Brian Cook with StretchMed®

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. You guys are in for a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with StretchMed, Mr. Brian Cook. How are you, man?

Brian Cook: Hey, Stone, great to be here. I’m awesome. How are you doing?

Stone Payton: I am doing well. It is an absolute delight to have you on the broadcast. I got a thousand questions, Brian. I know we’re not going to get to them all, but I think a great place maybe to begin the conversation is if you could paint a little bit of a picture for me and our listeners. Mission, purpose, what are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks?

Brian Cook: Man yeah, yeah. Great question. So Stretch Man’s purpose is to eliminate chronic pain, increase mobility, rejuvenate, help you move well and, you know, laid out just like that but primarily eliminate chronic pain. And before we started stretch med just doing the research, there’s 116 million Americans in chronic pain right now. So that was a pretty, pretty huge problem. And, um, and that’s why we built Stretch Med.

Stone Payton: So how in the world did you find yourself in this line of work? Did you personally experience this pain you knew people that were experiencing? Did you just see a really good business opportunity to to serve? I’m always interested in how people got to where they are.

Brian Cook: Yeah. Good question. So Ben, Ben and Boutique Fitness for a while. Um, you know, for about 30 years now. So, so one on one training studios, um, small group fitness studios and then now stretching studios and saw, you know, heard of the concept back in 2015 out in California kind of happening. And I was in Boston at the time and just kind of waited for it to, to catch, catch fire, I guess, or to really kind of get there then just noticed, um, some competitors opening up locations and then just, you know, looked at my team and said, hey, this is this is in the fitness space. And just remembered back in my days of personal training, I used to, um, I used to personal train and stretch one of the partners of the Boston Red Sox way back in the day and just, um, was like, yeah, it’s in our wheelhouse. So let’s let’s take a run at this stretching concept. And for me, even before Stretch Med, when, um, when I left one of the, one of the brands I was with earlier, this, this 2006, the massage concept was just taken off. And I didn’t think that was going to become a big thing, actually. And I was like, wow. So as I looked at the industry, I said to myself, well, if you think about it, physical therapy has been around forever.

Brian Cook: Then chiropractic hit the scene, right? So physical therapy treats and injury, chiropractic treats a musculoskeletal dysfunction or injury. And then massage therapy hit the scene which is soft tissue work. And now stretch therapy hit the scene which is really moving every joint in your body the way it’s supposed to, the way the joints supposed to move. So there was nothing. Currently doing what stretching does. And the cool thing about stretching? Everyone knows what it is. They know it’s good for you and and they either don’t do it or don’t do enough of it. So it’s a it’s a we have an educated, uh, consumer base when it comes to stretching. If you, if you said cryotherapy, you know, nine, 9% of people are going to say what’s what’s cryotherapy, right? You have to educate the market what it is. You know, why it’s good for you. So stretching was cool. And since we we trained personal trainers essentially, you know, anyone that has a degree or certification in a related field, they you know, that’s kind of the prerequisite. Then we we teach you go through an anatomy course and we teach you our 36 stretches. Then we teach you all the different sequences we have. And then you become a certified stretch therapist. So, you know, plenty of certified fit pros out there looking for another, you know, tool in their tool belt.

Stone Payton: So you have multiple locations. Was that an easy decision? A quick decision, one you already knew you were headed there? Or did you get into this and say, okay, we can replicate this. We’re going to build a whole a whole system around it. What prompted that decision to to multiply?

Brian Cook: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So, uh, one of our other brands, we had gotten to a hundred locations, and I think it was like 26 states at one point. So, yeah, starting fresh, made by by all means was, you know, thousands of locations worldwide. So this this was not started to be just kind of a local concept and what’s, what’s really, really cool we do and this is I think sets us apart from competitors is we like to open and flip. So we we go into markets, we we build stores, we we staff them, we ramp them and then we sell them, and and what ends up happening is it just creates a spark. And that’s how the growth kind of takes off. Where you started in Boston, I think now we have 20 locations there. We just opened a corporate location in, uh, the LA Market in California. We already have it up for sale. We’ve got a couple causes looking to develop the whole Bay Area of California, 15 locations, and, um. Yeah. So. And then once we, you know, we won’t wait until the US is completely saturated, maybe around 2 or 300 locations. We’ll start opening and flipping in Europe and, and Asia and just start start getting, you know, putting stretch metal all over the world.

Stone Payton: So the health and wellness practitioner that believes in this, uh, approach to serving people, what what is it that kind of has them decide, you know what? I’m not going to be stoned. Stretch house. I’m going to I’m going to I’m going to tap into this stretch med outfit. Is there like a moment when the light bulb comes on or a deciding set of factors that say, okay, Stone, you’d be crazy to do that? Or yeah, the best way for you is stretch, man. But yeah.

Brian Cook: Yeah. Good question. That’s always a good question. Because even if you can do it yourself, is it worth it right. Is it worth is it worth it right. And what we the way we approach franchising is franchising. It’s a model. It’s a widget. And the the you want to be able to leverage the widget, you want to scale. And that even if you have one store you don’t want, you don’t want the store to own you. You want to be able to build a stretch MD, develop a team, and then just experience, you know, passive income where, you know, money that that comes in, or at least semi passive income where you’re not grinding out 40 hours a week, 50 hours a week to to make a living. So we really tell our owners, like, we want you to be analysts. We want you to study data. We want to learn the math and the numbers of what’s happening in your studio, and then just develop a manager that the manager develop the studio. So one of my favorite sayings is wealth creation is the direct correlation of your ability to develop people hard stop. And it’s hard to develop people. And that’s why most people either give up on it or they, they, they, you know, because it’s hard. But at the end of the day, that’s the name of the game. So so we want the owners to to develop the manager. The manager develops the system manager, system manager develops the part timers. And that’s the chain of command. Any point in time that the owner starts to have to manage a part timer, it’s a problem. And it’s it’s not fun to manage, you know, minimum wage or $20 an hour part timers when you when you just invested a 150,000 into a into a studio.

Stone Payton: So now that you’ve been at this a while and you clearly have, what are you finding the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about it for you at this point in your career?

Brian Cook: Yeah, I think, um, I love selling franchises. I love helping people get clear on, you know, they’re in corporate America. They’re, you know, they’re grinding out, you know, a great living, great job, but they just haven’t created what what I would call, um, you know, income producing assets. Right. So we really the whole name of the game is let’s, let’s build a business. Let’s let’s scale it. And what’s really fun is just helping people get, get out of the 9 to 5, like, like drop corporate America. Maybe maybe a job that just really not fulfilling. It’s not doesn’t have a strong purpose behind it. But but it makes money. And here you know, when you the first time a client comes up to you like I remember one time vividly, the very first city we opened, you know, someone I used to go in every week and get a stretcher in and back to one of your earlier questions like, I’m, I’m a customer, so I’m a former hockey player. Crossfitter. 53 years old. So I’m customer number one. I was in the first studio and I really built this for like what? What I want, what I like, and I’m like, well, if I like, I’m sure other people would like it.

Brian Cook: And sure enough, that’s what happened. But I remember a lady waited around for me, heard I was coming in the studio and then just, just, just had to thank me up and down because of what impact the stretching out in our life. Another guy that was interested in buying this particular studio, the first studio we had, we just said, said to me that, you know, Brian, I’ve been I’ve had back pain for ten years. I thought it was just you. It was just normal to sit sideways in a in a meeting at work. And then it’s the first time he hadn’t been in pain. So really cool when you when you go to work every day and you’re making a huge impact. Um, and more recently we’ve made the concept way more affordable. So we’ve got the price down to $80 a month for four, 25 minute stretches, as opposed it was 3 to $400 a month before. And what’s happened getting to a price point now we have, you know, Amazon drivers coming in, people that would never afford this, this kind of service can now afford it. And that’s what’s really cool. Now, it’s not just for the wealthy, it’s for everyone.

Stone Payton: Well, I got to believe I know there is in our business of business oriented media and podcasting or digital radio, there are these some a set of pretty common mistakes, misconceptions, myths. I got to believe there are also things that you run across all the time, uh, in, in the franchising world, in the expansion world, myths, mistakes, misconceptions. And I wonder if we might attack 1 or 2 of those or debunk them.

Brian Cook: Yeah. I think, um, I think a lot of people think they know what franchising is, but I don’t think they really do, because every time I every time I talk to someone and like, oh, you can’t do this, you can’t do that, I’m like, well, actually you can. Um, so it’s kind of cool, like franchising. It’s it’s really cool. I mean, there’s some regulation. There’s, there’s, there’s, you know, unfortunately there’s some charlatans out there like that. Some, some. Lawyer charlatans that we gotta deal with from time to time. But for the most part. It’s great because you’re able to, you know, create this, this brand, this product, this system, and all you need to franchise is really you need you need an operations manual, or you need a brand, you need an operations manual. And then you need to support. You need support. Because when you’re going to take someone’s life savings, you better be able to support them. And um, that’s it. Three things. And so so it’s really, really not hard. And then the other thing is that some people think, if, you know, if you buy a franchise, you’re not, you know, entrepreneurial. And I would say, well, that’s not the case because we’ve got people like I was mentioning a couple cousins looking to develop 15 units in one market. And then they want to develop they want to do the same thing for the other three brands that were launching. That’s pretty hospital to me. But they want to they want to one. They want to do the modeling. They want to really get clear on the numbers, and then they want to scale. So you don’t have to create the concept from scratch for it to be, you know, to be considered an entrepreneur. You just to me, I think you just want to have this insatiable desire to grow.

Stone Payton: You may have already answered this question when you described your your open and flip approach to launching a new market, but I am curious about how the whole sales and marketing thing works for a stretch, and I’m interested at the consumer level, but I’m also interested at how do you find that next couple, or that that man or woman who really ought to have one in their community?

Brian Cook: Yeah. Good. Good question. So, so really we opened the first location. Um, and then. Funny one of actually, before the first location opened, one of my one of our fitness franchise owners heard they were developing a stretching concept, so we sent her one of the stretching routines to just test out on her her fitness customers. And then she she started stretching. It’s a women’s only fitness, started stretching the ladies. And then the husband started coming in. And then she’s like, wants to meet you for coffee. I meet her at a Cafe Nero. She says, Brian, I want to buy a franchise. And I was like, oh, we we don’t have a franchise yet. She’s like, well, I want to buy a franchise. So I’m like, all right, give me, give me a minute. So when we opened the first location in Wellesley, she was only like, let’s see, open November. She opened in January, so she’s only two months behind us. So her and I would often meet on Sundays and Starbucks or in the cafe, rather to just run the play. Like, here’s what we did this week because she was so early, we inhabit. We didn’t even have our first proof of concept model off the really off the ground yet. But it worked out. It worked out great. And one of the customers that came in, one of the very first customers that came in to our very first location, bought three franchises.

Stone Payton: Oh, wow.

Brian Cook: So that’s kind of the key. It’s that that open and flip is the fastest way to and I’ve done it three, you know three different brands now or four different brands. And I’ve done this exact method, open and flip. And every one of them grew that way. And for some reason the, the three, the number three, once you get the three locations, it just starts to resonate with people. And. Yeah. And then couple couple portals. We haven’t. We’ve had zero luck with brokers, so we’ve we will not work with a broker network ever again. Just had some bad experiences and again some you know, I’m sure there’s some great ones out there. But we had a couple charlatans that just, you know, and it’s just the most un like. And I personally am taking these despicable calls. Let me tell you, I’m personally, you know, running the calls with these potential buyers and they’re not interested. They’re checked out. We’ll set up a call with an owner. They they ghost the owner. It’s just I’m like, no. And what I like about the portals is when someone finds us, they’re looking for. They’re looking for that brand.

Brian Cook: They’re not looking for, like, 20 different things. They don’t really care which one they do. And again, many are probably great, but I just don’t like the idea of a broker flipping a lead. Zero work, zero understanding anything about business development whatsoever. And then we do all the work to close it, then hand them 20 grand. I’m like, nah, I’d rather not even get the lead in the first place. So. And to me, I think it’s really important. You know, hearing brands struggle and everyone get upside down with money. Like we grow on Mars and we don’t grow, so we’re either growing profitably or we just don’t grow. And that’s kind of one of the reasons if the if the get a unit from a broker is just so much work, we just it’s just not worth it to us because because so much of the work in franchising, as you know, is the front end. It’s it’s helping that franchisee go from like, you know, getting on board to opening. And then the royalty stream is not significant for, you know, a length of time. So that initial fee is is huge.

Stone Payton: Yeah. Well, I mean, you’ve clearly earned a great deal of your wisdom through your own scar tissue. But but did you have the benefit of, of one or more mentors somewhere along the path that kind of helped you navigate the, the terrain?

Brian Cook: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So so for me, I’ll tell you quickly my little roadmap. So I opened a one on one studio when I was 23 years old with $3,500 in cash from my dad and maybe about 10,000 in credit. So just shoestring, shoestring, you know, postdated checks people, people younger than, uh, 40. Probably people younger than 50, I don’t know. I’ve heard of the term postdated check. That was before credit. That was before credit cards. So that was crazy. And then I did that for five years. You know, I did the did the, you know, 80 to 100 hours a week, you know, for five years, not one year like five straight years. And then I, um, you know, I went from one location, went to two, went to three, blew up, had to sell one, closed one the back to my original store. Two years later, I found a one on one franchise brand. Um, I joined that brand as I bought the rights to Massachusetts. Uh, and at the time, my unit was generating more revenue than than I think all of the franchise units, they had 15 or 20 stores. And my unit in Boston was we were just charging a lot more money than they were charging. And then when but this this particular franchisor had ten years more experience than me. He had fiscal discipline. He knew the franchise model. He was kind of like me in a way, like had to know and do everything in order to do it. So working for him for five years. So then Massachusetts, I was able to sell 60 franchises. I got 40 open, and then I sold my my license for my I sold my license and two studios for 1.2 million. So I got on board with ten grand and I exited with one, 1.2 million. And then I use that money to start my own brand small group fitness model. So that that first experience for five years with that brand, if I had left with $0, it would have been worth it because I learned how to be a mini franchise all within within another brand. That was awesome.

Stone Payton: Yeah, it certainly sounds like it. I’m glad I asked. So, uh, sitting on the other side of the table, let’s speak to the potential franchisee for a moment, because I, I can tell you from my personal experience, I don’t even know what questions to ask if I were entertaining buying any franchise. But let’s say I got really excited about this whole stretch med concept. Like I don’t what? Red flags, yellow flags, things to look for, things to do not do. Let’s give them some tips.

Brian Cook: Yeah, it’s a good it’s a good thing. So to me it’s all knowing the numbers right. You really got to know the numbers up front. So our latest PhD we surveyed our owners and the average cash. So the big metrics we focus on is is return on cash return on time. So the average cash out of pocket to open a stretch net was 45,000. And virtually everyone gets an SBA loan for roughly 150 200,000. But their cash out of pocket was 45. Then we asked profit. Profit was 81,000. Average profit. Then we asked time and they said the average time spent per week was six hours. So 45,000 in cash, 81,000 in profit, six hours a week in time. So that would be the drill down on the franchise model you’re looking at. And the other thing that I recently learned, and I think we’re we’re kind of rare. We don’t get any kickbacks on anything. And I and as I look at it, I used to not look for that. Now as I look at other brand FDS, I’m like, oh, this brand pulled in 20 million from, you know, from the build out, from the the tables, the build out like whatever goes on. So we make zero. So we just we make the initial franchise fee 6% royalty. And then the cost of the build out, everything else that goes into opening the studio. We just we just drive the cost of that down and pass that savings off to the franchisee. So I think it’s knowing the true cost of opening and then really knowing the number. Like what the what the break even point is going to be. And and before we aired, I was sharing with you like what I’m really excited about is we we we we just, you know, as I said earlier, we flipped the model five months ago to lower price, seeing incredible growth.

Brian Cook: But more importantly, we’re now clear on our our customer acquisition cost and lifetime value. And we know those two things. You then can understand what you should spend a mark in. And you look at return on ad spend. So and then it’s just because if you’re if you know your lifetime, you know your numbers and you’re going to put $2,000 in a marketing, and if if 8000 is going to come back right, then you just kind of keep feeding that marketing machine because you’re you’re getting the ROI. And what we’re going to experiment with is how much money, you know, can we can we triple our marketing budget and then shorten, you know, obviously ramp up much faster than than we currently do? Um, but first it’s knowing, knowing, knowing your numbers like, like nuts. And we have about 15 different data points that we measure and everything from attrition. Intro book show closed. Um, we’ve got virtual assistants. The Philippines I was mentioning. So we plug, uh, full time virtual assistants into each of the franchise locations. Do we follow up so no one likes the follow up. But when you when you hire a virtual assistant and they’re getting paid, it might be $5 an hour all in, but we bonus them actually on how many intros get booked. So their incentive is aligned with like making sure that our franchise owners are getting, uh, you know, free entries are showing up.

Stone Payton: I don’t know when or how you would find the time, but I’m going to ask anyway about passions, interests, pursuits, hobbies outside the scope of this work and what we’ve been talking about. My listeners know that I like to hunt, fish, and travel. Anything that you nerd out about other than franchising and stretch met.

Brian Cook: Yeah. Well, you know, um, boating is a big passion of mine. I absolutely love boating. And, you know, I’ve. I have a sport fishing boat. And, like, waking up in a in a Marina and a boat meet is amazing, you know, love that. Yeah, love, uh, you know, golfing, boating, not a big. You know, it’s funny. Not a big fisherman like I, you know, I take people up fishing after we catch a few. I’m like, all right, like like I’m. I’m like, I’m done. But so I just. Yeah, it’s kind of funny. Don’t didn’t, don’t really love fishing. Um, but love being on the water. I love paddleboarding, I grew up water skiing, all that kind of stuff. Really cool. And. Yeah. It just, um, you know, love playing, you know, love hockey. Not much of a, like, not much watching sports, but very much love to play sports.

Stone Payton: I think I read that in your bio. That might have been where you first learned to endure a little pain and then fix it. Was playing hockey, huh?

Brian Cook: Yeah. Yeah, definitely the best game. The best game there is, man. You just. Yeah, it’s it’s awesome.

Stone Payton: All right, man, what’s the best way for our listeners to learn more, tap into your work, maybe explore the opportunity with Stretch Med or one of these other brands that you have developed. Whatever you feel like is appropriate. Website LinkedIn. Let’s let’s leave them some. Probably.

Brian Cook: Yeah, probably LinkedIn I think. Yeah. My LinkedIn is Brian Arc1 and um, that’s probably good. It’s probably the only social media I was the last person, I think, in the US to get a Facebook account in Philly, and it’s only used for like you have to have one from marketing. So, you know, I don’t really go on it. Um, I have to see it occasionally to get through my marketing account, but but yeah, that and then stretch med studios. Com you’ll see that that’s the latest brand. But yeah, LinkedIn and there’s a bunch of things we’re going to do. And as I was sharing with you, like I’m my my next, my next venture is going to be to help entrepreneurs franchise their concepts and to create, you know, just create this ecosystem of franchise wars and provide the back office support because it’s really fun. Like, I really like the initial, like branding, financial modeling, proof of concept and then getting it to, you know, one 1050, 100 and then it’s like, bring the CEO in, bring up, bring a different team in. And I want to go back and create another one. Keep going over and over again.

Stone Payton: I love that idea, and I hope you’ll consider joining us again when you get that thing off the ground and diving into that. We want to we want to keep up with your story and learn about that as well.

Brian Cook: You got it, man. Definitely.

Stone Payton: Well, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the broadcast, Brian. Thank you for your insight, your perspective. It’s an invigorating conversation, inspiring for me personally. I’m sure for our listeners, you’re doing really important work, man, and we we sure appreciate you.

Brian Cook: Thanks, Don. Uh, thanks for having me.

Stone Payton: My pleasure. Alright, until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Brian Cook with Stretch Med and everyone here at the Business Radio X family saying, we’ll see you in the fast lane.