Winn Claybaugh & John Kanski of Paul Mitchell Schools & Salty Dawg Pet Salons

“You can’t fire your way into building a better team of people. That’s why culture matters.”

Our 25th episode is our hairiest yet! In 2018 they asked themselves, “Why not?” and began extending the “Be Nice” culture of Paul Mitchell Schools (Winn as dean and co-founder, John as a ‘zee) to a new venture, Salty Dawg Pet Salons. Now they’re creating more opportunity for their Paul Mitchell students while delivering stress-free grooming to “paw-rents.” Along their franchising journeys, they’ve picked up priceless lessons about culture and leadership that will benefit ANY entrepreneur.

Join Ab and Vini to hear Winn and John’s views on the primacy of culture in any organization — and best practices for scaling culture in expanding franchises. How to bring out the best in people at work by addressing 3 basic human needs. Why the “circle of influence” is critical to effective leadership. How well-established brands might actually limit opportunities for ‘zees. And what to do about bored employees.

Read or listen to Winn’s book Be Nice (or Else!): and what’s in it for you

Transcript

 Hi everyone, welcome and thanks for joining us for Stars of Franchising. Get ready for a roller coaster ride through the world of franchising as we bring you the best stories of inspiration and entrepreneurial grit and turning dreams into franchise realities. That's right Vinnie. From emerging to global brands, we'll chat with the genius minds behind the magic. All brought to you by the Tariq Farid Franchise Institute at Babson College. I'm Ab. And I'm Vinnie. Now buckle up for some serious inspiration.



 Welcome to our podcast today. Our guests, Wynn Clabaugh and John Kansky. Welcome gentlemen.



 Thanks for having us. I can't believe you asked us. We're thrilled about this. We're excited to have you. Vinnie and I are so appreciative of your time and want to hear more about your stories and current endeavor at Salty Dog, excuse me, and also the history. We like to start with what calls you to do what you do and your personal why. So maybe if you want to kick it off there, we can get rolling here for our audience.



 Sure. Well, it's a pleasure. Babson's a phenomenal school and man, when they come calling, you just first of all scratch your head and you're like, man, I wonder why.



 So for that, I appreciate the opportunity. I always love talking about Salty Dog. I mean, my why I'm a serial entrepreneur at heart. And I think at our core, we look for problems. We create solutions and we try to sell it. Now with my background, uniquely as in partners with Wynn, we have a background in the hair industry and particularly we create students. And so we're always trying to give more opportunities and more value to that student. And so the idea came about like, could we create an opportunity for kids that already have the hard skills behind clipper over comb, scissor over comb and maybe don't like people as much because that kind of is happening now. Like how cool would it be to work with dogs? And so the idea was to create and solve a problem.



 A lot of dogs, no groomers, just like 20 years ago, ton of people with hair, even though my partner doesn't have any. I knew that jab was on his way. And quite frankly, not enough hairdressers. So he fixed that problem three decades ago. I said, hey, the same problem exists with dogs. What do you think? And so here we are. And it's been a blast, really. And that's really my why.



 Wow, that's great. First of all, Vinny and Ab, it's truly a pleasure. And I love the first question. I mean, what a great way to start this off. What's our why? What's our purpose? And I have a feeling, especially in the last couple of years, I heard somebody say that the pandemic was like God sent the entire planet to their room. Everybody go to your room, take a time out. When you come back, you'd better have a better approach to life. And I think that's what happened to a lot of people. There is this mass exodus. They're quitting their jobs without even a backup. And the reason why is they didn't want to return to the life that they had before. And so what gets me out of bed every single morning, I'm 64 years old, I have an 11 year old daughter. And so you better believe that she's a big part of my purpose and my why.



 And my why today is very different than what it was maybe five years ago or 40 years ago when I first opened up my first Palm Mitchell school. And for me, it's about having a large circle of influence and making a difference and creating a culture, a company where people can come and feel like they belong and they get to pursue their purpose and their why. And I am so passionate about that, about just being a good human being and creating opportunities for other good human beings.



 Wow. Well, Wayne, you talked about culture and it's something I know is very dear to your heart and the heart of John as well. Can you elaborate why culture? Why is it important? How has it played a role in what the two of you have done so far? It's a great question. And I'm going to answer this with a joke. So this business owner is given a tour of his business, of his company. And the person asks, so how many people work here? And the business owner responded with, oh, about half.



 And the reason why that can happen in some companies is because the culture that lives in that company, in that store, in that business is a culture that's toxic. They say that 50% of people who quit their jobs did so to get away from the boss. And yet we're paying them 100% of their salary, but we're only getting 50% of their capabilities. They show up for one thing and one thing only. And that's the paycheck. But they're not showing up with their passion, with their creativity, with their passion for teamwork. And oftentimes when people aren't performing at their best, what do we want to do? We just want to fire them. And I don't believe that you can fire your way into building a better team of people. And so that's why the culture, yes, the product's important. Yes, the marketing's important. Yes, the location is important, but it's the culture.



 Culture eats marketing for lunch.



 John, go ahead, John.



 Well, I was going to piggyback on that. For me, in my life, I'm much younger than when. And so I didn't have a lot of experience in companies with culture until I joined him in Paul Mitchell and I saw what truly a company culture can do. It can change your life. And it breaks age barriers. From very young 18-year-old kids coming to school to the oldest person that's in there, and they can speak the same language when it's around culture. Wow. And you just have a higher purpose. So it was definitely, it's not a buzzword for us, it's definitely something that we wanted to build Salty Dog around because we lived it, we saw it in the school, in Paul Mitchell School, and it works. So it's like, well, let's just keep that in here and let's figure out a way to scale it. Scaling culture is the real secret.



 That's great stuff. And I really love how you guys both described it and more importantly how you're leveraging the experience with culture and with Paul Mitchell to solve other pain points, namely with dog and pet owners. So let's talk a little bit about some nitty gritty and what worked for you at Paul Mitchell and what types of things can other leaders learn from that you're using at Salty Dog to really scale it and have an impact for your employees in their communities and what's special about the franchise model to allow you to scale the culture?



 Yeah. If I can start that one and then John, you can jump onto that one.



 Something as simple as making the environment fun.



 Coming to work every day. Why can't it, it doesn't matter what you're selling, why can't it be a fun, healthy culture?



 What do they say? If you're laughing or having fun at work, what does that mean? That you're not working. Back to work, no fun around here. Why does it have to be that way? So just something as simple as making it fun. And John is right. We can get very, very specific exactly what it needs to look like in order to create that healthy culture that brings out the best in people.



 Yeah I mean I'll just add to that because it gets very simple. I'll be called into a store and hey can you help us? Sure.



 And this goes to the scaling things. The first thing I want to know is are you having that morning meeting? And even though the content, oh well there's only two of us or three of us and we pass each other in the hallway. Yeah we talk about what's coming in today and who's got what. But yeah, our system is very specific. It starts with a very specific thing and that is to identify, we call it facing, to celebrate victories. Even if it's simply hey over the weekend I got a flat tire, I totally knew how to change it all by myself. Whatever that is, it just sets up, it's a way to set the day and then you can get into some of the fine details of how we're going to approach the day. Every time I go into a business, a school or a salty dog and maybe they're struggling, that's the first question.



 100% of the time it's well we don't do that one. We do the weekly. I'm like you guys this is how we scale culture. You start with that one and you do it the way we always do it and you start with victories and celebrations. You make people feel good and you talk about the silliest stuff and then you end a specific way. You end with an energizer and what I love seeing is when people put more effort into how that energizer is, I mean it's pull out some peanut M&Ms, however many you pulled out, it's that many truths and one lie and then people guess. It's the craziest things but it starts the energy. Those little things become how you scale and then you pull it into your weekly and your monthly and then your professional development training days. It becomes very much a part of your system and you can inspect that which is great. This is awesome. You've spoken about culture, you know you're not able, it's very difficult to separate culture from leadership because at the end of the day you set the tone from the top.



 I know you both have a unique and interesting definition of leadership. I don't know whether you want to elaborate on that. Oh absolutely.



 Actually, there's two definitions of leadership that I like to share. Leadership is someone who gets the job done along with the efforts of other people who gladly and confidently follow. Now there's a couple of parts to that statement because I know leaders who do get the job done along with the efforts of their people but their people don't gladly and confidently follow them and to me that's not leadership. My other definition of leadership is someone who has influence over another human being and the reason why that definition of leadership is so important is because it applies to everybody because leadership is not a title, leadership is not a position, leadership is an energy,



 it's an attitude, it's a mindset and you can be brand new working in a company but you are a leader. Why? Because you have influence over other people. How I easily share that with my audience, with my team members is standing in line at the grocery store with all of those other strangers in the grocery store. Could you make that stranger's day? The answer is yes. Can you ruin that stranger's day? And of course the answer is yes. So even with total strangers we have leadership simply because we have influence. Now apply that to the work environment. You walk into this building, you walk into this store every single day, you have influence. Are you making people's day or are you ruining people's day?



 Yeah I love that. I'll add a more practical part to that and that is I'm often asked, "Hey is this a semi-absentee business or where are you at with that?" And it's an interesting legal question. You got to be careful how you answer it and I always say the absenteeism is the backside of the approach to that. I know people that can walk in a room and in less than 30 seconds completely change the energy, the temperature.



 That's leadership. So how much are you in your business?



 It's really irrelevant. It's what influence do you have in your business? When you get technical on is it semi-absentee? I know people that honestly can get on a phone and move mountains. I know people that via Zoom are terrible but in person they're amazing. So the absenteeism comes, it's finance. Can they prove it in the financial model? You see where they're paying someone to run the day to day but when it comes to leadership and if it's an absent or a semi-absent or a full model that really is all depends on the type of leader that you are and what you can do and it ties into what Wen's saying. Do you move people in a positive way or do you move people in a negative way? And that answers that question usually. I'm going to ask a quick follow up before I pass it on to Ab. You talk so much about leadership. I love the way you define leadership but now I want to go back to your comments about culture because when I saw your logo and everything you do just trying to understand last few minutes you look like an organization that is quite innovative. You think outside the box. So could there come a moment when your culture can hold you hostage?



 And then what is it that you're doing to ensure that that doesn't happen?



 Yeah I know that one. Well for me I got to tell you the pandemic really pulled that question out. So can you do what you say? Any of us can get on stage and get on a call and rah rah and this and that. But it's all measured in the actions of how you support your people. And for me it's really simple. You have kind of an interesting kind of tree of a tree of life. I have a big organization but I have eight people that I will get up in the middle of the night and go through sick or thin for. And by me doing that they and I don't say OK so you make sure you guys do this. It's osmosis. They kind of learn you know I need to do that for my people. It's the only way you can really run an organization. But can your culture hold you. Oh yeah if you have if you want to have a bad day and let everyone know it you just don't get to. And you're held to your culture even more the higher you are up the food chain. It's pretty lonely up there. But you wanted it. You want you ask for this. So if you're going to ask for it you've got to live your culture. You've got to walk your talk no matter what. I like what you said that it has to start from the top. And for as long as we've been in the Palmetto School of Business we have brought our leaders together a minimum of twice every single year for two to four days each time. And by the way in our 20 plus year history of that it's 100 percent representation from all of our 100 plus schools. Those two to four days are spent strictly with this type of stuff that we're talking about. Yeah we we we talk a little bit about our product. Yeah we talk about regulatory issues. Yes we talk about HR stuff. But the majority of the training that we do is about leadership. How can I show up as a better husband. How can I show up as a better human being. How can I show up as a better leader and a mentor to the people that have chosen to give their their hearts and minds and creativity to this company. And that's a big big part of what we train. It's all about train train train train train train. You never graduate from any of this stuff. Wow. That's great stuff and it really shows how invested you are in your partners team members and and I imagine franchisees which is critical as your is your scaling.



 John you you pointed to something the question on semi absentee or absentee and and there's myths out there around franchising where you get the playbook and it's you know easy or I don't have to be involved. Can you talk a little bit about that to dispel some of those myths and and you know common myth that you saw maybe early on in the days and and maybe some that still exist that you have to dispel as you seek to scale.



 For sure. So the first thing I would say is this depending on the size of the brand there are ways you got to look at things differently. So you know I was fortunate enough to be a franchisee in the Paul Mitchell world for the last 17 years. So from that perspective I have one kind of approach it was a power brand. It had a lot of things already built. All I had to really do was find my way of following that system and if if being semi absent was was your thing it wasn't for me I wanted to be hands on but you could do it. It was a very mature brand had a lot of pieces.



 The problem is my partner sit next to me didn't allow that. You know you were hands on. You knew your students names. You knew when they were graduating. You knew every issue and that's what we signed up for and our brands are like that.



 I think when the brand is newer and they're telling you it's semi absent I just don't think that's really a fair assessment. You really do need passionate people that are good operators and those operators need to be able to take your system hold that system to the true way it's meant to be put your spin on it but follow that system and then you'll create the culture. And so I you know I get asked that a lot. Hey is this a semi absent.



 Actually it's one of the first questions that a lot of times I'm asked and when I'm asked that I'll be honest it's a disqualifier. Yeah I was going to ask you that. What does that tell you about that person or potential fringes.



 Yeah just it's an investment and there's so many other ways to make money. I mean I just like really go go do that. I get it and I get it. I don't discourage anyone from just take a moment to learn about us and then you'll understand why like now once you're in the brand and the brand has grown on you and you could you step away. Well of course of course you can but you definitely are bleeding. In this case you know red gray and black when the Palma Chorold was black and white and then it allowed me to step away and really develop some of the things with salty dogs so great stuff. That's a funny question. Every show I get that.



 When what do you think. What what what have been some of your experiences with common misconceptions or you know perceptions about franchising what it is or isn't. Well I think that the reason why we choose to be franchisors, franchisees, entrepreneurs is because we do want to have that freedom. You know we do want to be able to build something to level where we can step away a little bit. I love the fact when my daughter was born 11 years ago I had the opportunity to move my office to my home and to scale back my in-person commitment to my company. Why so I can go be a dad.



 So that's why we became entrepreneurs but I had made the mistake in the past thinking that I could completely be absent and that was not only expensive and heartbreaking.



 It was not the person that I am and so yeah I do stay involved but as John says we can scale that back once we're we're truly invested. You know like John saying that's a disqualifier when somebody says yeah I don't really want to be there. You know it's like saying I want to open up a salty dog but I hate dogs.



 And we got that believe it or not we did get that in the very beginning. You know I think we our goal was to open up seven Palmetto schools. We now have 110 and and we did have people come along the way and we could tell because our our interview process and John could say because he went through this our interview process lasted what two or three days John and it was full of that interview process was activities and now you're going to role play and you'd have these people who were just totally now I'm not available for that or they may be on their cell phone out in the hallway. It's like if you're ignoring us right now guess who else you're going to ignore in the future. Your customers your students you know you're not you're going to be too busy for your own students who are paying you X number of dollars to attend your school. So you're that's a disqualifier. You don't like it. You don't like students. You don't like dogs. Those things are important.



 Before I get over what I'm hearing it's which is critical right that importance of that relationship and partnership right. It's a 10 year at least sometimes relationship and critical and I think a lot of people don't recognize that franchise or is there potential franchisees how important that fit is and not every fit is right but getting it wrong can be as you describe painful and expensive. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. When you kicked off your response to the last question you said you mentioned three things franchise or franchisee entrepreneurs.



 But you know a number of people out there we say that franchising no franchisee or franchise or they're not franchisee they're not entrepreneurs because they get the playbook as I was referring to earlier on. It's easy. You know you get the playbook. There's nothing entrepreneurial about it again. You know you just go with the flow. What would you what would you say to that. A statement.



 I think I would disagree with that. I think that just because you're jumping on board with somebody else's idea and you better believe you're buying their best practices you're buying that playbook you're buying the systems. This is exactly how we run a successful business and we all learn from each other. You know as they say some of the best ideas that run a successful brand did not come from the franchise or they came from the franchisees they came from the individual stores. And it's the franchisors job to now bring those on as best practices and share with every other location. But you better believe there's an entrepreneurial attitude and energy that goes along with that. I'm a franchisee but I'm an entrepreneur. See some people think that being an entrepreneur means that you can come and go as you want. You have no responsibility. You have no risk. I can wear whatever I want. Nobody's telling me what to do. And I'm like you're not an entrepreneur you're just a bad employee.



 Thank you.



 And then we're going to dive into another question now looking at from the experience you've had so far what do you think the best franchisees do well.



 And then we flip the coin and just tell us what you think the best franchisees do well.



 I think the I think the people that do the best are are just continuously learning. And I do believe that they're they are entrepreneurs to to their core. And I believe that you need a brand that allows you to be an entrepreneur. And I think there's ways to do that. Now there are brands out there that are really established really developed. They really don't want to deviate out of the lane much.



 So you know just kind of follow it. And you know as much as that sounds great you can limit your growth. You can limit your opportunities. And I think that I just I think the people that do best are the ones that just have an eagerness to want to learn. And they and they want to be able to tell you I have this idea. I was trying this and trying that. And I think as a good franchise or you have to be open to really great ideas come across your desk so many times a day. And are you just open to your eyes open to seeing it. So that's kind of my top for a franchisee a franchise or truly the minute. I love this line. Mike Tyson says in interviews all the time you know any time I felt like I was a big deal I realized that things were off. You know it becomes a problem if you really think you're that important. And I think when a franchise or understands they're the facilitator of the funds they're supposed to get me the best possible using the buying power and they're supposed to give me systems that keep me out of trouble and keep me moving forward. And if the franchise or understands their role is to just is to remove bottlenecks and create solutions they're going to be a great franchise or if it's to induce power or influence beyond anything else you know there are some out there they're very successful. I think it can stop you in your young years for sure.



 Great stuff that that focus on the unit economics and performance of your franchisees is critical right.



 Yeah. Well one thing that you mentioned both of you about the need to continue to evolve and innovate and move forward as a brand and as a leader strikes me to ask this question which is can you share some and what were some of the best innovative practices or responses to the pandemic that you saw either from other franchisees or brands as you went through it that have helped guide you today.



 Unequivocally beyond a shadow of a doubt it was the ability to do things remote and to do them well.



 Being as simple as my background my logo understanding that a white background and how the position I need to be in this camera for you to understand the way I'm looking in the camera. It's I mean hopefully you're feeling I'm coming in and out. Those are things that the pandemic the remote learning was really the technology point of sale software you know swiping credit cards quicker all that stuff it is what it is and everybody's going to everyone's going to get into that. But remote remote access to people completely made a vast region get real small and then training so keep in mind we're a training company our background our core is training and when you can pause learning and rewind and pause and rewind you can create an environment that used to be fearful used to be used to block to to actually getting the best out of people who probably a lot of times thought they couldn't learn or they weren't good at something when you bring those things from school OK into a business it's a game changer and that really got pushed on us heavy by the pandemic we have a choice at Babson probably didn't have a choice how did you keep kids in school when this crazy stuff was going on and you know who knew what was going well you have professors who are extremely smart they can connect with students in the classroom but put him on zoom and it was snoring I mean there's no way so this became an opportunity for us there are no there's not a lot of groomers there's definitely not a lot of training so what if we could take our best and brightest put him right in front of you at any time you need him and make it be something that you can connect with not just a video that you watch to me that's where the tech that's where the tech has expanded great well interesting now I am going to ask a question to win and of course John feel free to jump in as well because when you mentioned a while ago that you know that about something that you did something and it was horrible or it was a failure or something like that and I wanted you to take us back there if you look back now what would you think was your greatest failure in the world of franchising that you know okay it was a failure but you learned so much from it and it's something that you hope that everyone at some point should know about so they don't repeat the same mistake what would that be what what I was referring to back then was thinking that I could replace myself that I could replace myself to where I could completely pull pull back and I'm sure other people who have figured this out you know good for them I have not figured that out yet so it taught me that I need to be involved I need to stay involved and it's the level that I stay involved I don't stay involved in the accounting department you know they don't I don't stay involved in watering the plants at my business you know they don't want me watering the plants they'll all be dead you don't want me hanging out in the HR department but know what I'm good at and I know what I'm not good at and what I what I need to always be good at is in cultivating great relationships and so so when I do get off track it's because I let my ego get in the way I say I let my ego get in the way and I start thinking no I don't really care what their opinion is I don't really care what their advice is I don't really care what their complaints are especially if they're about me I don't care to listen to that and that's when I get off track so it's just you know John was there um when was that John in August you know we we had a franchisee meeting and and I was kind of put on that chair you know what when you need to listen to us right now and it was it was wonderful and and they were right it's exactly what I needed to hear it wasn't comfortable was a little bit painful but you better believe it was so productive and it was productive and it served me well what do they say that the six words of a failing company are we've always done it that way right



 and John for you what would be maybe your biggest uh aha moment or something like uh something that hit you really hard in the face I say okay now I get it yeah well the the failure part I can tell you was you know I call it the circle of influence you know you have a you know if you can imagine a bull's-eye that center ring are people that you can call in the middle and at the night and say hey can you come get me here and it's they don't even they don't even ask why they're just they grab their keys and they go get you and that next ring out might be your friends and family who maybe don't understand you but they listen you we know you're passionate what do you need us to do we're on board and as that ring gets out you know then you eventually reach the general public when you're starting a franchise because keep in mind as a franchisee I I felt like I was a successful franchisee but the franchisor part I want to be successful



 and what what's out there in the marketplace is this how many units do you have sold yeah what is the questions really get different yeah but let me tell you about the first store no no no no let me store you got so I realized that my rush to get to the people in that center that would just say yes no matter what that became my first franchisees they weren't qualified and I made that mistake and I learned the hard way and it slowed me down it slowed us down a lot and if I could take anything back it would it would be that I would really really don't rush to get franchisees rush to get qualified franchisees it's a win-win when you do that that was that was what you learned from me this is quite interesting because it tied back to what uh win said a few seconds ago about the importance of listening okay when they put in that seat just sit there and listen okay just listen take everything don't lose the big picture okay don't focus on the building think of the city and then doing that time and time again it's not easy it's not natural listening is not a natural act even though we have two ears and one mouth but oftentimes we have a game plan and that bull's eye you just zero in there and lesser focus boom you know and then maybe we lose the as you were saying yeah go ahead go ahead we yeah that that that is important but you know the challenge that I have is I'm a speaker as well my other career is as a speaker I and I get booked by major companies I'm a best-selling author so people pay me to hear what I have to say and so you're you're right so we spent years learning how to talk but not too much time on how to listen and so you know I have to remind myself you know no this is not your stage right now when this is your opportunity oh and by the way that event that I'm talking about that happened in August where I was on the hot seat let me tell you something this because of the culture that exists within what we've created um my franchisees were not attacking me they weren't coming after me it was with love truly it was with their heart they were you know so they were they were following our culture and how they communicated good even though maybe they were frustrated about a couple of things even though they were unhappy they still follow the culture and and bottom line what's most important about the culture are those relationships that's great before I ask the next question you mentioned a book could you tell our audience what book was that was it on so I wrote a I'm trying to see if it's around me anywhere I wrote a book called uh be nice or else and I was very very fortunate to have Larry King wrote the forward for my book it was endorsed by uh Colleen Barrett who was the female president of Southwest Airlines for many many years and even endorsed by people like Betty White you know so that was that was you know my most important day of my life the day that Betty White said that she endorsed my book and by the way John she also loved that I had a bald head so there we go I have a video of Betty White uh rubbing my head saying how fabulous she is because she she loved irony you know when when what is it about that book what what was it about the book what was it that you want our audience uh because we want them to go get the book and read it digest it reflect on it and hopefully uh act on it so what is it every one one thing do you want to like a quick gestalt about the book if you don't mind to dispel that myth of what it means and what it doesn't mean about being nice people think that if I'm nice people will walk all over me I can't get the job done nobody's going to respect me if I'm too nice and I just want to dispel that nice guys do not finish last nice guys can finish first and and and that takes us all back to the original part of this interview today and that is culture yeah to break it down and I I think you said one thing but remember I'm paid to speak so you can't shut me up all right here's the simple part of our culture our job is to address three basic human needs number one people need to feel safe number two people need to feel that they belong and number three people need to feel that they have a purpose you address those three basic human needs in any environment whether it's a family whether it's a circle of friends whether it's a a business you address those three basic human needs you're going to bring out the best in each other wow well that you know and and the book by the way is be nice or else when claybo we'll put it on the podcast when we broadcast but you led to right into my next question we'd like to to ask about and I think I know the answer it's built in your culture but can you just talk a little bit about the importance of diversity equity inclusion belonging in your brand and in other companies and then also how franchisors for example can can can put in practice ways to to make that a priority and and and a part of you know their existence based on what you've done the world that we live in right now is very very different or at least there's better awareness today than there was three or four years ago and so as leaders as team members as human beings it's our job to educate ourselves you know we we can't just use that excuse anymore that we didn't know where we weren't properly trained you know so we do need to educate ourselves about diversity and inclusion and what does that mean especially for people that maybe we don't have that connection with you know to go out of our way to to learn and to and to take that hard look and and when we did it you know we were proud of what we saw but we also saw opportunities lots of opportunities for growth and that meant okay you know we can't just bring in the best person to talk about you know how to create um you know a better widget in our company we need to have people come in and talk about diversity training and inclusion and right and and so we've done that and we continue to do that you know when I look at the roster of experts and speakers and heroes that I'm bringing to my podcast you better be you better believe it has to be diverse you better believe that I need to be speaking to all types of of of voices and and and uh heroes and and leaders to make sure that we're um I don't want to say checking boxes because that's not what we're doing but we are expanding ourselves and we're trying to be more aware so so we know John I'm going to uh sort of ask your advice if you have a group of people so our audience and beyond uh that are thinking of getting into franchising it has franchisee or franchisor uh what would be your top advice for them so I get asked this a lot and and honestly and I mean this from my heart it's how it's how we approach salty dog in that it's really about researching the support so the the financial numbers and all that that's easy to that's easy to figure out I mean they're printed there like does it make money or not make money what what do I got to spend what what's my ROI those are easy things what what happens when um what happens when a dog gets cut what happens what happens if a dog god forbid runs out the door gets something happens right um or when an employee has a death in the family or um regulatory changes kick in right so when you start talking about training I always when I do competitive analysis I mean I'm I'm just I'll try to ask some really kind of interesting questions and it tells me that they've built stuff or not now here's the thing we're in education our backgrounds in education we've created our own lms I mean we have a way to train we know that people learn differently and we know how to adjust our training to how you learn versus you changing the way you learn to how we train and those are things that I think when when you know there's a strong support piece um you know I don't understand how to get financing well just use these two companies all of a sudden you're locked into a an arrangement that is interesting and there's pre-payment penalties and there's all these things that's not support just telling me which vendors to use that's not support I want to know like what happens if this happens you know have you noticed that there's a virus now that's out west and it's starting to head this way so what are you doing about that if you don't have support for that trust me those things are coming to your business and you have to that's what you want to fish for check the support see what they have now the cool part about salty dog is and and this is this kind of goes into the diversity question as well we're emerging but trust me we have tons of horsepower so when wind talks about bringing in uh outside opinions to make sure beauty is diverse so we're lucky there we've always been diverse we've always had the ability to kind of be in the forefront of diversity but when you're big enough and you can bring in different brands big brands that invest millions and millions of dollars in making sure this is done correctly and that it proves your company we get to we get to borrow that so it's such a for being new and emerging it's great that we have these these relationships that are kind of like powerhouses so um check support you know make sure that make sure that the training is there good training will make up for a lot of mistakes well then i'm going to follow up by asking the question if you look at the trains in the world today with a social technological uh regulatory okay uh climate name it which of these trains do you think will shape the future of franchising of course in the context of even salty dog that's why that's not the question that that that you're reframing that question and i love it because the question was what's the biggest fear or what what's a challenge for franchising and it's that word it's regulatory yeah okay the more listen the more we let somebody else dictate what's going to happen within our businesses it gets very interesting very fast and i think we're seeing that so the the thing about franchising that's a little bit um nerve-wracking is what's going to happen in the regulatory space and let me tell you when they come they come heavy i mean i i've been a part of it and it's logic is not part of the equation so how can i possibly be in control of all of these factors when we're talking about a franchisee yes i have i have requirements yes i have things that they must do however that relationship between an employee and their employer has to be regulated at that level and when you start seeing the heavies come down that's a look that's nerve-wracking to me anyway so you frame that a little differently i think technology definitely has a way of improving anything i mean there's no question we're seeing it now i mean just ai just learning how to respond to people properly we've elevated um we've elevated our game of time but that regulatory thing i would rephrase that that's a rough one wow great wow when anything you add from your standpoint um you know i like how the topic of education is coming up a lot and when john says you know we're an education company again what we sell we're not selling palmichile shampoo but we have been selling is education and and that's our product in the palmichile school world and so now that we're able to take that experience that we have of developing education which is a way to to help people go from point a to point b both with their technical skills as well as with their their business skills their attitudes uh and now apply that to the salty dog world is is where we're really shining that's where we're really able to to go to the next level it's all about anytime that there's a challenge within a company and oftentimes that challenge you know people get bored yeah and i think the solution to boredom is education it's always education providing people an opportunity to grow when people say that they want to move on it's it's usually because they're bored they could be doing what some people consider to be the most exciting thing on the planet but they've been doing it for so long and they're looking for a way to grow themselves but i think when i will even go beyond that and i say that what people are selling is even goes beyond education because it's mindset you're trying to cultivate a mindset and then in that way it's not just i know it's like now the way i comfort myself is different you know and that is what i see you speak to you and you and john and it's powerful and and i we can't thank you enough for for all these insights this is wonderful thank you go ahead well i just thanks for acknowledging that because you know when we say people need training they need education sometimes it has nothing to do with the skill set of how they perform their jobs sometimes the education and they're looking to the franchisor they're looking to the boss they're looking to the company to help provide them this information this training i think is is a wonderful resource that we as bosses and companies can offer for for our people sometimes it has nothing to do with how they perform their jobs every single day and it has everything to do with how can i become a better spouse how can i become a better parent how can i become a better human being and we become the resource for giving them that training and that opportunity is just wow i mean talk about loyalty right loyalty it's right there and and we haven't really talked about this and we don't have to but uh philanthropy is a huge big part of this you know for for every company doesn't matter how big or how small because some people say well when i'm making that much money then i'll find ways to get back to my community uh-uh you made one dollar you now have an opportunity you now have an obligation to turn around and give back because we're all consumers we we consume air we consume trees we consume oxygen we consume water we consume the paychecks of our customers we consume the time commitment of our team members we need to be contributors so we need to look for ways to give back well on that note we really appreciate you both win and john giving back to us our baps and students and the broader community across the globe you really do epitomize and i know vinnie would agree what entrepreneur leadership is all about and creating economic and social value so thank you both so much and congrats on all the success and wish you all the best with salty dog pet salon we can't wait to continue to track your progress and most importantly have you here on campus and and if we can assist you in any way on your journey we'd be happy to do that but thanks guys thanks for joining us on this episode of stars of franchising stars of franchising was produced at baps in college engineered by travis gray karen soe is our guest coordinator and music by ralph taylor if you like stars of franchising be sure to review us wherever you get your podcasts and swear the word 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