WHY great leaders obsess over BEHAVIORS, not numbers

#entrepreneurship #franchisebusiness #facefoundrie #podcast 

On the #Built4ProfitPodcast, hosts interview Hunter Mitchem, a multi-brand operator and franchisee of the year for two brands, about his transition from 17 years in defense and aerospace into the beauty and wellness industry. 

Mitchem explains how he and his wife/COO Mallory researched market growth, brand leadership, and recurring-revenue models before choosing Face Foundrié, an “exclusive but inclusive” facial concept delivering high-end services in under 60 minutes with flexible drop-ins and a no-stress membership. He shares lessons from franchising and multi-unit operations across eight states, emphasizing people, process, product, and profit, plus transparency, training cadence, role play, and behavior-based management over obsessing on short-term numbers. 

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Get to know Hunter's Holding:  

Website: https://www.6gholdings.co/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/6gholdings?igsh=MXRvcjVrcWRuaGprdQ%3D%3D
Hunter's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunter-m-64296a33/
6g's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/6gholdings/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You can't be so obsessed with the short-term quick win. Cause if anybody wants that, it's me. You have to really believe in the long game and just stick to that process.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Welcome to the Built for Profit podcast, powered by IQ for profit. Because when you know better, you can do better. We are talking big money in this episode. Yeah. 590 billion estimated by 2030 in the Fuji and Wellness industry. And today you get to hear from the franchisee of the year from two different brands that he represents, which is yeah, doing something right. Someone we want to learn from. So we have Hunter Mitchell with us today. He's with Face Foundry. Hunter, welcome to the Built for Profit Podcast. Welcome, Hunter. We can't wait to hear about some of your strategies. When we were, you know, just going over your background, Hunter, one of the things that we were most intrigued about was you went from 17 years in defense and aerospace and now in the beauty industry, among other things, but we're focusing on that. I mean, we got a few questions. How'd you get there?

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Yeah, great question. 17 years in aerospace, pretty much every function, but I've always been an entrepreneur at heart. My degree was in entrepreneurship. And so I was blessed to have leaders and coworkers in that career that were pretty entrepreneurial-minded. So, you know, functionally in a corporate career, but a very entrepreneurial career path. So within that set, learned all facets of the business. I think it was more a comfortability of skill sets developed through that career. So between Mallory and I, my wife, she's our CO as well, we both were in that mental space where we said, hey, we're 39 now, we've had good careers, we feel confident in everything we've learned and where we're at a place in life. I think it was just a bit of a follow your gut, but we've developed some confidence through, you know, skill sets and experiences in life, which have definitely proven to be really helpful in this journey. And I think we focus on strategic pillars, which I think kind of encompass all of that. So people, process, product. The fourth one's profit, by the way. But you know, we focus with our teams and they all know those. And so as I look back at my career, I think that's where large corporations can really teach you, you know, the good in terms of structure and how to focus on those. So we've really encompassed that into our own business and trying to build that even as a young company is what are the behaviors we're coaching that lead to the results? Because if you obsess about the numbers, it just creates anxiety. And you know, your success isn't always determined by the end number. That's obviously important, but I think you can let that mentally control you. So for our team, it's all about training people, leadership, and what are the behaviors that equal results.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

So honey, I'm gonna piggyback on you with numbers because I like numbers and numbers like I did a little research before we jumped in here because I'm like, okay, you went from girls to beauty and wellness. I mean, like, I uh someone put your arm behind your back, what happened here? And I said, Well, you know what? This guy looked like a pretty savvy business person. The beauty and wellness industry, these are numbers from Nelson IQ industry by 2030, they expected to be a 590 billion industry. So I guess people are living longer, want to look a little better and a little healthier or something going on. But how in the heck did you wake up and you and Mallory go, Yep, this is where we need to go, beauty and wellness?

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Yeah, I think two things. One is industries we believed in. So we did a lot of research in industry before we made the decision. And certainly this is where my background came into play, you know, building businesses, mergers, and acquisitions, it's all about total addressable market, what you capture, where the white space is, those things. And so we looked at the wellness holistically, which is one of the largest growing markets, and then kind of the subsectors of that and wellness and beauty, as you mentioned, significant major growth year over year. But then you kind of look through in the details and how does that align? If I could summarize the brand we chose in the beauty industry, was the founder and the team. Very sharp, very focused on being true to what the model is, mission-driven, provides a great product and responsible growth. And then the business model is based so you can build recurring revenue as well as other. But the industry itself, if you look at kind of the subsectors. So if you look at some of our partners, right? Like we do for one of the top hydrofacial providers, that specific service, as far as year-v year growth, is significant within that subsector. So did a lot of research on that market, and then you take the softer things of the more tangible, beautiful brand, great name, mission-driven. And then facials are something that has a lot of meaning. You know, we have a lot of clients that come in every day and they're all going through something, and they come in for different reasons. Most of this is confidence driven, and then fundamentally they really want to understand the chemistry of their skin and their body. And we have amazing aestheticians that became an aesthetician for a purpose-driven. These aren't predominantly sales folks or anything, they're there because they want to make people feel better and they really understand the chemistry of your body. And so I think that purpose-driven just made it even better.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Expand, if you will, for our listeners that you know, I had to do research on it, and it was different because I'm thinking a spa, you know, that's what you had or I was like, a spot. And I look, I go, this is a really different, unique concept. So kind of contrast and and I had a picture of what this experience looks like and what your actual retail space looks like.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Yeah, I think my own term would be exclusive but inclusive. You walk in, feels luxurious, but not unwelcoming in a way. So like it's for everyone in terms of you can come in and feel comfortable in the space, but you do feel elevated. It's an open concept, it's neutral, it just makes you feel good. It's a good balance of this is my own term, medical and luxury. So, you know, it feels very professional, and you see the brands of our partners, and you're like, wow, these are really high-end quality products. So I think our concept is an elevated feel, a top quality facial, but I think the niche is it's under 60 minutes. And so, for like yourselves, think you know, you guys are incredibly busy. So we can provide that high-end service in under 60 minutes. So it's a little bit more approachable for schedule. I think about my wife, Mallory, that most of her days are planned. The beauty of our business is you can do a drop-in because we generally have that capacity available in terms of like our business model supports. We obviously are well booked in advance, but we support a drop-in if you randomly get a free hour and imagine being able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

That was one of my big takeaways for that. And I thought, what a great idea because it's like a commitment to go, and I shouldn't say anything bad about going to a spa because it's a nice event, but it's a commitment. It's like some you gotta take half a day off work, you know, there's things involved because it's not an in and out.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Well, also if you look at what's best for the client, your skin is a continuous, like you have an at-home routine and then you come see us, right? If you're doing a once-a-quarter facial type situation, you're missing in the middle if you're not getting educated on what products are unique to your skin. Our membership model is extremely affordable and approachable. You come once a month regularly, ultimately, the compound effect is it's better for you and you feel more confident in your skin. And so, with that requirement, we try to make it more attainable by keeping it under 60 minutes. So it's an hour of every month, which you can prioritize and make.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Is it only subscription based or could someone come in and just do?

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Yeah, you absolutely can drop in. And by the way, it's a no-stress membership, and so it's not something where you're locked in a long time. That's something you get at face foundry. So there's a lot of really great perks. Like we want you to remember Face Foundry as an experience you had in that month. So there's multiple ways to do that. We have face parties, so you can bring friends, birthdays, girls night out, or guys, it's bridal parties, those types of things. And it's really creating a core memory with us. And in that, we mix in education and product value. So there's a lot of ways you can connect face foundry into your routine.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

I'm curious, Sandra. Obviously, you were corporate, Valerie was corporate, so you both came from the corporate world. As you were diving into this, I mean, it's clear you've had a lot of success doing it. We know that you have other brands as well that you own and represent. But what is something that you're like, I was not prepared for that, or that did not go the way I thought it would? What's something like that that you could share?

SPEAKER_00 7:56

I think some days, if you look, you know, from our lens, my job as the CEO is constantly problem solving, mixing strategy and protecting the company as a multi-brand operator. I'm not only working with my team to build our company and our skill set and results, I'm also working alongside the brands to help build their company and working with their team. And then the third layer is we have vendors that we're working with to work with their team with our business. So some days I joke with Mallory, I feel like I'm running eight companies within one because there's so many dynamics and layers there. The one thing corporate world taught me is how to value my time, and I'm still learning a little bit of that. But like a franchise agreement is 10 years, and you assume you're gonna make it 10 years and make it work, and those people and brands will change over that time, just a natural progression. You need to really understand that up front and be realistic about where you probably will have challenges and how you're gonna operate together doing that. So that's been the biggest kind of insight and learning moment for me within the two brands we work with.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

What a great franchisee partner, because you're seeing the collaboration that we're all getting better and growing together. And I don't think I've really heard that before.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Better together is a saying in our company. And so I will say we're a tough customer, but it's all meant to elevate and we treat ourselves the same.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

One thing you said you uniquely bring to your team and your companies is your philosophy and your behavioral right theories or insight. So expand on that. Tell us more about it.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Yeah, really focused on strategic pillars and training and behaviors. Like any company, we have financial forecasts, we have goals every day, every month, every quarter, every year. And if you win the day, you win the week, win the month, win the quarter, win the year, right? So we are very focused. We have full transparency in our company. It doesn't matter what site you go to, they know what that goal is that day. Every single person has visibility to that. So transparency and metrics is important for us. But rather than talking about, hey, did you do a thousand that day or whatever that number is? We talk about and focus on behaviors. And so what does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 9:57

How did you know they were gonna do that, Hunter? The listeners.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

The things I focus on as an example. What is your revenue goal that month, and how do you measure if you're gonna hit that? There's the obvious KPIs, the numbers driven. But for me, it's about do our managers have their mandatory recurring training scheduled? Do they have their one-on-one scheduled? So it's actually the velocity of those things where they're gonna have those conversations or those trainings. So that's like the base level in a face foundry world, that's sales training. It's role play, it's looking at where that individual is strong and where they're not, and then how do we elevate the whole group in that level? And so those are the kind of things that we really measure is how often are you connecting? How good is your training? Is your process thorough? And that's for the leaders and the new folks. And so that's where we spend a lot of our time versus just going and elbow greasing everything. You can't do that.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

That is such great information, Hunter. Are you just delegating that to the managers to have them do? Or are those virtual that you're overseeing, or how do you track that the managers are doing those one-on-ones and they're doing those trainings in each scale?

SPEAKER_00 11:01

A couple ways. One from a structure we use as a system. So they each had Monday boards, and we do this from everything from operational management to marketing and events. Everything is loaded. You can look at it on your phone or in the computer, and we go through that with them. I have one-on-ones with our leaders, my direct reports, and we go through those boards and then make sure they're using that for their teams. From a training perspective, we have Google Classroom type initiatives, and we can tell when people take it, and there's typically a test or that, and we don't use it to say you didn't do well here or you did. We use it to see, like, what are some common themes around that? So digitally, we have track systems. For role play, as an example, they have a sales Google tracker where the manager or sales lead will go through that with their essay. It's direct feedback on the spot. They fill out the form, go through it. Again, we look for trends. You also can spot how well the training is based on the commentary and ultimately the number of progression, right? This is sort of the long game versus short. You're not going to start training in July, and then in August, you guys are crushing it 10% higher, right? We started this kind of mandatory training, and mandatory is not a bad word, by the way, it's just a fact. So we started this mandatory training and really evolving that process last summer. So we're about a year into it. Our group is best in class and brand and close rates. And so you can see that progression of where that improved and the numbers don't lie. And so I think I would encourage any person coming into this to think about that as they think about like what success looks like along the way is you can't be so obsessed with the short-term quick win, because if anybody wants that, it's me. You have to really believe in the long game and just stick to that process. And we've done that at pretty much every level so far. There's some we've missed, I'm sure, that we'll figure out. This is where Mallory's skill set is very strong. She's incredibly structured, thorough, and really focused on building our system. And you have to do that as a multi-unit operator that operates in at this point eight states.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

And Hunter, I hear that. And I love the fact that we're keeping score because you keep score, right? The score gets better. Right. And you're and big on that. So I mean, you've got momentum. And I like that word because a lot of times you're grinding out and learning a lot of lessons, like you move through a lot. But this is your moment, right? There's a lot of people out there, they're in their lesson learning time, and you're looking back on the two years ago, starting off, going, hey, you know, I wish someone had told me this, right? Collapse that curve of learning to someone. This is your moment to share a wisdom with someone in that entrepreneur journey.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

My biggest advice is don't overthink everything. You know, follow your gut a bit. I think it'll tell you where to go structurally, but believe in yourself and your thoughts as an entrepreneur. There's no guarantees other than what you do. So you control fully what your outcome is for the most part. But it's a really rewarding feeling. And so at the end, we both took the perspective of, you know, if this isn't successful for us, we could just go back to our corporate careers. Nothing's gonna change in three, four years. Like I could go right back to aerospace and be totally fine. But I knew mentally I would regret later not doing it because I would have always had that one.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Come on, hardware. You're supposed to burn the boats, right? All in. Now you sound like you know the person who was dating some limit's on mesh.com. That in my pocket thing going on.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

I would just go all in, and we did that literally. It was one day all in. You know, we made a lot of decisions that put a lot of, I think, kind of good stress on ourselves to perform.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

You and Mallory both quit. I mean, that's pretty decision making.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Yeah, I mean, I I personally have not had a paycheck in two years and I've never been happier, which is really weird to say. But uh obviously there's a difference in building equity in a paycheck, though, right? So our company is foundationally doing well with where we're at in the phase, but I mean it's different. So I think I will say too, like having whoever you partner with, in this case, my wife. Um, but if you partner with somebody else, I think that's a big cultural is like, hey, entrepreneurship is all day, every day, there's no off hours, and you have to thrive in that market.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

And I appreciate you being honest about it because you know, we all go into business for ourselves to have more time and money and the flexibility. And you go in there and you work hard. I mean, there's no misconception about that. You really do work hard. The advantages are you control more your income and your time by your effort. Absolutely. So there's good and bad with it. You have been an absolutely wealth of information. I like the stories, and we won't even dive into the idea of husband and wife working together. We'll save that for the next time. I will say it not. It's its own episode.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Yeah, that's funny.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

So, like I said, thank you so much for joining us on Built for Profit Podcast and sharing your wisdom. We've learned a little bit about the beauty and wellness. I know I want to go get a facial. Thank you again for being our guest, and we look forward to seeing the updates on what you and Mallory do.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Absolutely, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

We are proud that today's episode was brought to us by Imperial Design and Display. You know, Elizabeth, when you walk into a retail store and you see all the products, the merchandise, the racks, all that good stuff. Yes, everything that distracts here you go. That's what Imperial Design and Display does. They are a US manufacturing company, which for me, and made the USA. They do everything from design to installation to program management. They get it done. And the caliber brand that they work with is very impressive. Not trying to be a name dropper. Here we go, we're talking games, Williams and Nil Monty, Home Deep, caribou coffee, and some high caliber brands, right? And not only do they make it look good. It's functional and they're consecrons. So we are proud to have them as one of our sponsors and development that is imperial design and display. And Elizabeth, I have to give a little shadow. I love a good category. I have a good category. Let's move at the speed of retail together. So imperial design display.com. Click on the link to get more information about imperial design and display. You'll see it in the next episode.