Jeremy Morgan With WellBiz Brands

Intro: [00:00:07] Welcome to Franchise Marketing Radio, brought to you by SeoSamba Comprehensive, high performing marketing solutions for mature and emerging franchise brands to supercharge your franchise marketing. Go to SeoSamba.com. That’s Seosamba.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Jeremy Morgan with, well, biz brands welcome.

Jeremy Morgan: [00:00:42] Hey, there, it’s good to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:43] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. But before we get started, tell us a little bit about, well, biz brands. How are you serving, folks?

Jeremy Morgan: [00:00:50] Yeah. Well, Miss Brands is a franchisor of five different wellness and beauty brands, including Drybar, Amazing Last Studio, Radiant Waxing Elements, Massage and fitness together. So across the portfolio, in the five brands we have, we have nearly nine hundred locations, about five hundred franchise owners and primarily serving a high end consumer female consumer and a membership model context. And it’s just a really, really fun group of concepts that we built together.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:20] Can you talk a little bit about how it got started? Was there a first brand or was this always kind of built as this kind of a conglomerate?

Jeremy Morgan: [00:01:28] Yeah, it’s our first brand started back in the nineties with fitness together, and it has been an M&A approach to bring these brands together under a common platform. All of our brands were founder started and they all all the founders were service providers in the various modalities that we do. So as an example, Ali Webb was a cosmetologist that more or less pioneered the idea of blowouts and built the Drybar brand. Similarly, Jessica Lea did that with eyelash extensions as an expedition in the eyelash extension category and so well busies just very uniquely positioned to take a brand that was started by a founder that got traction. Enfranchising has built a franchise community and really help it scale and take those brands to the next level.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:15] Now is your potential franchisee. Are they someone who’s looking at kind of the portfolio as a way to grow their own wealth? Or is it something that they go in as, Oh, I’m the fitness together person, and that’s what I’m going to kind of build a fitness together empire? Or are they kind of mix and match?

Jeremy Morgan: [00:02:35] It is mix and match. So we have a lot of a lot of franchise owners build their business empires within one brand and really get focused on one specific concept. And we’ll go and sign an initial agreement for maybe two or three units and build from there as we have added new concepts to the portfolio. Drybar we acquired in just over a year ago, radiant waxing we acquired back in the summer. Those were both added. This year we have started to see our franchisees in the elements and amazing fashion fitness together concepts latch on to building those as well within the same shopping centers. And so some folks really, really like the idea of having very close proximity have all the concepts in kind of all their back in their backyard and be able to work on those all together. It’s interesting, particularly the beauty brands use the same type of service providers Amazing Lash and Drybar. Both leverage cosmetologists, amazing lash and radiant waxing both leverage as petitions. And so there’s a lot of synergy that comes for some owners working across the portfolio with with multiple concepts.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:53] And also, I would imagine it’s a similar customer, so this same customer could be a customer for each of the brands.

Jeremy Morgan: [00:04:00] It is absolutely the same customer. So all of our concepts are incredibly female centric, drybar and amazing lash and are both effectively 100 percent radiant. Waxing is about eighty five percent female and elements massages about 70. And these are all kind of upper income, wellness and beauty conscious consumers that spend a lot of their wallet on how they how they take care of themselves and how they look. And it is absolutely a very common customer across the across the platform.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:31] Now is this when a franchisee is considering this? Is that something that is? I would imagine a great selling point is if you kind of bundle some of these together, the effort to get one customer is really you’re getting three, you know, they’re kind of going across three brands.

Jeremy Morgan: [00:04:48] Yeah, absolutely. So I’d say there’s a big part of the value proposition is that also, I think just from a from a well, business platform standpoint, overall, any franchisee that comes into any one of our concepts really is leverage being able to leverage the learning that we have across all concepts. We have a big digital marketing team that focuses on how we drive consumers into all of our concepts, and we operate as a nine hundred unit franchisor. And when you compare that to a a smaller franchisor that might have 50 radiant was a 50 unit concept as a standalone and the resources and expertize that we’re able to bring to bear both with. People and the amount of money we’re able to spend and the scale that comes from just cost efficiencies on the buying of digital and things like that are really pretty remarkable on what we’re able to bring to a franchise on any one of these concepts along the way.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:47] Now, can you share a little bit of insight of why being a membership based business is so effective in today’s world?

Jeremy Morgan: [00:05:54] So a membership based business is really helpful in a couple of ways. First of all, membership in general has and recurring revenue in general has just really taken off as a business model, whether it’s Peloton or Netflix or Amazon Prime or our concepts in elements massage and amazing drybar. So, you know, consumers have gotten very accustomed to a membership driven approach. One of the things that the membership does is it really encourages consumers to make the service that we’re offering a part of their regular routine. It’s the more that a consumer uses our service, the more likely they are to stick with their membership for a long time. And so that built in approach where, hey, I’m a member, I get a service every month. I need to come in and get that service. It reminds them how much they enjoy that service, that that the light they get from kind of taking care of themselves or treating themselves along the way. So that’s a big portion of it from a consumer value prop standpoint. And then for the business owner, of course, the the predictability of those recurring revenues is just incredible. Being able to rely on a certain amount of cash flow coming in every single month, irrespective of what’s going on with the weather, irrespective of what’s going on on the number of weekends in a month, irrespective of what’s going on with holidays, it really builds a more steady approach to your cash flow that allows you to more easily make your plans on how you’re going to pay rent, how you’re going to pay your teams, and it overall just builds the business more quickly.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:34] Now, if there’s any emerging franchise AWS listening to this, is there any advice you can give them on how to kind of position your business as being membership based or membership friendly?

Jeremy Morgan: [00:07:47] Well, I think that it starts with just really making sure that the service that you’re providing is make sense to be in a membership driven approach. And I do think that the vast majority of of retail concepts out there, there is probably a membership angle that can be taken, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a monthly approach. I mean, we everyone pays for Amazon Prime once per year for their subscription. When you go into an element’s massage or a dry bar, you might pay $80 for one service every month. But in other concepts, it may make more sense to have a lower membership fee to access a suite of services as as an example. So I think part of this is constructing. It starts with consumer starting a membership program that makes sense to enhance a consumer value proposition. And if you can do that, you can sell memberships. And if you can sell memberships, then you can build this great flywheel ecosystem for your franchise business owners and help them make more money and be more successful on on on their cash flow.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:59] Now let’s talk a little bit about dry bar. Since taking that over. Now there’s a big international push. Can you talk about that?

Jeremy Morgan: [00:09:09] Absolutely. So Drybar has just been amazing acquisition for us. I mean, first of all, what a crown jewel of a brand in general. I think it’s about a 10 year old brand that really has captured the hearts and minds. It’s a premium beauty brand at a very accessible price point. We are very fortunate to be able to partner with them and bring them into the portfolio more broadly and and really be pushing for a broader franchise growth strategy and across the country and across the world. In the first year that we have owned it, we have sold over 50 franchise licenses, which is about triple what they had ever sold in previous years. And part of that is because of the international push. We just opened in the United Kingdom just in December. We sold a 10 or 12 unit agreement with Harrods. Probably the most well-known prestigious retailer in the United Kingdom agreed to strike a deal with us. It’s the first time they’ve done a franchise deal Drybar is now in, located in their flagship Knightsbridge location, which is just incredibly exciting. They’re selling drybar retail products in their beauty section, but they’re also providing services and really. Using blow outs to the UK. Uk consumer beyond that, Harrods IS has introduced a new retail concept called Beauty and Beauty for the U.S. listeners out there is somewhere between an Ulta Beauty and a Sephora in that general genre, but they also have services that are offered within those locations, and Harrods intention is to put Drybar into each one of those beauty locations that they build over the next several years. There are three of them that are opening here this month in January one in Edinburgh and Scott in Scotland, one in Lakeside in London, one in Milton Keynes, and there’s another couple that are going to open by mid-year. And so by mid-year, we should have six locations up and going in the United Kingdom broadly with plans to get another half dozen or so open over the coming years.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:28] Well, congratulations on that. That’s exciting. Was that the first time that you have ever kind of partnered with a brand like Harrods?

Jeremy Morgan: [00:11:35] It is. So it is a first for the Drybar Drive our concept, and it was the first for first for, well, business in general. Well, this has two locations in Vancouver outside of the US. These 900 locations we have are primarily U.S. domestic. And this is our first foray into Europe and our first time partnering with such a prestigious operator such as Harrods

Lee Kantor: [00:11:59] Now is do you see that as a future growth channel for you to go international with those kind of partnerships with your other brands?

Jeremy Morgan: [00:12:08] Potentially for sure. I think that we’re most when we look for franchise partners in general, we’re always seeking for the type of operators that understand how to how to execute the services we provide really, really well. That’s the most important to us. And you know, and we start with that versus a specific geography. So if an incredible franchise operator were to approach us in Australia, absolutely we would talk to them. If that came in Saudi Arabia, absolutely we would. We would engage in discussion, but they have to be willing to really, really embrace what has made drive our drybar or amazing, amazing lash and really work with us hand in hand on how we introduce these services to a new international consumer. What it means to get blowouts or eyelash extensions or massages is often different in other countries than what it means in the U.S. and we really want to be able to lean on those franchise partners to help educate the consumers on how these brands that we’ve spent so long developing can be brought to life in a new country.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:19] I would imagine that’s really an important component to a solid relationship is to understand culturally how the brand is going to fit in and how the consumer is going to interact with it. It’s probably going to be different than it is in the United States, but you can learn from the United States, so there has to be kind of a give and take from both sides.

Jeremy Morgan: [00:13:39] That’s absolutely right. And I think with with with Drybar in particular, we think that there is just an enormous opportunity to bring the brand globally. But part of what comes to that with with that is really making sure we’re being thoughtful about the different hair types that women have in in different markets. Textured hair has a different approach on how you want to achieve the various looks than than than what we have often in the U.S. And so it’s a approach that we really want to be thoughtful, that we have the right products, we have the right looks that we can do and we can really make sure that everything we’re doing is layering up to this idea of having our guests walk out of there feeling really confident, really happy about how they look and how they feel, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:14:28] So the outcome that your guest desires might be similar, but how you get there might be a little different and you have to kind of be open to listening and learning how what makes those different countries unique. And you might have to communicate a little different. It might be the same thing, but it might be just maybe communicated a little differently.

Jeremy Morgan: [00:14:47] Absolutely right. I’ve spent a lot of time developing brands and launching them in new markets over my career. And what you just said is absolutely just the the cornerstone of success. For any brand that looks to go international, you have to figure out the things that you absolutely have to stay true on for your brand and at the same time, remain flexible on the things that are really going to make it work and come to life in another market. And there’s no predetermined roadmap for what exactly what that looks like for any one brand or any one market that you go into. And I think having an open mind and finding the right franchise. Rumors that can help work with you, arm in arm on that, that you really trust, that really understand those consumers in those markets is really where the where the success lies.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:42] Yeah, and that’s why you’ve got to kind of wait for your pitch because there’s probably a lot of people clamoring to get involved with you, but you’ve got to make sure they’re the ideal fit.

Jeremy Morgan: [00:15:51] You are. You are absolutely right. There is no question if if I wanted to just simply sell Drybar to anyone who wanted to take the license rights, I could probably do that quite quickly. However, we’re really continuing to build the brand for the long term. We think it’s the second or third inning of a multi-decade phenomenon in beauty and wellness. We have really anchored on brands that we think are best in class on the services that they provide, and we’re willing to be very, very patient on finding the right franchisees that are able to bring those brands to life in the markets where where they operate.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:31] Well, congratulations again on this success and thank you so much for sharing your story. If somebody wants to learn more about the opportunities with Drybar and all the brands, can you share a website?

Jeremy Morgan: [00:16:43] Absolutely. So all of our brands broadly, the best entry portal is, well, biz brands. And if you are interested in Drybar specifically, go to drive our franchise. Inc.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:54] Well, Jeremy, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work, and we appreciate you.

Jeremy Morgan: [00:16:59] Thank you so much, Leigh.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:00] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see, y’all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.