S3 Ep5: How Brittany Driscoll Built a Massage Empire and Disrupted the Industry
Brittany Driscoll is a marketing exec turned entrepreneur.
After getting a taste of working in a fast-growing franchise, she knew she wanted in. Find out how she built her own franchise.
The Wolf and Brittany talk about her experience working at the beauty franchise Drybar, which has more than 200 locations nationwide. Brittany shares how she and the Drybar founders built Squeeze Massage together and how this franchise is disrupting the industry with its innovative approach, providing a premium experience at an affordable rate and integrating tech through their end-to-end platform.
If you’ve enjoyed listening to Franchise Empires, I’d be so grateful if you could drop me a 5-star review on Rate My Podcast. Thank you so much!
Follow Brittany:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/britdrisc
Check out The Wolf’s newsletter
Stay up-to-date on all things Franchise Empires by following The Wolf on Twitter: https://twitter.com/franchisewolf
Episode Transcription
Brittany Driscoll:
You’ve got to understand your why and the reason and the vision that you’re starting, aside from just whatever it is that you’re selling, the selling should be, or the product itself. The tangible piece of it should just be supporting that larger initiative.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Welcome to Franchise Empires, where aspiring entrepreneurs learn exactly what it takes to become a successful franchise owner from one location to 10 and beyond. I’m the wolf of franchises. Hey everyone, it’s The Wolf. Today on the show we have Britney Driscal. Britney was a marketing executive for Dry Bar, a brand that got acquired for 250 million plus. She’s now launched Squeeze Massage Therapy with the founders of Drybar and has taken all their learning from that successful system and are applying it to this new franchise. I think you’re going to learn a lot from this conversation. Enjoy it.
Narrator:
The Wolf of Franchises is the CEO of Wolf Pack Franchising as well as a creator at Workweek Media. All opinions expressed by the Wolf and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Pack franchising or workweek. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. The Wolf Workweek and Wolf Pack franchising may maintain positions in the franchises discussed on this podcast.
The Wolf of Franchises:
This is awesome that you’re on the show. I’d love to kind of hear before we get to Squeeze, just how in a nutshell, your journey to founding this franchise started.
Brittany Driscoll:
Yeah, it’s honestly super wild because I didn’t have entrepreneurship really in my blood and my family. I guess going far enough back, I studied communications in college, which I like to joke is the major you choose when you don’t know what you want to do, <laugh>, you just know you don’t want to take any more math classes or as few as possible. But I got an amazing internship my junior year of college and I got a chance to jump into marketing. It was experiential marketing at the time, so we were creating events and scaling them across the country, and I just really fell in love with building brand experiences and connecting with people in meaningful ways and having a lot of fun along the way. And so the first decade of my career was focused in marketing and advertising, and I got a chance to work with brands like Disney, Coca-Cola, Hilton Mattel was a client of mine for years and years.
I actually worked on Barbie and Hot Wheels for several years, so really got to get a sense of what it takes to really build a great brand and disruptive experiences and really powerful messages. And then Drive Bar came on the scene, this was back in 2013, and I just fell in love with it from a consumer standpoint, and they were looking for ahead of marketing. So I decided to take all my experience in working with these world class brands and bring it to what was a relative startup at the time. And I was with Driver for four years. So 2013 to 2017 helped take the company from 30 million to over a hundred million, launched over 60 doors, several franchisees as well as the product line into all the prestige retailers that it exists in today and international expansion. And the driver founders always had this other idea for massage. They just didn’t have the band bandwidths to get it off the ground. And I was itching for a new challenge, so the Stars kind of aligned.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Amazing. Okay. Wow. A lot to dive into there. So, all right, so Drybar, that was the Shark Tank brand. What’s the founder’s name again? Is there one or two?
Brittany Driscoll:
So Allie was actually a shark on Drybar. That’s it, yeah. Yes. But Dry Bar was launched in 2010, and the insight behind Drybar was there were two, there’s a hole in the middle, which is kind of how we see Squeeze. Also, on one side there was discount chains on other ends, there were high-end salons and nothing was really catering to creating a great blowout and just really focusing on S styling, which Allie was a hairstylist and naturally curly haired girl and really looking in search for the perfect blowout. So that’s really how Drybar came to be. Funny enough, they opened their first location on San Victi and Brentwood, and she thought that would be her one little shop, and she’d be able to manage it and pick up her kids from school. And then of course, Drybar now has 150 locations around the country, 200 million business. So yeah, the time that I was there, it was right of a lifetime. I mean really, truly. Yeah.
The Wolf of Franchises:
That’s great timing. You really got on a rocket ship there. I’m sure there’s a lot of experience there that has, that you’ve taken to now apply to Squeeze, which you founded. But yeah, just can you talk about what was it like mean going from, you said you launched 60 locations in the time you were there, 30 million to a hundred million in revenue. I mean, was there ever a point where you guys felt like you were going too fast and that you wouldn’t be able to sustain it or support it?
Brittany Driscoll:
I think we were really fortunate that we actually had a lot of investment and backing behind us at that time. And so when I came on board, really the entire executive team was built out. So we had Danielle Bruno, who ran retail, who came from Apple. She actually worked with Steve Jobs and she had previously been, yeah, she opened the first Apple stores with him, previously been at Pete’s. Kim Naali who ran product, had an incredible background, actually helped to launch Shelac Nails, which most women would know, and really disruptors and their own rights in a lot of ways. And then John Hefner was the c e o. And so I, and then we brought in a C I O and A C F O. And so it was really kind of the point in time where we had a lot of strong leadership and people who really understood the vision and were committed to building out teams and processes and systems who really get it on the rocketship.
So there’s certainly never a dull moment when you’re opening a shop, what felt like a week. It probably wasn’t that much at that time, but it was a lot of fun. And I always go back to this idea that if there’s a really big vision and the right people and the right positions that are committed to it, really anything is possible. And that was truly the case at Dry Bar. I mean, we all kind of just bled Buttercup yellow. And the other thing too that I will say, and this kind of dovetails into Squeeze too, you at Dry Bar, we always used to say that we weren’t selling blowouts, we were selling the happiness and confidence that came with the blowout because when you look good, you feel good, and when you feel good, you can take on the world. So I think we all took a lot of pride in being part of women’s lives in really meaningful ways, and we’re really just committed to disrupting the space.
The Wolf of Franchises:
No, I love that, especially what you said about, I think a lot of businesses focus a lot on their product or service specifically, but not necessarily the value add that a customer gets from it. And I spend a lot of time on Twitter, and there’s this, it’s almost a cliche on Twitter at this point, but everyone likes to say Nike is selling the vision that anyone can be an athlete. Shopify is selling the vision that anyone can be a direct-to-consumer entrepreneur. And there’s like a few other marquee examples, but I like the way that it kind of sounds like that’s what you were doing at Dry Bar too.
Brittany Driscoll:
That’s right. I mean, that actually reminds me, Seth Godin is one of my favorite marketers and business minds of today, and he has this great quote that says, people do not buy goods and services. They buy relations stories and magic. And I do really believe that to build a great brand and a sustainable business, you’ve got to understand your why and the reason and the vision that you’re starting, aside from just whatever it is that you’re selling, the selling should be, or the product itself, the tangible piece of it should just be supporting that larger initiative. Because quite frankly too, I mean we’re in the service industry, both Dry Bar was in the service industry, squeezes in the service industry. So we’ve selling people’s time. At the end of the day, we need people to rally around really a bigger idea, and they want to feel like they’re part of something bigger.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Definitely. And so I guess diving into Squeeze now, you said you ended your time at Dry Bar around 2017. So what was that transition like? Did you raise money to Launch Squeeze, or
Brittany Driscoll:
We did. So I was itching for a new challenge. I honestly didn’t know what I wanted to do, but Michael and Ali, who are the founders of Dry Bar had always really talked about wanting to do something in the massage space because similarly, we viewed the landscape discount chains on one end, which I always like to say to their credit, made massage accessible to the masses. On the flip side, you had high-end hotels and spas, really nothing that brought in that luxury experience at an affordable price point, which we did quite well at Dry Bar. And we had the architectural minds and the creative minds to really do that and create a disruptive brand in the space. But beyond that, there was just the headache and the frustration of the current experience, which was things like having to call individual locations, having to remember if you liked a certain therapist, having to keep track of all your personalized preferences so that you’re making sure you’re actually communicating them down to the massages done.
You’re in a relaxed state of mind and you’re having to wait in a clunky checkout line. People are trying to upsell you on things. They’re asking you about tipping. So it’s the whole point of why you went is kind of lost in that moment. And so that’s really what Squeeze is, is just trying to solve for those pain points and the experience. We’ve built out an end-to-end platform that enables our guests to do everything from booking appointments, set all those personalized preferences down to once you’re done, you literally float out. You rate tip and review at your leisure on your phone. We like to say guest walk in and float out. So I mean, they really had the idea. I loved it. I was an avid massage goer, really felt like it was a big opportunity to take this idea and make it into something really special.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Well, I love the tipping aspect, just especially because I remember the first time I got a massage I didn’t, wasn’t aware of how do I tip? Do I leave it on the table? Do I hand it to ’em? Do I give it to the front desk and they handle it? But then is the masseuse going to actually get the full cut? So yeah, it sounds like you’ve integrated a lot of technology to the whole suite of the offering.
Brittany Driscoll:
And to that point too, there’s other elements of the business that are beneficial not only for the guests but the therapists, the tipping. As an example, our therapists see higher tips at Squeeze because we’re able to create those selections for people that we all know what the Uber and Postmates experience is. It’s easier to tap than to click in and put a specific number. But there’s also other things like we have a ready button on the table. So you as the guest, when you’re on the table ready for the therapist to reenter, you just hit a button, light turns on outside of the door, therapist knows to reenter. So it’s not that hurry up in wait scenario, you don’t feel like you’re wasting time if you will, but you also don’t feel rushed. It’s great for the therapists, as you can imagine. They’ve had a lot of awkward experiences in their careers.
We also have six different music playlists that you can choose from everything from the traditional zen to waves to island music. We have holiday playlists during that season. So really just trying to cater to a very personalized experience and one that’s really thoughtful. I think that’s the other thing about Dry Bar. Dry Bar was so thoughtful in every moment of the guest experience. And I always like to think that it’s one of those things that if those things didn’t exist, you wouldn’t know any different. But because they do, it’s like, wow, someone actually took the time to really think about how I would feel in this moment and how my comfort really matters. And so we’ve tried to do that in every point of the Squeeze experience.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, that’s fascinating. And I want to talk about, because I haven’t been to that many, I haven’t gotten that many massages in my life, though I did play soccer with through college, so maybe it would’ve been beneficial.
Brittany Driscoll:
Yes, you need to incorporate that into your wellness routine. I
The Wolf of Franchises:
Know it’s good for the blood flow and recovery and all that, all the
Brittany Driscoll:
Things. Yeah.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yes. But you talk about kind of dry bar and Squeeze both filled this hole in the middle of I guess what the market’s currently offering. So when it comes to massage franchises, I’m pretty sure Massage MB was kind of the first one to really blow it all open. And then you got places like Elements, there’s a really a decent amount you got between Massage Envy Elements, pulling up a list here hand in Stone is another one. Do you view those as more of the discount chains that made it accessible? And obviously then there’s like the premium mom and pop probably individual offerings.
Brittany Driscoll:
Yeah, definitely. And I do like to cite, to their credit, they made massage a regular routine experience for Americans. But I think I like to think about Squeeze what Uber did for transportation, what Postmates did for food delivery, what Airbnb did for hospitality. We’re taking an ingrained experience and we are, we’re meeting consumers where they want to be today. We’re really truly making it catered to their experience. But I would say beyond just that, there’s so many learnings that we got to take from Driver. We use the same creative team, the same architect. We’ve built out operational processes and protocols. Our technology is all based on hindsight, which again is very much to the benefit of our operating partners and just the system on the whole. But I would say the core differentiation, I believe for Squeeze, it’s actually what got me the most excited to start the company is our people and how we treat our people, how we build our culture.
I realized in doing so, I did actually quite a bit of research in the space before I jumped in with Michael and Ali because starting something from scratch wasn’t necessarily what I was thinking I was going to do, but the more I looked into it, I realized Demand for massage is relatively endless. We all need it. There’s enough bodies to go around for all the companies that you just mentioned, but really I felt like there was a piece missing in the industry, and that was a focus on the therapist and their experience. And so we did a ton of research on the therapist experience as it exists today and incorporated a lot of what their pain points were into our employee experience. The same way that we incorporated what our guest pain points were into how we created the guest experience at Squeeze. And that goes back to, I mentioned some of them already, the ability for us to dictate the tipping experience for guest all the way, the Ready Light I mentioned as well, but I mean take it higher up, it’s like compensation.
We’re competitive from that standpoint. We offer health benefits, flexible schedules, free massages for our therapists, but also a truly transparent and communicative culture. We really do have platforms and ways for the team to provide direct feedback to us on a regular basis. They feel connected to management, which I feel like is a core component that’s often missing in retail in general. People are going in, they’re the front lines and they don’t feel like they have that access. So there’s really a lot that we’ve done to focus on that side of the business. It’s the thing I’m most proud of, the thing I’m most excited about as we scale. So
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, I love that. It sounds like not only that you guys have focused on the external customer experience, but also I call internal customer experience what you’re doing for your employees. So that’s great to hear. So when you started this, you guys obviously had all this experience from Dry Bar, you know what, I guess how far out was your planning? Meaning did you start it with, okay, we’re going to found it this year by two years from there, we’re going to start franchising and by X year we’re going to get to this many units? What did that kind of roadmap look like for you?
Brittany Driscoll:
Yeah, it’s interesting when I look back on it, and we kind of knew it in the time, but it was just one of those things you’re like in it and going, we were really launching a brick and mortar experience and a technology business at the same time. So it was a wild ride and took us about 18 months from concept to launch. So we started in late 2017. We opened our flagship door in March of 2019, and during that time, we really evaluated what direction we wanted to go to scale. Dry Bar at the time when I left was about 70% corporate owned. And there were a lot of learnings that we took from that in wanting to franchise. I mean, ultimately at the end of the day operate, we call our franchisees operating partners. Again, kind of going back to this bigger mission of really connecting with people, truly going into it as a partnership, wanting to make sure they feel supported across the board and also empowered, but it was things like operating partners just managed their business better.
They had skin in the game, they were more connected to their teams, they knew their communities better, even down to real estate. It’s like they knew what side of the street was better to have a location in. Whereas again, at Drybar, as we started scaling and we’re moving on to location number a hundred, it was like, well, we don’t necessarily know the intricacies of communities. So there’s a lot of reasons that we chose to franchise. But I would say that during the building that 18 month period, we really evaluated which direction we wanted to go. And I’ll tell you, I mean, it was so much about what we learned at Dry Bar, but it was also for me, there’s two things. One, I actually had a great piece of advice someone shared with me early on, they basically said, if you want to run an HR and operations heavy business, open corporate own doors if you want to run a sales and marketing business franchise.
And for me, my experience was in marketing, my experiences in people, my experiences in building great brands and experiences. And so that was a key piece of advice that really made me realize like, oh, we should go in this direction. And then the other was also, this is my first entrepreneurial experience. I really loved the idea of giving other people the chance to experience building a brand like this and creating this experience in their communities. It’s really truly such a special thing. I always like to talk about Squeeze in that on one side, our guests that come to us, it’s the best hour to hour and a half of their day that they’re choosing to spend with us. You think about the chaos and everything else that is going on in people’s lives hour to hour and a half that they’re with us. It’s like this is their reprieve, this is their happy, they’re safe, they’re quiet, they’re enjoyable space. And then on the flip side, you have massage therapists who have literally gone to school to help and heal people. They have dedicated their lives to truly improving others. And so you combine those two things together and just the space feels magical. The energy that exists around it is truly really special. So for me, I was like, well, I would love to give more people the chance to have this opportunity.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Definitely. No, I mean, that’s in a nutshell, I think why franchising is great, and it can be such a powerful model when it’s used in the right way in that you’re talking about because yeah. Yeah. I mean, the best franchises are wealth creators for their franchisees at the end of the day. And also experience positive experience creators too.
Brittany Driscoll:
Well that and community builders too, right? Because it’s the ability to build a business with a group of like-minded people that are doing it around the country and having learnings and challenges, and you’re doing it all together. I mean, I can even say for myself, as we were building Squeeze, I was like, man, I would love to talk to someone who’s doing this. And I mean, I thankfully had a really great network because of Drybar, but I just love the idea that for our operating partners, they’ve got each other too. They can bounce ideas off. They can help our system be better. That’s the other thing too, that I talk a lot with our operating partners through the discovery process is we have built, we’re, while we are an emerging brand, we’ve built an established system. I think that we are set up very well to support our operating partner success, but we’re open to feedback. We want to know what’s working and what’s not an ideas, and just ways to, again, collectively help each other.
The Wolf of Franchises:
And you know, said something that’s interesting, which is maybe a little counterintuitive to what some people think, which is that going the franchising route is actually a little bit more risky in terms of things like quality control. But I feel like you were saying based on your experience with Drybar being predominantly corporate owned, that there’s actually a positive element to franchising where they enforce standards maybe higher because of the skin, the fact that they have skin in the game.
Brittany Driscoll:
Exactly. I mean, it’s not even comparable to say that you’re hiring a manager for however much a year depending on where you are in the country compared to someone who’s investing hundreds of thousands of dollars into their business. Absolutely. And I think people take such great pride in these types of businesses too. They really are serving the community. They’re also a part of a great brand. So yeah, there’re certainly a lot of those takeaways that we took with us.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, no, it’s interesting. It’s a common thing I hear too, and there’s some big brands out there, especially in the food space that they refuse to franchise because they’re like, oh no, we need to make sure our stores perform well and have the standards that we want. I mean, you’re dead. If someone puts hundreds of thousands of dollars into a business and they have someone who’s saying this is the playbook that is going to help you succeed the most, they have no incentive to deviate from it as long as you’re picking the right partner and someone who has the right personality to follow the directions.
Brittany Driscoll:
Yep, exactly. Yeah, and I think that that is one of the core pieces of franchising too, that we really did have to challenge ourself with the Dry Bar experience is in order to be a successful franchisor, you really do have to have systems locked down processes down to the nth degree and the detail behind it, I mean, our operations manual is 475 pages long at Squeeze and growing. We have a full digital learning management system that we’ve built out to support our operating partners, and that is because we want them to be successful. But franchising ultimately doesn’t work if you don’t have the paint by number, step-by-step, which sometimes can be very difficult for organizations at scale to implement. So that’s why we chose to be very focused and solely go franchising at Squeeze.
The Wolf of Franchises:
And I mean, zooming out here a little bit, forget the industry, just if someone’s intending on founding a business that they’re going to franchise, what advice would you have? Because I think a common thing I see is a brand that a business owner who maybe they have a food, some restaurant or a gym or whatever the business is from day one, they want to franchise it, but they go too quickly before they have things figured out. So is there a certain point at which you know would say you need to hit X, Y, Z KPIs before you should really franchise your business?
Brittany Driscoll:
Yeah, I think there’s a few things. One is you definitely need to have a proven concept and model. And by that you need to demonstrate that you can build a profitable business and one that is attractive to people with all of the franchise fees that are accounted for within whatever it is that you’re doing. So that’s one, it’s give yourself enough time to prove out the model. For us, we chose to open one location in franchise because the massage industry is so established, but if you’re doing something newer or not as well known, then it might take a few iterations of whether it’s a brick and mortar or whatever service that you’re building to really prove that out. So that’s one thing. The other, again, just going back to the idea of franchise being a business in a box, if it’s not easily transferred, if knowledge isn’t easily transferred, if it’s not easily replicated by someone else, then you probably don’t have a business that can be franchised.
If you as the founder or your core team is the secret sauce, and there’s no way that someone else can do what you guys are doing, that’s probably not a franchisable business. Because really it comes down to, and this is what we challenge challenged ourself with too, at Squeeze every decision that we made. We had operating partner number 489 in mind. If someone in Oklahoma can’t do this as well as we’re doing it here, or it’s not going to make sense, et cetera, then we challenged ourselves to do it better. So I think that honestly is the biggest piece to understanding if your business is good for franchising or not. And so it’s really kind of poking holes at that. And then of course, from a very high level, it’s get a good lawyer, get a good accountant. You got to have the F D D. You certainly need to also understand what the total investment is for someone, you know, want to set these people up for success. And to your point, it’s like, don’t go too quickly. You definitely want to have a few great proofs of concepts and validators in the system
The Wolf of Franchises:
For sure. Exactly. Yeah, I think that’s definitely a big nuance and maybe something people don’t realize, which is it’s actually in your best interest to go a little slow at the beginning because if you do go too fast and then you have franchisees that aren’t performing well, now all of a sudden you have people in the system that aren’t necessarily going to be selling the concept for prospective buyers.
Brittany Driscoll:
And actually one other thing I just thought of going back to our initial topic in conversation is really make sure you understand the type of people that you want to be representing your brand and your product. Because franchising is a marriage, it’s a 10 year, hopefully more relationship, and you really want to understand, again, what you’re selling beyond the actual product. What is the vision for the company? What are people really buying into in this community? And then do those people align with your values and really hold true to that? I think that that is such a misstep in franchising too, is just kind of taking a check if someone can sign one and give it to you, especially in the beginning when you’re building and you’re kind of trying to get momentum. But I’m really such a believer that if you’ve got the long game in mind, you got to hold to that in the beginning. And sometimes that can be really hard.
The Wolf of Franchises:
It could definitely be tough. I get both sides of it, but I fully agree with you just selling a franchise to anyone who can write a check. The first few are the hardest, right? Cause there is no, a big part of the value out of a franchise as we’ve been talking about, is that there’s a proven playbook, but at the beginning, right, it’s like, okay, you have a few corporate locations, why should I buy this brand versus some brand that has, I don’t know, a hundred or 200 or just more proof of concept. So it’s always riskiest at the beginning, but obviously every single brand, even McDonald’s started with one location. So that that’s just how it goes,
Brittany Driscoll:
Right? Yeah, no guess. It’s just, I feel like we live in a world today with social media and everyone kind of thinks that happens overnight and that it’s not incredibly hard work, but it is. I mean, it daunting and overwhelming and exhausting to hold true to something that you really believe can be big and meaningful. I mean, nothing great comes easy. And I, I’ve certainly learned that myself too. I mean, we’re going into year five at this point. I mean, we certainly had the <laugh>, the momentary blip of a pandemic in our story, but even still, it’s building something intentional takes a lot of time.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Definitely. I completely agree. And even, I mean, for me, I’ve been more focusing on content stuff, but it takes time and anything worth doing takes a lot of time. So you’ve been at it for five years, and I know you said the first location launched in March, 2019. What was launch day? What was the next year and where was that first location built?
Brittany Driscoll:
Yeah, so we launched in Los Angeles in Studio City on Ventura Boulevard. I actually lived in Studio City at the time, so it was awesome. Again, kind of using that idea of a franchisee or operating partner. It was in my community. I knew the local business community. So we launched in March of 2019, and we were actually open for 11 months before the world had different plans for us. But the first 11 months were amazing. I would say we learned so much, but, and still to this day, really the core elements of the business, the foundational aspects of our experience are still intact. I would say that we learned a lot about people management. Again, it was going back to even with all the experience I had at Dry Bar, it was still the first time that I was actually managing a location, overseeing people, learning to the dynamics of all of that.
And really also just learning how to ingratiate yourself to the community, working with other business owners. But that’s what I loved so much, and that’s what got me so excited about franchising was it’s so awesome. Again, we go back to this world that we live in. We’re all on our phones screens all the time. It’s so nice to actually connect with people in person. And I think even now, post Pandemic, living in a world where that’s even more needed. So I would say that the first year was just, it was fun. It was overwhelming. There were certainly moments in time where it was exhausting and hard, but the long and short of it during that time, we were really focused on sophisticated and honing in on our processes for franchising because we knew, again, it’s everything that we were doing someone else was going to have to do somewhere else.
And so really just working on the documentation, building up the team. And then again, our story is we were open for 11 months. During that, 11 months generated over a million and a half in revenue, had a thousand members, really strong ebitda. Yeah. And again, we were just starting to sell or award franchises, and I keep wanting to say more of that back to our point. It really is about that finding the right people. And so we had awarded actually a three pack in Denver, and I remember we had our last discovery day the week before March 16th or whatever that date was when the world shut down and there was six people about to sign. And it was so exciting. And then all of a sudden our world changed and we were shut down for basically an entire year because we were in Los Angeles and Los Angeles being the strictest of all the protocols and guidelines. And then it took about a year beyond that to build back because of all of the capacity restrictions, et cetera. And now we’re at the point where we have 50 locations in development. Scottsdale and Nashville will be our first franchise locations. They’re actually opening in a couple of months here, and then we’ll have 15 to 20 openings next year and hoping to continue to build upon that. I mean, our vision is definitely hundreds of units around the country because I do really truly believe the opportunity to disrupt this space is a massive opportunity.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, that’s super exciting. So congrats on that. I mean, 50 locations in development in what is the redo of year one of warning franchises? That’s no small feat.
Brittany Driscoll:
It is not rebuilding. Think of it. You think about anything, health and wellness, et cetera. It’s like rebuilding momentum is so much harder than even starting. And so it really has been a lesson in perseverance and just pushing through. But I go back to we really have a big vision for Squeeze. We know why is we know what the bigger purpose is, even beyond Massage. So our vision is to transform communities for good. And one of our values is called the Feel Good revolution. And I always like to say revolution’s a big word for one little four walled box on Ventura Boulevard and Studio City. But it goes back to what our vision ultimately is, which is to make our small but hopefully meaningful impact on people. And one of the ways that we’ve also done that from the outset is we’ve partnered with an organization called Canine Companions. And for every membership that we sell at Squeeze, we’re helping to provide a day of support to a person, child or veteran with a disability. And again, it’s just our small little way. Both consumers know that and our employees know that. And so it’s just not only are we making people feel good, but we’re doing good at the same time. So
The Wolf of Franchises:
That’s fantastic. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Again, it goes back to what we said where the franchises can just be so powerful, and not only are you impacting someone who owns the business as the franchisee, but also the community in what you’re doing, and having that consistent playbook done for it, it’s just amazing to see.
Brittany Driscoll:
Thank you.
The Wolf of Franchises:
And I’m curious, so how many I guess between the 50, so how many franchisees are making that up? And it’s more of, I guess, a difference of strategy and approach? There’s some franchises that prefer one unit, one location, which I have my thoughts on. I think that hinders the growth of the entrepreneur personally, but
Brittany Driscoll:
I agree with that. So we actually have 51 right now and 20 operating partners. So 51 units, 20 operating partners. So the majority of our operating partners have multiple units. I agree with you from a strategic standpoint, that’s definitely our hope and goal is that we are partnering with multi-unit operators who really want to establish a presence in their community. Not only does it help them just continue to increase awareness, but also operationally leveraging the team across multiple locations, et cetera. So that’s the goal.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Beautiful. And I had a few weeks ago, or probably over a month ago at this point, I had two Massage Envy franchisees on in a past season where we were interviewing multi-unit franchise owners. They had mentioned that they actually launched in tandem with their Massage Envy franchises, the school for massage therapists to basically help them with their pipeline. So do you see anything, you guys have any plans to do something? Maybe not launch your own school, but just I guess what I’m asking is more of how are you approaching labor because they seem to indicate that it could be difficult depending on where you’re located.
Brittany Driscoll:
Yeah, I think the massage school’s angle is a really interesting one. And I think as we grow, there’s going to be a lot of different considerations that we have and whatnot. But from a recruiting standpoint, I’ll kind of go back to the culture and really what we’ve done to create, we say a way better massage experience on the guest standpoint. But I also like to say it’s a way better employee experience for the massage therapist. And just going back to all of those things that I listed previously, really just trying to make sure to focus on communicating our intention in the human experience. I mean, at the end of the day, we one massage therapists our empaths to the nth degree, they care deeply. And life is really hard. I mean, I would say that for us, it’s about connecting with the massage therapists to know that we’re going to be with them through the ups and the downs.
We see them as people. I really challenge our team to focus first and foremost on celebrating and valuing our team for who they are as individuals and then for the contribution that they’re making to the company. So we focus a lot on our values. We focus a lot on, again, the good that we’re doing to the community beyond just our four walls, through our partnership with Canine Companions, and then also all the perks again that I mentioned previously. But we do other things to again, kind of give back to our team. We do a lot of personal and professional development. We invest in their continued education. And then also, one thing I didn’t mention in part of our research in interviewing massage therapists in the industry before we launched, we’ve actually designed our massage room suites. We’ve actually designed our suites with the intention of the therapist comfort. So we pad the carpets. There’s a full dedicated therapist working station that has all of their supplies laid out for exactly what they need to do their job in the best of their ability. We have a very positive culture. So all that to say that we’re in the people industry, and so we really focus on the people side of it from a recruiting standpoint.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, that’s great. And yeah, I really even think there’s that dual-sided aspect where things that you’re doing that makes the customer’s life easier. I can see why that would make the massage therapist life a lot easier. Like the button thing that you mentioned. Yeah. Yeah. I think you said it that there’s probably some awkward situations that happen, so that’s such a simple thing, but it probably just takes a mental load off of the massage therapist
Brittany Driscoll:
A hundred percent. Well, and even capturing all of our guest preferences. So again, we capture everything from areas of the body you want focused on what you want avoided. If you want more or less pressure, it’s all saved to the guest profile, and the therapist reviews it prior to the experience. So it’s like they know already the expectation of the guests before they’re even walking in the door. They’re not going to be caught off guard. There’s no surprises. So it, it’s empowering for them too. I think that that’s a core piece of it as well.
The Wolf of Franchises:
I’m not super experienced with this stuff. Other massage franchises and just one off locations, that’s not happening. It sounds like.
Brittany Driscoll:
I think that preference intake happens in a variety of ways across the board, but certainly there’s no other franchise out there that has an end-to-end technology platform that is allowing for booking and appointment, which I should mention too, in our booking process, which doesn’t happen in most places, we have therapist bios, we have guest ratings, we have guest ratings and reviews. That was really important to us from a consumer standpoint. It’s like we all know people trust people more than they trust brands, so we really wanted other people to be able to read reviews on each massage therapist. It’s also a great quality control mechanism that we have on the backend from an operational standpoint for our operating partners and general managers to coach therapists. That’s one piece that we’ve really realized is pretty powerful in just maintaining the standards that we have across the board. So yes, that’s just kind of a few other pieces.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Well, wrapping up here, so you’ve got a 50 51 location sold. Is there an end goal from a business standpoint? I’m not sure what happened with Dry Bar if that’s still owned by primarily Allie, or was there an acquisition? Do you guys have an idea of what you think you want have happen?
Brittany Driscoll:
Yeah, I think that we definitely want to get to scale. We want Squeeze to be the best in class massage choice for both guests and employees. I think the idea of acquisition is an interesting one. I think for me, the most important piece is that we’re maintaining quality and culture. I think that that’s ultimately what makes a brand great. It’s what makes a brand sustainable, and I want to really hold true to that. For our operating partners. They’ve come into this system believing in what we’re doing. So I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see. But we’re definitely focused on building a brand that’s going to be around for a very long time.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Amazing. Well it sounds like you’re on the right path, and I’m excited to watch it. Yeah. Well, look, thanks for coming on the show. Is there anywhere online, whether it’s LinkedIn, Twitter, et cetera where people can follow along your journey?
Brittany Driscoll:
Yes. So Squeeze massage.com/franchising is where you can go to learn more if you’re interested in that. And then I would just say Instagram at Squeeze is probably the best place to follow along with our growth, to learn more about our culture and just the brand itself.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Beautiful. All right. And yeah, we’ll plug that Instagram handle in the show notes as well as the website. But yeah, look, Brittany, thanks again for coming on and we’ll talk soon.
Brittany Driscoll:
Thanks so much for having me all.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Thanks for listening to Franchise Empires. We’re coming to you soon with actionable insights to take the next step on your franchise journey. So make sure to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen.