interviews on this podcast. 4. Every episode is jam-packed with financials and data that you can use to make an informed decision about which franchise is right for you. 5. Their insights and observations about the franchise industry are incredibly valuable - you won't find anything else like it out there. If you're thinking about investing in a franchise, make sure to add The Inside Scoop podcast to your must-listen list.
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Text: 305-710-0050
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The Franchise Insiders "Inside Scoop" Podcast
Waxing Success: Brigham Dallas on Building the Hello Sugar Franchise
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!
Text: 305-710-0050
Hi everyone. Welcome back to the we Bought a Franchise podcast. I'm Jack Johnson.
Speaker 2:I'm Jill Johnson.
Speaker 1:And we are here today with a very special guest. We've got Brigham Dallas from Hello Sugar. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3:So great to be on your podcast. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:We've been so excited to start working with your brand and, for those of you that don't know, jill and I, of course, are franchise owners of Pink's Windows in Palm Beach County, and on this podcast, we share our sort of journey, you know, building our franchise. And, brigham, just for your knowledge, we're franchise consultants. We've been franchise consultants since 2017. And we're former franchisors. We've been on your side too, wow. So the whole idea of this podcast, though, was for us to sort of bring people along on our journey of building our franchise, and so we kind of do episodes where we talk about our growth of our franchise, the struggles that we face, as well as the victories and, I'm happy to say, we were the highest performing franchisee for pinks last month.
Speaker 1:Of course, that's awesome we also love to bring on franchisors like you, as well as franchisees to learn from you and get best practices. So you know, tell us a little bit about your story. How did this all come to be? What? What led to starting Hello Sugar.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's not a journey that was intentional. It wasn't something that I was like okay, I want to build a franchise, I want to build this. I was working in a digital ads diet space so I was like selling diet pills online and I absolutely hated it and I was working for somebody and I was like I got to get out of this. And one time I was talking to a friend and she was like I had to pay $20,000 in taxes. I'm like whoa, like $20,000 in taxes, like how much do you make? And she's like I made a hundred grand. And I'm like what do you do? Like I thought you were like a hairstylist. And she's like, no, I do waxing. Like run those economics by me. And she goes well, I do 15 minute Brazilians, so I can do for an hour at $45 a piece. And so I was like wait, you make $180 an hour doing Brazilian waxing. Like how much is your cost? And she's like just wax, it's like three bucks a service. Whoa, you like make more than a lawyer does. This is like incredible, like I had no idea. She's a part-time worker with like a single mom, and I'm like this is amazing.
Speaker 3:And so I, you know, I started talking to her. I was like hey, would you be willing to come down to Phoenix? She lived in Utah and helped me like open this, like just train my first staff member. She said yeah, so I flew her down, spent $3,000 on the first build and it was in the back of a 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 a Brazilian wax was. I was so like I Googled it afterwards and I was like whoa, like people do this? This is crazy. Like it was not like this like intentional business. I just wanted to get out of the diet space.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so it started the first year I didn't have a ton of money. I had that one room studio and I just built it and I started figuring out the process you know we want to do memberships instead of packages and figuring out who to sell to. And with my digital ads background, I was really good at like trying to identify a brand because I could post an idea on Facebook, see the engagement of it and then see what worked Right. And I noticed that all of like our reviews and the reviews of competitors that were positive said that she makes me feel comfortable, and so I. I noticed like all the other brands were like high fashion and, like you know, on a beach I just wanted people to feel like it was real. So I use like real women. I didn't use like models, I didn't use attractive people, I just use real women coming in, and I got three times the engagement, so I knew it was onto something and so I built that up for about six months and then I was like, okay, I feel good about this. I know I can at least pay rent because I'm making enough on my space to pay rent. And so then I took my life savings, every credit card, I had every loan I could get, and then my line of credit and maxed all of it. And then I built my first location. And you know, I went to that location like 10 times middle of the night, daytime. I mean I just like sat out there and I was like is this a spot like that's going to like ruin me Not? Like I'm not going to like make this like is it going to ruin me, like I don't know, like I'm going to lose everything if this doesn't work Right. So I feel what franchisees feel when they put their like their savings into this, and I take that sacredly Like I don't, I don't think of that as like a small thing. And so I built that first location and I moved the suite that I had inside the back of the plastic surgeon's office over, and I at least knew that I could pay rent at that point.
Speaker 3:And so then, at that point, my mom bless her heart, right, southern girl from South Carolina flew out. I moved into a two bedroom apartment and she lived in one bedroom, I lived in the other and we worked reception. So she worked reception one day, I worked reception the other and we just built it and built it and that was like six months until I could afford a receptionist. So it was really like you know, bare bones. I was like six months until I could afford a receptionist, so it was really like you know, bare bones. Five years in, I've got 10 locations. It's 2020. And I'm teaching how to start a small business at a university and I'm teaching entrepreneurship and I loved it. It was like my calling in life and I was like you know what this would be cool to like help others start the business I'm most passionate about, which is Hello Sugar, and I felt like it was a good business at that point.
Speaker 1:So I went and started franchising in 2021. So did you sorry to interrupt? Did you say you had 10 corporate locations before you started franchising? Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:Were they all in the same area?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so what I do is, every year I would build one more suite.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And then after that I would like turn it into a flagship. And when I'm turning into a flagship I'm building one more suite. So every year I just did that same formula of just suite to flagship. And then at some point I had multiple suites and I was like, okay, this one is doing better than this one. I had like, basically incubators. You know, like when people go to market they like do a big promo, they like try to get a lot of pre-sale members in. The incubator was the pre-sale Like I could know that something was working and feel like I was going to be okay moving into this heavy rent and these suites only took like two months to put up and so I could get those things with my advertising profitable like within months, like right away.
Speaker 3:It almost I mean, you guys are in a rest like a home service business, right? Is that what Iy is Like? It almost felt like a home service business. I'm up and running in two months. I'm like driving people. It was super fast and had great margins to it and I could take that and build it into the flagship model. That like worked really well. So I did that for five years.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. You know, when I was on the franchisor side at a franchise called Home Care Assistance, which provided in in home care to seniors, we had multiple corporate locations and we would use them to test new, new services for our franchisees, which I always thought was really cool. You know, we would talk. You know, for example, like we started doing things, like you know, chair based yoga for seniors in our office and we would test, like cooking programs, and I think that's such a cool thing for franchisors to do to be able to have their own corporate locations where they can test new innovations and be familiar with running the business. So kudos to you. So I'm sorry, I didn't mean to jump in on you there. So we're 2020, we've got 10 locations. It's time to franchise. What happens next?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, jack, I mean, but to that point, like I think it's also important that a franchisor knows what the franchisee goes through. Yeah, a hundred percent. It's like there's this like decision. There's a lot of decisions that like I didn't realize that franchisor has to make about how to charge and what to charge for and like how to build together, and the franchisee is is is different than a franchisor's motivations, unless the franchisor has franchise locations as well. So I pay all the same fees as the franchisees do. So I'm thinking just like a franchisee.
Speaker 1:I mean it's a great point because we, as franchise consultants, living the lifestyle of a franchisee, I think, keeps us sharp for what our clients are going to go through and for those franchise, for those people out there, those franchise consultants out there who haven't been a franchise owner, it's just a whole different life as you're building a business, as you're scaling a business, as you're hiring, as you're going through the ups and downs, and so I think to your point, as a franchisor, sleeping and breathing the same lifestyle as a 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:Yeah, well, and I think, like you said both of you said having the experience just makes a huge difference. So you know, as Jack was saying, when you know, as franchise consultants, having PINX is very helpful to us now when we're trying to help people find franchises, because we've now been on the other side or you know, kind of see our whole, I think, approach and how we communicate to our clients has changed a lot since we've been in their shoes.
Speaker 2:On the flip side, when we started Franchise Insiders, we have a similar story to you, you know. We went right in, we sold our house, we did all the things you did too. So when we would talk to our clients, in that sense it was also like, yes, we haven't necessarily bought a franchise, but we started our company. So we understand the fear, we understand the excitement of, you know, putting everything you own into a business. Yeah, you know crossing your fingers and it works.
Speaker 2:So I do. I love hearing that you have that experience. I think that's really helpful for anyone that comes on board, because you've been there, you've done it. Like you said, you're still doing it, which I think is amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've got seven. I'm opening my 17th location in January.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how many franchise locations do you have?
Speaker 3:All right, so in 2021, I'm going to keep kind of like the growth model of this Cause people think it's like really crazy where it is today, in 2021. I wasn't expecting to build a national company. I think people have these like grand ambitions. My stuff's a little bit more like I just wanted my friends to do the same thing. I was doing, like.
Speaker 3:So I was teaching and I had a couple of friends that were like Brigham, you've got a great business Like any way, like we could like be partners. And I was like, oh, maybe like franchising could work for this and this could allow the relationship for that. And so the first year I just went to my friends and so my friends started HelloSugars in their markets in different areas. And that was it, and a lot of it was my former students at the school I was teaching at, and so by the end of year one, we had maybe 15 locations open and we were testing things and learning a ton. And when my friends opened, I decided you know what, I'll walk the walk as well, like I'll open one in a different market. So I opened in Nashville and I opened three locate two locations out there and uh, and started like building those and I'd go there every month and like you know the whole thing. And then the next year we started like offering it to the public, cause I felt like the business was strong, so it wasn't like just go out and have anybody, it was like I gotta make sure this is good first, right, and then we're now three.
Speaker 3:So we started 2021. We're coming up to the end of 2024. So it's like three years, three and a half years, since we started and uh, we're 110 locations. Yeah, it's, uh, I think, the fastest growing beauty brand right now in the us. Um, certainly in the waxing space. I mean, we're, we're absolutely crushing it. We're almost, we're almost doubling 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 offering kind of hybrid, kind kind of like a restaurant, like a service, home service company. It's quick to get up, it's low cost to start, high returns and the amount of work needed from a franchisee is like minimal, because we automate almost everything in this business. It's just relationships they have to manage, and so people are very attracted to that.
Speaker 1:So when you talk about automating things for the franchisee, what does that include? Where are you guys helping? Is that in terms of the support to get locations open, the advertising? Talk about that if you would.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd love to. So I think as a franchisor, I think about my friends and I'm like, why would they do this instead of just doing it themselves? And I thought about this for a long time. I was looking at salon, was looking at like a salon suite concepts like salons by JC, phoenix salons and I'm like, okay, that first year the franchises or franchisee loves them because they help them get up and running, they give them a business plan, everything but year five through 10, they just hate them because they're like paying this royalty and they're not doing anything for them, you know. And so I was like I've got to make this business so valuable to my franchisees that it's a partnership and they want me as a partner and they're willing to do a 6% equity stake let's call it in their company for that partnership, right. And so I was like, how do I do that? And so I looked at every single piece of the business strategically and said how do we automate this for them to take it off their hands? And if we could do that, maybe we could be a great partner for them and lower their costs. That's what a franchisor should do. It should take economies of scale and lower the cost for all segments of a franchise. That's my personal opinion. So let's start off with the basics. We help with all the products. We were buying sugar for $28 a can. Now it's like $16 a can. We almost halved it and we've done that across all of our product mix. So our products are cheaper than they could buy for themselves.
Speaker 3:Then, on the advertising front, that was my background, you know. I taught at a university advertising. I did it. I ran a company for 10 years on like Fortune 500 level advertising. I know this space really well. We can open a salon and five days before they open, start ads and we can fill that salon by the time they open five days later and we can do that throughout the whole thing. And so instead of running like a brand fund which I think I'm like, vehemently opposed to, like, I think they're like scamming a little bit we don't do any kind of advertising where they have to pay a royalty on it, pay for performance. So unless they get a completed appointment, they don't pay us any kind of management fee. So $7 and 50 cents If they complete an appointment. If they don't complete an appointment, they don't pay anything. So everything's like and we can track the ROI on this all the way through, all the way from leads to bookings to completeds to memberships, the ROI all the way through on these ads. And I'm happy to say for every $1 that people spend on ads they're getting $50 in revenue and $12 in profit. Like it's plenty of money for us right now, yeah. And so on the ad side, like most companies, like most franchisors, like that's a big deal, they don't, they don't even think about it. Like literally 95% of people just use our advertising and that's it.
Speaker 3:And then, on the other side of things, we also run the reception. So I remember I told you like we ran reception in the beginning for them, or like for ourselves, like I had my mom come out Reception sucks, like it's so it's a sucks, like it's the worst thing about a retail business. 40% of your staff are reception, they're minimum wage, they don't care about your business, they're all part-time, they're going to college, they quit within three to four months. I mean, I could go on, but it sucks. And so we went through and said I 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 our receptionists. I had a ton of them. It was costing me $6,000 a month per flagship. I fired them all. I mean I was nice, I gave them like two months. You know, I was like, hey, you're gonna have fun at another job.
Speaker 3:We started outsourcing to the Philippines and did only text. I didn't want like the accent to like bother it, so we did only text. And then the next year we started automating it. And then, once ChatGPT hit and like AI, instead of investing in an app, I put a quarter million into AI technology and built our own robust system and I'm happy to say today Hulu lemons at like a 70% automation of e-commerce. They're best in class.
Speaker 3:And we're at 64% automation in the service space. So not e-commerce, service is way harder than e-commerce. We're at 64% complete automation. So for our franchisees, we're able to handle all of the reception. It's like the like 40% of the business is taken out. They don't even have to think about. They're like half the employees. And it's so much easier now that that's gone and we charge per completed appointment. So it's $3 and 25 cents per completed appointment. So you have full-time reception, day and night. If you had a hundred appointments it'd be $325 a month, and that for me is about half the cost, as if I did it in-house and had to manage all those employees.
Speaker 2:So you don't have anyone sitting at like a front desk no-transcript yeah, yeah, what.
Speaker 1:What would you say? The range of opening you know, getting getting one of these things off the ground and open in 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's go. What? What kind of investment, what kind of time frame does are we looking at?
Speaker 3: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 I want to do a suite. It's way less risk, it incubates, but it doesn't make as much money as a flagship. So it makes about three times less. Right now on the item 19,. We're about $65 65 000 a year in profit on a suite. So that takes about 110 000 to open up 65 000 on the after it's mature, so after one year.
Speaker 1:so anyone open over one year and I'll tell you this suite as you're building. I would just, I would imagine the suite as you're. You're building up the flagship, right yeah?
Speaker 3:so you could build two suites, find out which one's better and then go put the flagship in that location, right, like, go ahead and get the data, and then it might take the other one a little longer, but eventually that will become a flagship too. We just got to make sure you know 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 lot of money on marketing and we're just going to get up and running faster. Because to me, like, the suites are not the end game Franchisees for us. They're using suites to hedge risk and not to. I want to live on $65,000 a year, right, yeah, and the profits for the flagships are much higher than that. So it's like $150,000 to $250,000 is what we're seeing in the profit range for flagships on our item 19.
Speaker 1:And that's what you show on your item 19,. Correct, yeah? And by the way, for those of you listening, we're not making any types of offers to sell franchises here, and if you're in a registration state, hello sugar may not be available for you, okay thank you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, class was like let's lawyer this. Yeah, we, we, we believe in radical transparency. We publish every single franchisees, pnl that qualify in that one year mark. Wow, I don't care if it's good or bad, it's getting published. And the reason why is I want radical transparency. I want people that are going to be my partners to know exactly what they're getting into. I will tell them.
Speaker 3:If it's a bad market, I will say don't go there. Like I had a guy come up to me and 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 I don't want the business, I don't want you like failing on something because it's a bad location, right. And so I think that's another reason why we grow Like I've.
Speaker 3:I've turned down locations that should be open because they just won't make the person as profitable. I don't, I don't care about the money on the side for the franchise or side, I just want our franchisees to be super profitable. Yeah, so, and then, like you said, like you can use the suite, incubate it and then turn that into a flagship. That's freaking cool because that takes all the risk out that that, for me, was like me sitting there at the McDonald's of the first location I had at midnight thinking, oh my gosh, is this going to work? Well, I know it's going to work because I can at least pay my rents. That was a comforting to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah rents.
Speaker 1:That was a comforting to me. Yeah, cool, wow, I have to say we had done our pre-show sort of research on you and we've been working with you guys now for a few months, but everything you're saying is so cool. I really love your dedication to the brand. Let's pretend I'm a potential franchisee and I want to do it right. What kind of liquid capital should I have access to? And really, you know for me to do it right, starting with the suite but also building a flagship? You know what sort of timeframe should I should I have in my mind If I want to be a great franchisee for you? Give it to me straight, tell me you know what I should ideally have.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great question. Liquid capital depends on the market. We are just entering into California and I'm a little scared of all the regulations there, so I'm requiring more capital for California than I would for other areas and I'm also out the gate saying, hey, these are the challenges that we're facing. Moving into California, Like the minimum wage is higher, yeah, and so you know, for a suite, we can get a suite up and running with a run rate for $110,000. That gets you the franchise fee and everything to get you up and running. And people need to realize that suite. You're putting money into it while it's building, but you're also making money while it's building. So it kind of feels like less than actually just needed to get this up and running.
Speaker 3:For a flagship a flagship is costing about $350,000 for a brand new build on average in the country that's what I'm seeing and it qualifies for SBA loans 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 like working capital to make sure that I'm getting off the ground. Now I'm finding second-gen spaces. If I'm careful and this is the nice thing about the suite to flag model is. I can build the suite and then be patient to look for a flag and sometimes like 50% of the time for me in Phoenix I'm finding a prebuilt space of either a competitor or a doctor that has like multiple rooms or like a massage place or something that already has a build 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 it normally would be to open. So those come about and we can be patient if we have the suite to like, move into those as well that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, tell me about your support team for for franchisees. You know how how deep is your team. What kind of uh support uh can franchisees expect you guys have? You know how how deep is your team. What kind of uh support uh can franchisees expect you guys have? You know, have sort of uh like someone assigned to them. Is there a weekly conference call where all franchisees are involved? You guys have an annual conference. Tell me about that, yeah.
Speaker 3:Uh, people love the support. I think when we did the franchise business review we ranked in the top five percentile Don't call me on that 10 to 5 to 10 percentile for support. It was like so, so good, and we're like in the top 50 of brands. I think on there in FBR because of like the brand itself is really strong. But what we do is when somebody comes on, we assign them a rockstar franchisee who's got like eight locations and meets with them every single week. We put an entire course together on Kajabi where they can learn everything about the business fully. They do the weekly meetings from negative three months to opening till three months after they open or just as long as they need to get to that point. Then we pass them off to our growth team and the growth team works with them on a monthly basis or however frequently they would like to work with us. If there's a problem, we can work more often, but most people choose once a month for a call and then on top of that I don't show it here, but I have a full podcast room and so every week you know the old CEO, it's like send a newsletter out or you know, for us I do a video every single week and I go over case studies, I go over people I'm talking to, I'm going over new updates of my entire team is doing and I'm sending that out to the company. And then there's like comments that people can make. I use a software called loom it's phenomenal and I send I sent 227 videos out this year already at just like broadcasting Cause I think a CEO needs to be in front of the company and they they need to know what's going on. And at first I was like scared to do this. I was like nobody's going to want to like listen to me for like 20 minutes a week. But I'm like, no, bring them. Like literally 20 minutes is all they get right with the brand. They want to hear about these things, you know, and it's been wildly like important to our company that I keep doing these and so I send those out every week. Our advertising team sends it out once a month, so they get videos there.
Speaker 3:And we do an annual conference. It's very different from most conferences. There's no lectures, it's we just pick like an epic place. So we did the first year we did Tahiti. 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. I think it's important that people are on a hike and they're just like so what are you doing to make it work? And they build those friendships. I think that means a lot more than like a, you know, a conference in a convention center and they bring their families. It's like it's, it's very cool, it's a very special.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool. I mean I feel like you're doing a great job of responsible franchising You've got. It's incredible that the sort of the ramp that this business has, how quickly you can ramp up the need for it, the demand, and how you guys have grown, it's all really impressive. And to have that kind of support I think is outstanding. When people start to explore your franchise right now and speak to franchisees, how's that happening? Are there like weekly conference calls? Like how do people, once they start to engage in your process, how do they learn more?
Speaker 3:Yeah, every Wednesday there's a leadership call where there's franchisees that come on and they like talk about their experience so they can just join those. We have a full sales team or dev team business development where, like, if anyone's interested in learning about the franchise, like we can take them from A to Z, and we want transparency. So we want new people looking in to talk to everybody. If they want to talk to somebody, we're going to try to make it happen for them, because we want them to get into the business, thinking I know exactly what I'm getting into, I know the pros, the cons, everything, and so we try to keep an open channel with franchisees so they can speak to them.
Speaker 1:Cool. I mean listen, look at the transparency, all the locations in the item 19,. Good, bad and ugly. I think that's fabulous. You have a franchisor that operates multiple locations, so they know what they're doing. It's a fun culture. It's a great looking brand. Thanks, 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 this podcast that you think is important for people to know that we haven't covered? How much time are you?
Speaker 3:gonna have to spend in this franchise? Yeah, let's hear it. So most franchise owners have a full-time job and do this on the side until this becomes their full-time job, so you don't have to stop your job. This is the cool thing about this, right, like? If you think about what makes this business work, right, people are coming in, they're getting services and then they leave.
Speaker 3:So we've got to get the tech really, really dialed in the nudges, the appointment reminders, the like, backend communication it's all handled overseas. You don't have to manage any of that. We've got to get the marketing really solid and our marketing is like best in class. Like, trust me, there's no one even 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 box you know business in a box, this whole idea of a franchise and then you've got to manage people and if you can do those things well, you've got a really good business. We have to stock the rooms once a month. It's not like this business is, like you know, really hard to get up and running, and like it's not like a sushi restaurant where you're like flying fish in every day, right, and so if you can manage like a couple of people. Well, that's it, that's your times. You know, we, I have a weekly meeting with my team. If I'm managing a location, I have a weekly meeting with my team. And then, oh, one more thing I forgot. This is what's really cool.
Speaker 3:So we noticed like a gap in like management with our franchisees. So we, we, we tried to automate this as well. So we, we created a company called remote works and we, we outsource and find the best overseas people to manage salons here. And I started looking at it and I was like, okay, what is it that you really need to manage? And I went down the list and I'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 clients that are upset If you get the right person.
Speaker 3:I'm not talking like entry-level person, I'm talking like somebody with a degree, hr resources, economics, like really smart people. They just happen to live in the wrong country, not the wrong country, but the country where they don't make as much money. We can find like best in class there and then have them manage the salons. And so when somebody starts at HelloSugar. We give them, like the opportunity. They don't have to take it, but it's $14 an hour and these are not like entry-level workers. These are like really, really strong candidates that like would be paid like 60 to $80,000 here in the States, and so for $14 an hour, they can buy five hours at a time and so, as their business scales, they can buy these overseas managers that manage practically 80% of the entire business for them, except for, like this, the interpersonal skills that are happening here, so they can focus on just like building relationships with their team and make something really awesome.
Speaker 1:That's great. That's great. I mean again, it's like for us, I would say, with our, our pinks franchise, we're probably spending a couple hours a day sort of managing the manager, if you will. Some days it's more, some days it's less. Some days people quit. You got to get more involved, yes, but the other side of it too is we're always thinking about the business, and I bet you feel the same way. It's like, even if you're not engaged 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 you out there, even when you have a model that is more sort of life-work balance friendly, still know that your mind is always going to be on that business.
Speaker 3:I think you got to be thinking about like so a business owner could be spending their time in two areas. They could be spending it in operations the day-to-day, the routine stuff that you're doing all the time or they could be spending it on growth, and I want our business owners spending 80% of their time on growth and 20% on operations, and not the other way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's smart. It's smart. You've got to be growth minded. It's like someone was asking me the other day you know, let's have a conversation about the margins and this and that, and I'm like your first couple of years, you've got to be focused on the growth of gross revenue. Okay, to be focused on the growth of gross revenue? Okay, you've got to get revenue. You've got to get cashflow. If you're already so stuck in the minutia, you're never going to grow. Yeah, well said.
Speaker 3:Well said, jack.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, this has been great Jill. Anything else on your.
Speaker 2:No, I think. I mean I love hearing the story. I just I think it's so cool what you've done and you know, I think this is really enticing for potential. You know franchisees, so I'm so glad you're able to do this Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, of course, so glad we could spend some time with you. Thank you for joining us on the podcast. For those of you that would like to know more about Hello Sugar, you can, of course, go to their website. If you'd like to work with us at the Franchise Insiders on exploring Hello Sugar and hundreds of other franchise opportunities, the best way to do it text us 305-710-0050. That's a lot of zeros, or go to thefranchiseinsiderscom or weboughtafranchisecom.