Intro: Coming to you live from the Business RadioX studio. It’s Franchise Marketing Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio. And this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have the CEO and founder of Tierra Encantada, Kristen Denzer. Welcome.

Kristen Denzer: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to tell us about Tierra Encantada. How are you serving folks?

Lee Kantor: Absolutely. So we are the leader in Spanish immersion early education. So childcare and preschool. And so we serve kids six weeks through six years of age. And it’s a language immersion program. So kids learn Spanish naturally, just like they’re learning their first language at home.

Lee Kantor: So what was the genesis of the idea? How’d this thing get started?

Lee Kantor: You know, really, I wanted it for my own kids. I had started multiple other companies and running those. I needed childcare, and so when I was looking for childcare, you know, I, I struggled to find something that had all of the things I was looking for. Um, you know, we’re not the first say language immersion. We’re not the first with like a really nice, you know, elevated meal program. But we are the first that kind of combines all of the elements that we have. And when I couldn’t find something, I decided to just create it. And my kids were the first customers.

Lee Kantor: So did you have a background in teaching Spanish? Was that what you were doing previously?

Lee Kantor: No, I’m an entrepreneur. So just serial entrepreneur. I, uh, I leaned on, you know, people I hired to run the program. I mean, the model that we have really is something that does not require a franchisee or me to be there every day. So I never was. I had a director, an experience early education childcare director that ran the day to day operations. I just created the model.

Lee Kantor: But what about the methodology to teach the language was that that just happened by just doing and learning, or did you have a program you were following at least to get started? Or this was just like, let’s just see how this goes.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. You know, so I’m so glad you asked that, because I think that is one of the most common points of confusion is when people learn about us, they think that what we’re doing is we are, you know, sitting down and teaching them Spanish. So what we’re teaching is all of the different content around early learning benchmarks, depending on the age, how the language comes in is that is how the vehicle through which that’s taught. And so if you think about it, if you have kids, you know, when they’re little at home, you’re not teaching them English, you’re just talking to them. You know, you’re talking to your one year old and be like, oh, you have a ball, a blue ball. You know, you’re not teaching them English, you’re just talking to them. That’s how kids in our program learn. And that’s why it’s so effective because they’re learning naturally. So they’re just spoken to only in Spanish all day. And they’re taught our curriculum through that language. And so that is something that’s why it’s so effective is because they’re learning naturally.

Lee Kantor: So in an English home, an English speaking home, the child would come in to your location and it would be they would only be spoken to in Spanish. So they would just kind of have to figure it out, or you would just slowly immerse them into the day to day activities. And just like you would if they were learning English at home.

Lee Kantor: Exactly. Yes. Yeah. And so a lot of our families start their kids when they’re, you know, very young, six weeks, you know, six weeks old. And even though they’re spoken only English, you know, at home and only Spanish with us, we have many infants where their first words are, you know, either Agua or Ola, you know, in Spanish because they are immersed in Spanish all day.

Lee Kantor: So when did you. So you have this concept and you say, okay, this is how we’re going to do it. Was it difficult to get those kind of early adopter people on board to say, all right, this is interesting. I don’t know if we’ve ever done this before. No one, none of my peers are doing it this way. But how was it kind of at the inception?

Lee Kantor: Yeah. You know, I think that, um, I think the biggest challenge for me when I opened here was really about making sure I chose the right location and then how to market it because when families learn about the opportunity, they’re very interested in it because, I mean, there’s not many parents you’d ask, do you want your child to know a second language? And they would say, no, you know, parents want the best for their kids. They want to set them up for success. And so when they know that this is an option, and then especially when they come to tours and they see kids, you know, turning to their parents, talking in English, turning to their teacher, talking in Spanish, they see the value firsthand. And so I would say, you know, it’s not hard to show the value to families. My biggest challenge is when I started was just learning how to market it and how to make sure I pick the right location.

Lee Kantor: And then when you were choosing locations, what were the drivers behind it? What did you learn about what an ideal location is?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, you know, for the first one, I had it in my head for some reason that I needed to find a location that had previously been a child care center, which obviously limited my options. And so I located it in a suburb of the Twin Cities. Um, you know, a little bit further out. And the psychographics demographics especially that we use now are so much more robust. It’s not that that was, I would say, like a bad location. It just took a lot longer to ramp up because, you know, our best customers are families where they, you know, see the value of language learning that, you know, appreciate global food, culinary program, you know, that want, um, their kids to experience, you know, a very like diverse, rich environment. Uh, and we are, you know, more of like a premium program. And so now when we’re looking for sites, we’re looking for, you know, a lot higher density of kids within an area versus some of the more suburban or exurban areas. And we’re looking at some of the psychographics around, you know, for example, shopping at Whole Foods or things like that, where really our best customers come into play, you know, highly educated two family households.

Lee Kantor: And then what is the age range of the children that go through the program?

Lee Kantor: Uh, six weeks through six years. So right up until before kindergarten.

Lee Kantor: And then at the end of the like if they went that whole time, are they so they’re conversationally fluent. I would imagine at that point, but they may not like understand all the grammar and all that kind of the specifics of the language or are they kind of good to go at that point?

Lee Kantor: Yes. No, that’s exactly right. So at the level of that age, so, you know, at the vocabulary of a 4 or 5 year old, they are fluent. And I mean, we’ve had parents leave reviews for us on, say, Yelp and say their child actually translated for them in Central America. And so they are fluent. And then they’ll go to, you know, depending on their district. Um, there are a number of districts where they’ll have language immersion programs where then they can continue it and some areas don’t, and then they try to keep it up through other means with lessons. But there’s options for families depending on where they live.

Lee Kantor: And you mentioned the meals earlier. Are the meals kind of Latin foods or is it, you know, chicken nuggets and spaghetti?

Lee Kantor: No. So that’s actually a huge value proposition. And the second most common reason families choose us. So we have a elevated culinary program that has a global menu. So it’s not just, you know, Latin American food, it’s food from around the world. And for example, like we have seafood on our menu, which you just don’t see in childcare. And so you’ll never see something like corn dogs, pizza, chicken nuggets. It’s, you know, quinoa with avocado. It’s, you know, shrimp, jollof rice, it’s Brazilian whitefish stew. You know, it’s things from around the world that we really get to expose and expand kids palates.

Lee Kantor: Now, what was it like when you like I’m, I’m assuming that you went into this venture with the idea that you were going to franchise and expand through franchising? Is that accurate or did that just happen accidentally later?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, no, that happened accidentally. I didn’t actually, to be honest, I think when I first started this, really understand how franchising worked and it wasn’t even on my radar. Um, I just, I opened the first one and then opened another one and opened another one and, and then started getting approached about franchising. And so that was really how I learned about the model and, and what that might look like. But I definitely didn’t start the brand with the idea that I was going to franchise it.

Lee Kantor: So, but you did started with the idea that you were going to expand it.

Lee Kantor: Uh, I mean, I think that had been an option in my mind, but I think I was just very focused on opening the first one. I didn’t have, like, I would say like a big, you know, master plan of opening so many after so much time, uh, because I had opened other businesses, but they had like one location. And so when I opened the first one and then got it to, you know, finally, like cash flow break even then I was like, oh, you know, this is actually a really great model. I feel really passionate about this. I want to do more. And that was when I really started thinking about like growing it larger, opening multiple locations.

Lee Kantor: And then when you were kind of changing gears from when you’re, when you have one location or even a handful of your, your own locations, you’re building it a certain way. But when you say, okay, I’m going to be a franchisor, your business changes because now the franchisee is your customer, not the family with a child. That’s your franchisees customer. So how did that shift happen? Was it difficult to build the standard operating procedures, all the documentation, all of that and kind of package it so that a person gets kind of that complete playbook business in a box that they’re looking for.

Lee Kantor: Oh, I mean, I think I wouldn’t say it was difficult because I had opened multiple at that point. And so I already had been doing a lot of that because we were opening multiple locations and needed to ensure consistency across those. But what definitely shifted for me was how I looked at that support because, you know, when I had three locations, I didn’t have a corporate office, I didn’t have overhead staff. It was me, you know, and that was easy. But when I decided to franchise, I didn’t I didn’t want it to just be me. I wanted to make sure that, you know, there was really strong support in place. And that was really the trigger for me, starting to build out our corporate office so that I could make sure that as we brought people in, that we had a really strong team to support them and set them up for success.

Lee Kantor: And what were kind of the must haves in your kind of in your vision of this is going to be a well supported, uh, ecosystem?

Lee Kantor: Yeah. Uh, definitely marketing, definitely marketing operations, you know, training, uh, those are big ones. Then also we added someone in kind of like real estate construction design. Uh, our projects are large, they’re complex. And so there’s a lot of nuance with that. Um, but those were the initial positions that I focused on to make sure that, you know, the, the biggest, like kind of barriers or things that can set people back. And so that was what I focused on initially.

Lee Kantor: And what does that kind of ideal franchisee look like? Have you got a good avatar of who the ideal, um, franchisee is?

Lee Kantor: Yeah. You know, we, we have franchisees that have, you know, various different backgrounds. And I think that the, the two different kind of best franchisees that we have are either, you know, a franchisee where, you know, they’re an experienced operator, they’ve franchised other brands, they, you know, know how to just take a playbook, execute on it, uh, and lean into that support. So they’re set up for success. Then the other type that we’ve seen, you know, like that really does well is, uh, when someone has some sort of touch or connection to language immersion and they are really like wanting to be more present to set it up for success and not necessarily be the director, but they’re just a lot more present. I’ll give you a great example of that. The very first franchisee that opened. She was actually a parent. One of one of the two business partners were a parent in our program. They were both bankers and they worked from home but worked out of that center initially. And so they were there. They had a director, you know, but but they were just there making sure like everything went exactly as planned. And so I think that, uh, you know, that like deep passion, desire of involvement is really helpful. But then on the other side, when you have the experienced operator, they’ve already built, you know, a team, a system, they know what that looks like. And so those have been really set up, set up for success with other brands, come into us and know how to execute really seamlessly.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share about one of your franchisees, maybe that, uh, surprised you or is rewarding? Uh, that was able to get one of these things going?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I mean, I think that, I think, for example, um, one of our, our larger sexual franchisee right now, uh, multi-unit franchisee, you know, they came in and they had one unit initially, you know, and opened their first location, learned a lot, learned a lot along the way. You know, had plenty of obstacles, whether licensing, construction, uh, work through that with them. And then within a couple of months after they opened, they signed on to do, you know, dozen more and now they have multiple locations open and they actually hadn’t franchised prior to this. They did have other businesses, but hadn’t franchised. And with them, I think what’s been really great partnership is they’ve known they’ve run businesses, so they bring that angle, but they also bring a lot of just like sense of partnership and trust with us and executing what we’re what we’re recommending. And I think that has really set them up for success is making sure that when they are opening a location, when we’re talking to them about, for example, how important it is to market very early. You know, don’t wait till three months out. I mean, as soon as you have a construction schedule, you know, six, nine, 12 months out, start marketing. They get that. They listen, they do it. And I think that’s really allowed them to excel at what they’re doing now.

Lee Kantor: Um, having run and um, several successful business before this and now running a successful franchise, do you have any advice for the person who is maybe that franchisee that’s on the fence and they’re like, should I pull the trigger on this? And you know, it’s a lot easier to say no to an opportunity. Do you have any kind of advice to help them say yes?

Lee Kantor: Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think for franchising in general, definitely. I mean, there’s, there’s great stats about it. I mean, people that franchise versus kind of starting your own tend to be more successful. But for childcare and for us specifically, What I would say is, you know, in talking to franchisees of other brands, there’s a lot of value adds that people don’t quite realize when they’re thinking about childcare. Uh, there’s, you know, obviously the reoccurring revenue element of it. I mean, our families are paying in advance ahead and it’s reoccurring, but also our average customer is staying three plus years. And when you have, for example, say a QSR franchise, you know, every, say meal period, you might be looking for 150 plus 200 tickets just to just to break even. Whereas with us, once you get 150 kids, you have a waitlist and you might not, you might only have maybe ten spaces, you know, a year. I mean, and so you just, it’s very different and you’re not in that constant marketing cycle that you are with a lot of concepts. Um, the last thing I’ll add is with us specifically, if someone’s looking at all childcare and trying to decide between, say, us and someone else, I would say with us specifically, the value proposition is, is so clear.

Lee Kantor: You know, a lot of times when a franchisee will say is they’ll say, you know, when I was looking at brands, I wanted to feel like I could explain to a parent why they should come to us versus someone else. And with a lot of brands, they, they didn’t feel like they could say that because, you know, the colors might be different, the curriculum, but a lot of families, they don’t understand like what exactly curriculum means. They want there to be curriculum, their kids to learn. And so when there’s a difference in curriculum, they don’t understand that as much. But for a franchisee to be able to say like, hey, your child’s going to be bilingual and they’re going to have this amazing meal program. It’s a very clear and strong value proposition for families when they want to trust someone with their kids.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there any pushback from parents that say, you know, that’s great. They’re going to be immersed in Spanish. They’re going to be fluent if they stay all six years. But do they feel like they’re missing out of kind of the their development in English? And is that an issue at all, or do you include like other kind of. Do you include math and things like that as well? Foundational things as part of the immersion?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, yeah. Because remember, Spanish is just the language the curriculum is taught in. And so the curriculum is, is a full, normal early childhood education curriculum. So math, science, reasoning, all of the elements that are in any curriculum that you would see at any large childcare brand is what we teach. The only difference is it’s taught in the language of Spanish. And so parents haven’t haven’t experienced that concern nor when they’ve left have we gotten that feedback. Uh, and actually being bilingual, it sets kids up for success. I mean, for example, kids that learn a second language at an early age have had higher standardized test scores. And so there’s a lot of value adds of learning a second language, right?

Lee Kantor: So they’re getting everything they would get in an English speaking. And also they’re getting to learn Spanish.

Lee Kantor: Yes, exactly.

Lee Kantor: And then the English speaking stuff probably happens organically just in their home.

Lee Kantor: Exactly. Yeah. Because everywhere else they are, you know, throughout the weekend, the nights everywhere else they are is in English. It’s only in our program. That’s Spanish.

Lee Kantor: Right? So it’s only an add on. There’s no real negative.

Lee Kantor: Yes.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what is the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Lee Kantor: Yeah. Tierra encantada com so T I e r r e n c a n t a d a.com.

Lee Kantor: Well, Kristen, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Lee Kantor: Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.