S2 Ep11: The Learning Experience: How an Educator Turned Into a Multiple Franchise Owner and Community Builder
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount is a force. She’s also the owner of five The Learning Experience franchises and looking to expand. Tune in for Grace’s extraordinary franchise journey.
The Wolf and Grace get straight into Grace’s story, from the Bahamas and Japan to U.S. citizenship in 2001. Since then, she’s opened up five The Learning Experience units, a childcare and early education franchise.
You’ll hear Grace’s takes on why education franchises have such high profit margins, how being a franchise owner offers more freedom than you might think, and why you shouldn’t be afraid to ask your landlord to buy their real estate.
You’ll also hear why Grace received The Learning Experience Chairman’s Award For Excellence, and how she plans to continue scaling her empire throughout Florida.
And If you work in franchises, your most precious resource is time. BELAY exists to help you regain control of your time and your focus. They will match you with highly-qualified US-based virtual assistant, accounting, social media, and website contractors. In fact, only about 3% of those who apply to support roles with BELAY are actually accepted. Text WOLF to 55123 to get started.
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Episode Transcription
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
For me, when I was comparing the different franchises, the curriculum was extremely important. But I knew that with my tutoring company we were really successful because my husband knew how to tackle the marketing and to get us out there and just our name and the look of it just got attention. You need to know how to at least get your customer’s attention and once you’ve gotten it, then of course you need to follow up with the right services that they’re expecting.
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 Dr. Grace Huxtable. Mau. In our conversation, she tells us the incredible story of being born in The Bahamas, moving to America as a toddler, being the first person to graduate college in her family, and how she worked her way to being the owner of four franchises with many more on the way. If you’re interested in the education franchise space or just hearing an underdog story, you’ll want to listen to this episode. Hope you enjoy.
Narrator:
The Wolf of Franchises is the c e o 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:
A good place to start. Cause it looks like you’ve had kind of an interesting professional journey. So you’re born in The Bahamas? Yeah.
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
Yes.
The Wolf of Franchises:
And I know you did spend some time in Japan teaching children of active military, so it sounds like, and you, you have a PhD in educational leadership, so education seems to be your passion, but I guess where did it begin for you where you kind of knew that that was the career path you wanted to go on?
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
So going way back, I was born in The Bahamas, my family’s Jamaican, and came to the United States with the goal of making a better life. So I was raised by my aunt and uncle and they didn’t get to finish high school. So education was drilled into my head. That is the key to success. Got to have a good education and I have a really large family, so I’m on the younger side. I’ve got first cousins that are 15 to 25 years older than me, but were first cousins because my family’s so large. So naturally I ended up being a default babysitter of all of my little cousins. So I just was a kid person, even when I was still a kid. I’m directing kids what to do and what are we going to play, and just kind of functioning like a little adult. And just with my family being first generation to the country, there was a lot of involving me in the process because my uncle that raised me was illiterate.
So he used to tell me to write this checkout to the water company or got to make the checkout this way. So I was just involved with my family in a different way as a child and was very responsible. So going to college, I was the first one in my small family to go to college and I was trying really hard to go into the medical field or something like that because we were thinking, okay, you’re got this opportunity. You need to do something that’s going to make a lot of money. I like helping people. I want to make a difference, but that was not my passion and I decided to study education. So I decided to become a teacher, and my family wasn’t too excited about that because they were worried about me not meeting my potential and hey and things like that. But ultimately as my life has developed, it’s been the best decision for me. I wouldn’t change anything about my decision to become an educator. My path along the way has been unexpected and not predictable, but I decided that this is anything that I’m going to do, whether it’s business or service or anything is my wheelhouse is education.
The Wolf of Franchises:
So it sounds like you’re just upbringing, obviously really kind of informed and almost sounds like it trained and prepared you for your professional career in a way when you graduated college, I guess let’s go from there to you end up in Japan teaching the active military.
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
So my service in Japan came in much later into my career. So I became a teacher right out of college and was dating my now husband. And because we were college sweethearts, he always had an entrepreneurial mindset. I did not. I wanted structure, I wanted a schedule, I wanted the accountability set paycheck, I needed that stability because we grew up not having much and I felt like I was expected to become more financially stable so that I can help as needed, be able to be independent, not ever have to be a burden on anyone. So I really craved stability. So that’s why being a teacher was great when your breaks, things are due. But I fell in love with it and all aspects of it and I would watch other teachers teach and I had a great principal, great mentors, and just from early on I knew that I wanted to be in leadership because I felt like I could make an even bigger difference in helping other educators educate better and we would serve children better.
So I started my PhD program and ended up, my husband and I got married and he was watching me work and he’s like, you are working really hard. If you’re going to work this hard, we need to work for ourselves. So I actually stopped teaching. I was still working on my PhD program at the time, and we started a tutoring company called Huxtable Education Group. We decided my last name, my maiden name, would come in handy, get us some attention and would stand out amongst the other tutoring companies that we were competing with. And that company was Huxtable Education Group. It was a supplemental educational services provider at the time. This was 2005 through 2014, and it was through not No Child Left Behind. And we were in Florida serving several different counties throughout the state, and we were just very successful with the operation, but we knew that it was tied to government funding that would go away, legislation changes.
So I ended up stopping teaching altogether because I was teaching at the same time at first, and it just got to be way too much when the business really took off, still working on my PhD program and knowing that our existing business was eventually going to go away, I started to try to think about what do I want to do next? And I knew that I didn’t want to go back into the classroom. I knew that I still wanted to do more. I always wanted to have my own school. I wanted to be an educational leader. This is why I was working on my PhD. I thought I was going to be either a professor or a school principal, but it didn’t work out that way. Instead, I decided to open up my own preschool. I considered opening one from scratch doing all the legwork, curriculum, marketing logos, because we did that with our tutoring company. My husband and I were 50 50 on that. I did all the programming, curriculum training, all of our assessments, and he would handle all the backend things. He created technology to support it. It was a great operation, but we knew that it would come to an end, like I said, so decided to branch out.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Okay. So it sounds like you really caught it like the entrepreneurial bug from that kind of side hustle. And so the education space for franchises, I mean there’s a good number of them out there. There’s kind of more of the supplementary education, like a Mathnasium, right, for kids who need extra help in math, and then there’s a lot of STEM franchises, so people are learning coding and all these other different areas. When you decided, because clearly education was going to be kind of your category that you were going to go into were there any other brands that you considered before going with the learning experience?
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
Yes. So in terms of what type of educational franchise, I didn’t consider any of the supplemental ones at all just because I had my own supplemental educational services company and we competed with Huntington, Sylvan those kind of brands. So I kind of had already researched them in the years that we were competing against them and I didn’t really want to do what they did. Nothing against that. There is definitely a time and place for that, a space for that. There’s a need for that. However, it wasn’t really what I wanted to do. I wanted to really be able to connect with the whole child, with the family and make a bigger impact by having a school. So I started to look at different franchise opportunities because just at the time I hadn’t had children yet, and I’m like, starting a school is going to be insanely difficult.
Just knowing everything that we put into starting a tutoring company that only serviced children for three hours a day, a few days a week, I knew that this was going to be a much bigger undertaking. So I wanted support. I wanted the opportunity to be able to breathe and have help. But still, because our first company was so successful, I have very high standards. So everything needs to be top notch from the look, the facility, the design, curriculum, marketing, branding, everything. And so I narrowed it down. I researched a lot of what I considered the top brands in that space, and I visited the headquarters of two. And I, hands down fell in love with the learning experience after visiting their headquarters and meeting with the Weisman family and every department that was in place at the time. And this was back in 2008.
The Wolf of Franchises:
So that’s a while back because I mean, you have a PhD in educational leadership you started your own supplementary educational company. You clearly have a ton of experience and we’ll get into your journey with the Learning Experience Academy. But I guess what if a prospective owner’s interested, right? In education franchises, what should you look for? I imagine curriculum’s a big part of it, but how could you evaluate if maybe let’s say you want to work with kids and that’s kind of your inspiration, but you don’t have the educational background as you do. What kind of things do you look for beyond curriculum? Or is that really what sells you on it?
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
Well, for me, when I was comparing the different franchises, the curriculum was extremely important. But I knew that with my tutoring company we were really successful because my husband knew how to tackle the marketing and to get us out there and just our name and the look of it, just got attention. You need to know how to at least get your customer’s attention, and once you’ve gotten it, then of course you need to follow up with the right services that they’re expecting. So I looked at who do they have as their executives? Are these educators? Is their team built of leaders in the spaces that you’d need to have a successful operation? You could have a great curriculum, but operationally, if you have no training, no systems, everyone’s going to be doing whatever they want to do, and it’s not going to be a systematic process that is duplicated regardless of what center you are in across the country. So I was excited about knowing that all aspects, I felt like the business side, they had it down, whether it’s connecting you with financing, site coordination, every aspect that you could need from deciding that you want to do this, to maintaining it for the next 10 to 20 years, the learning experience thinks about that and has those people in place. And I still feel to this day they do a better job than the other brands.
The Wolf of Franchises:
It sounds consistent with what I’d expect with really, really any franchise. You do want kind of the expertise in the industry. So whether it’s fitness, you know, need someone who’s kind of all in on the classes and the intensity, the workouts, but you also need someone who’s going to be able to market it and other operations that come with every business. So that makes sense. And so when you move forward with the learning experience, a big part of franchises is just there are some barriers to entry and capital’s a big one. So I was looking it up before we jumped on, and it’s not a cheap franchise, the range is pretty wide. It was like 550 to I think a little over 3 million, I think the highest end of the investment range. So how would you approach financing that, whether it was partners or maybe you worked with lenders
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
Getting started because there was that desire to prepare and plan ahead? We were saving funds from our first business because we knew that again, it was going to come to an end. So both my husband and I, he’s not an educator, so we kind of just decided as a family that our takeaway from this, our first business Huxtable education group, was to expand our horizons and try to build wealth. So we each decided he’s going to take some of the proceeds to do some certain things, and I was going to take some proceeds to do what I would like to do next. So we were able to get started with the learning experience from profits from our first business. It was very profitable, and if we could have continued that, we probably would still have it, but you always have to pivot, move on, and make decisions to keep moving forward.
And it was a great decision. I’ve definitely gotten a return big time on that investment to decide to go with the learning experience. So I did get S B A funding on that first one, but I didn’t want to be too leveraged, so I took a lease option. So because with the learning experience, you can either build from the ground up and that’s where you can get in the millions is if you own the facility, if you own the ground. But the way that the learning experience, well, one way that they’ve been able to grow so quickly is that they have a whole real estate and development team that works with developers and landlords across the country to find the best locations. So we’re always prime real estate, we’re always on main road, high traffic counts, high visibility. So that’s going to come at a premium so you can decide, hey, I’ll lease this location because are all the protections are in there from the learning experience, setting up that relationship for you, or you can have the opportunity to build. So that’s why there’s such a big range. So for my first one, we went with the lease option because it was a easier to get in and we just took a small s b loan because I didn’t want to be over leveraged.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Sure. No, definitely. That makes total sense, so So it’s a combination of cash on hand and financing.
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
Yes.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah. Okay. That’s awesome. It’s really good to see. And just so people know too, right, learning experience, at least today, I’m not sure how much had back then, but it’s got about 280 ish, maybe 300 locations around the country. So the more locations a franchise has, the better chance an individual will have, at least to get funding, right?
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
Yes. They’re over 300 locations open across the country. There’s one location now open in the uk. So it’s pretty cool.
The Wolf of Franchises:
And honestly, as I’m hearing you talk about it, I know you certainly have a passion for this space, but from a business perspective, it’s actually, and I’ve spoken with a few education franchise owners, particularly the one that always comes to mind to me is a Mathnasium owner. He owns 20 of them, and I’m going to butcher what he said about it, but the way he described, because he was very kind of capitalistic about it, that was not that he didn’t he enjoyed math and helping kids, but he also was just a very
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
Looking at the numbers.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, yeah, big on the numbers. And the way he described just the education model is if, think about it compared to a food, a restaurant concept with every customer you have need to buy food to give them, and obviously you mark it ups, so you make a profit, but with education concepts, it’s like the ip, the curriculum, that intellectual property is really the value you’re getting. And I mean, there’s no marginal cost to keep selling that, right? Because you’re just bringing kids in and as long as you got the customers, the students, it’s the same curriculum. And maybe, I don’t know, maybe there’s like a book you give them, but I imagine a lot of this stuff is just online, correct?
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
The curriculum for the learning experience is proprietary, and I’ve had the pleasure of serving on the curriculum committee for a few years to be able to get a little bit of the behind the scenes and give some perspective as a franchisee and an educator. And our curriculum is constantly evolving. It’s based on research, and if research changes or standards get updated, our curriculum gets updated. So it’s issued to us monthly. So that I think is a value. And one thing that sets us apart from other brands is that as a collective, we’re able to give feedback and it is just more advanced and innovative, I would say, than other brands. So the curriculum is a part of what we do, and the key is all of the training and proper implementation of all of our programming. That’s what sets us apart. Because once you give an amazing tour and the parent falls in love with you, the teacher, the facility, then it’s time to implement and implement with consistency.
The Wolf of Franchises:
And the learning experience specifically specializes right in preschool. So they’re the school you go to before the kid possibly joins the public or private school system in the town and starts kindergarten.
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
Exactly. So we start at six weeks and we are licensed up typically up through age 12 because we also have school age camps over the summer, spring break, winter break, and there’s a full curriculum for that as well. Our curriculum, it’s called leap, and it has monthly themes, so it’s always exciting. So everyone doesn’t necessarily always know what to expect, but they use a lot of characters and colors and it’s about making learning fun so that every child has that belief that they can do it and that they’re excited to come to school. And we have a phonics program that teaches them to read before they go to kindergarten.
The Wolf of Franchises:
So yeah, you’re like a bunch of different revenue streams basically that you’re able to tap into there.
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
So you have to decide what’s applicable in your market. So sometimes things change where the public school system may start offering a preschool program or in some areas we are the preferred school of choice for kindergarten because we have a kindergarten curriculum as well. So everyone is allowed to decide what are the needs of your market and make sure you’re offering that programming and to get parents really connected and to get the kids extra excited to be with us for the full day. We also have enrichment programs like yoga, coding. There are a lot of different extra programs as well.
The Wolf of Franchises:
I wouldn’t have expected that. It’s funny because I don’t know, at least for me for whatever reason, education doesn’t seem to be just talked about as much as other restaurants are. Of course, major in franchising and fitness has become, especially boutique fitness has been huge in the last decade. But I mean education, these are legitimate businesses, which I just find it fascinating to learn more about it. And for you, so you bought your first franchise right in 2009, and when did the second one come? How long was that kind of ramp up and when did you decide to dive into a second?
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
So this is where the trickiness of franchising comes into play and you as a franchisee deciding what will your destiny be with this franchise? Are you going to have one and do other things or are you going to go all in? So when I first signed up, I signed up for two. I really wanted to sign up for four, but I think I let fear get in the way of that. I didn’t know what to expect. And even though I really was truly excited about it, I just was afraid to put all my eggs in one basket. So I only signed up for two. And that second location, my site fell through and it was such a frustrating experience. It was really a landlord issue, not the franchise. They were very supportive, but I didn’t have another alternative. So that was when I ended up finishing my PhD and I decided to teach. And my school, the first one, it was running well. I had a great team, great staff, I loved them. I had had my first child, so she was a student there from the infant program,
The Wolf of Franchises:
Huh, that’s great.
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
On up. So I got to relate to the parents and they got to watch me while I was pregnant and going through everything that they were going through. And it was great in terms of the relationship building and the connections that I had. Absolutely loved it, loved my team, but I knew I wanted to do more. I just wasn’t sure what that was. So I ended up stumbling into an opportunity to teach for the Department of Defense Schools. I’ve always wanted to live in another country as an adult. I was born in The Bahamas, but I’ve been in the United States since I was a toddler. And the opportunity came up to teach for the Department of Defense Schools. And when I got the position, I took it. So my husband, myself and my daughter, we moved to Okinawa, Japan. I told the learning experience, Hey, I’m going to become a kind of absentee franchisee.
Are you okay with that? What do I need to do? And they were supportive. I had one location, it was doing well. I’m very much a rule follower. I like systems. It’s why you go into a franchise. And I was over there for two years teaching sixth grade reading and language arts. Loved it, loved it, loved it. And then I had my second child over there, so he was born in Japan, and that was great until it wasn’t. So my leadership team, because again, your success is definitely linked to who you have in place. Who are you trusting with your business, regardless of what industry? And they went from being great to not great. And I had to make the decision that I was just going to let the majority of the workforce go at the school and take over myself to get it back to my standards because I figured if my name is going to be tied to it, if I’m going to, I had the option of either just bailing and giving up or fighting through all of the pain and disappointment and what felt like failure.
And I decided to hang in there and just fight my way back to getting the school where it was supposed to be. So I had to quit my teaching job and decide to just be the director myself of the school. And it took me a very long time to find the right people. And another franchisee may have handled that differently. You could just throw anybody in there if that’s how you operate. But that’s just not me. I just care too much. I care too much about it. So who is in the facility, it really matters. I have to connect with them at least at that time because it was just one. And that was maybe about a year and a half that I was the director of myself. And then finally the right people started to come into my life and I decided to, I was able to rebuild the school back into an award-winning location for T L e then in 2017. So I had won for eight years, took me a long time to grow.
The Wolf of Franchises:
No, I mean that’s a journey. Well, I mean every franchise is different. That’s just what I’ve learned. And it’s fascinating that you were able to even swing. I think a lot of people, especially the ones new to franchises, would think that that’s not even feasible to be able to live in a different country and own the business. And my response is always just, it really depends on the brand and also how you perform as a franchisee, right? Yes. If you weren’t performing well, they’d probably much less inclined to let you go international. But yeah, I think a good lesson there is just that there, there’s more flexibility than you’d think within franchises, and that’s a prime example of it. But I am curious to know what’s a typical, I guess, organizational structure o of one of these schools? Because the only experience I have with this is thinking back to my preschool days, and I had one teacher she taught me every day, and if she was sick, we had a sub that came in that I’m sure was on call in those cases. But other than that, it’s just one person.
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
Well, the way that an organizational structure of the learning experience would work when you are just a one center franchisee is that you need what they would term a business manager and a center director or a center director and assistant director, and then you have your teachers and cook driver if you have one. And then if you only have one as the franchisee, you can decide, am I going to be working in my business or working on my business? So if you’re working in your business, then you can collect one of the salaries because you really typically only have a budget for two salaries when you have one center. And that’s basically what I was doing when I was trying to rebuild my one center. But you can’t do that if you are trying to grow. So if you’re trying to grow, if you want to be multi-unit, then you’ve got to set some other positions in place.
And most franchisees, they’re going to have an area manager, which I know that’s typical of other franchises outside of the learning experience. And you may have a business manager or a HR specialist or comptroller because we are very, very people focused, whether it’s on the customer side, the side of the child or the teachers and all of the rules and regulations that you have to follow. For all of our intense background screenings and training requirements, there’s a lot on the people side. So I implemented an area manager kind of part-time tied to a school, part-time, separate management company. Once I was able to afford that, once, you kind of can’t afford it when you just have to, but you have to decide am going to, if I’m going to have more, I need to just put this in place.
The Wolf of Franchises:
So you kind of maybe hire not necessarily preemptively, but y you’re doing it with the mentality that I’m about to add another unit, and then at that point, we’re really going to need this person.
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
So right now with the four that I have open, and I have a fifth that is going to open within the next few months, I have one area manager and one business manager who are outside of the individual school salaries.
The Wolf of Franchises:
And when you expanded from one to two, which, so you basically went eight years with one, and now in the last five you’ve added three more and you’re about to add that fourth imminently. Was the approach the same to the financing just, and even just your strategy, did you do any new builds or have you just done leases and a mix of cash on hand with financing via the SBA to get them open?
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
So for going from location one to two, location number two, I was actually approached and asked if I would take it over because of my experience of getting my first one back on track, I think I got attention from the way that I persevered and rebounded and turned what could have been a catastrophic situation into a positive one. I was asked to take my second school, so for that one, I didn’t have to get any bank financing. I did get, it was an owner kind of financing situation because I actually didn’t want to take it because it wasn’t making money. So I’m like, I don’t want to pay anything for that. But I felt like my sweat equity and what I was bringing to the table was what was needed. It’s like I was asked to take it over because it was an underperforming location.
So then exactly one year later I was asked again to take over an existing location that was not meeting expectations, and that’s how I, and that again, owner financed. So I went from one to two to three without any additional SBA lending. And then once I got to number four, I did do SBA a lending and kind of used that opportunity to refinance any old debt from previous schools now that I had all of these schools that were generating revenue, and I had results to show, Hey, this is when I took over this school, it was an existing location, these are what the financials looked like before I took it over. Here’s what it looks like now. And then all of a sudden the doors open in terms of financing and banks approaching me about what options were available to me. So it’s truly a blessing. I never imagined in my life that banks would want to invite me to lunch or things like that to talk about my plans for expansion. So I’m still trying to wrap my around that because I still see myself as just someone who’s still striving. I’m still not where I know that I will be in the future, but I do feel like doors are open opening that weren’t there before
The Wolf of Franchises:
Four locations and a fifth on the way. That in and of itself is impressive, but I can tell that you have a lot more that you’re looking to accomplish than that. But I love what you said there because it’s something I just keep seeing, and I think it’s one of almost like a slept on benefit of franchises is that once you’re in the system, you know can get those opportunities of new businesses, right? Because for you, it sounds like you just made a killer reputation for yourself by turning around your original location. And because of that, now you got two locations for that and you were able to sell or finance them, which is just, it’s such a capital light way to own another business. In reality I’ve had people who own auto repair shops or QSR restaurants, and they’re kind of doing that same strategy where they get into the franchise, they kind of hustle the way to figure out how to run one, but then they just use that experience to take over existing locations, whether they’re turning around locations or there’s just older owners who are looking for a change or looking to retire, and then they’re the ones who can take it over.
So it’s a really, really good way to expand, I think.
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
Yeah, I’m excited and I’m open to both brand new locations as well as takeovers. It’s very protective of my sanity these days and a sanity of my team. So there are some opportunities that have been presented that I’ve just said, no, I can’t do it because if I take that on, then I am going to miss everything that my children are doing. I already work a lot, so I’ve got to stay in my lane. So not every opportunity is free. You still have to do your research. So right now what we’re doing is my goal is to own the real estate of a few of the locations because again, I’m trying to build generational wealth that was non-existent for my family. So I support my uncle that raised me, and if anyone ever needs help from me financially, from me and my husband, we’re there for them.
So it’s like we’re carrying the weight of not just ourselves and our children. So what I’m doing is a really big deal for me. So my determination to grow is not just out of needing a specific dollar amount, it’s really being able to take care of my family and also just being proud of what I do, being able to make a difference. So my fifth location is going to be a brand new build new to the area, and I think that’s exciting. I know some franchisees would possibly not want to do that. They’d be afraid, but my first location was the first one in the state of Florida, so I’m not intimidated by getting the brand out and all of the, I think it’s exciting people like new and fresh, and it’ll be the newest kids on the block. We’re going to have the prettiest, definitely prettiest building and best curriculum.
I’m 100% confident we’ll be able to sell that. So I don’t mind doing that. So I’m committed to three more that are that model where t l E will take over the build and I’ll just pay my fees and come in and it’ll be like a turnkey lease operation. But because I know that a lot of truly foundational wealth building in this country involves real estate, we really want more commercial real estate. So we’ve been working on a project for a long time here in Florida where we can buy the land and build from the ground up. So we’re getting very close to solidifying that deal, and I’m excited about that. We may do a few more of those. My, right now, I am signed up for eight locations, but I am open to more because I know that if I were to try to raise capital and the venture capital way, and I know that they would want you to open more, we’re still considering what that would look like and what number would we be comfortable with because I know that I’m capable of doing more.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Definitely. I mean, just first off, the story is so inspiring. Just being an immigrant coming into this country being the first person to graduate college and your family and then to do what you’ve done is just amazing and it’s testament to you. I also like to think that again, obviously the capital barrier is just a reality in franchising, but I do think that it is still an amazing kind of mechanism for entrepreneurship where you don’t have to necessarily create some crazy tech startup and or start your own business from scratch, where if you can find that way into the first one now here you are with four, about to go on five and have plans to expand well beyond that. So yeah, the whole story is just amazing. So I love to hear it. And when it comes to the real estate, and I completely agree, and one of my first guests on was his name was Joe Johnson, I think he lives in South Car, he lives in South Carolina.
And I’ll never forget the way he described his approach to real estate, and it was just like, you got to own your dirt. What was kind of the way he said it was hilarious, just an absolute character. I had people reach out to me after that and say, they’re like, yeah, I’d love to own my real own real estate, but if you go to a strip mall or you’re just in a prime market, I mean, there’s a company that already owns that land and they’re not going to give it to you. So was there anything you’ve learned that you could share for people for how you’ve kind of approached your real estate strategy? Because I think most people know that that’s a great thing to do, but executing is totally different.
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
So the way that I was able to even, I owned the real estate for one of my four locations, and that was a blessing. It just so happened to be that this location during Covid, the landlord, I had a great relationship with the landlord. I try to have good, great relationships with everyone because this is a relationship business. So I try to have good relationships with everyone and honor my responsibilities. So I had a great relationship with my landlord, and during Covid, many landlords, there’s discussions about, okay, you might not have closed. You may be able to operate during Covid, but you’re licensed for 180, 90 kids and you only have 35 attending. You can’t pay your regular rent. My landlord just happened to want to get out of owning this type of building because he was more into dental facilities and medical facilities. So as the tenant, he kind of approached me.
That was just such an great opportunity for me. I was able to get the financing because I had years of paying the rent. So if you have years of paying the rent, of course you can pay the mortgage. The mortgage is going to be less. So when the opportunity presented itself, it was time consuming because we went through the S B A, but I, I’m, I’m so grateful, and now I have a multimillion dollar real estate and I’m operating. I can control, I can impact the cash flow that it brings in. It’s amazing. So we’re trying to do that with another location, but you can’t do it with all. So I have one landlord that will never sell because the rent I pay is too good. So I’ve approached him about buying it multiple times over the years, and they may act like they’re toying around with the idea and then it ends up being no, and then they’re before it.
They’re refinancing and pulling some cash out for themselves again, which is why I want to own commercial real estate. But for those that are in a lease situation, you just have to know what you need. Being in a prime real estate location has value because think about if you’re in some back corner that no one can ever find you, you have to spend more money in marketing and trying to, you’re missing out because you don’t have any visibility, whereas you’re not going to have that problem with a learning experience. So sometimes it just is what it is. You need to just run your business the way that it needs to be run so that you can continue on with the lease. But if the opportunity is there to purchase the building, why not go for it If can’t do it upfront, because of course that’s a lot more capital for a down payment on a real estate purchase versus leasing, but if you’re able to operate that for two, three years and you can show your profitability and that profitability is based on paying a lease, then you just never know.
So we’re approaching another landlord now to see if that individual is open to selling the building. But I have one that is a beautiful, beautiful facility, absolutely love it, but I will never own it because it’s a part of a strip. But that’s okay. It’s such an amazing location that it’s worth it. There’s nothing like it in the area. I doubt there ever, there won’t be anything better than it. It’s just so beautiful. So I am really confident, even though that’s going to be probably a permanent lease situation, I don’t think the landlord would ever sell that.
The Wolf of Franchises:
That’s kind of, and I’m based in the Northeast, so strip malls are kind of primetime areas for franchises, and that’s kind of the problem people run into. It’s just,
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
Yeah, so you have to just weigh the pros and cons of it. Not every opportunity is going to be the same. So if you are trying to diversify a little bit within what you do, if there’s an opportunity to own the real estate for one or two, that still adds value to your overall organization. That’s how I look at it anyway.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Absolutely. Now, I mean it, it’s an absolute game changer. Just the things I’ve seen some franchise owners do who do own the real estate, especially once, if you fully own it outright, I mean the flexibility’s just crazy. You can sell your business to a new franchisee, still own the real estate and just rent it out to them. You can kind of separate the assets of the business versus the real estate. And those can be two separate transactions though. So yeah, I mean, you can really supercharge just the overall value of your whole, let’s call it just business and real estate portfolio. So yeah, that’s excited for you. Thank you. Yeah. Well just in closing here, I mean, let’s say I have you back on the show in five years, where do you hope to be? Or maybe it’s 10 years, whatever timeline that you choose
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
In five years, I am sure I will have somewhere between 10 to 12 schools, at least at, because I feel like I’m already built for that. It’s just deciding am I going to build more ground up, which is going to take longer to get there, or am I going to take on some more existing locations like my first two? And I think I’m going to be loving life. I like to be involved because I feel like my story does inspire my team when you’re in education and you see that your leader was a teacher just like you, and it just builds deep connections. So I have a lot of employees that have been with me for several years, and I take great pride in that. So I’m sure I’m still going to be loving t l e, and I’m sure I’ll own some more real estate. And who knows, I could at that point have some capital partners and maybe have 30 centers. I’m not sure. But I feel like definitely am a educational master <laugh> at that point.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Amazing. Yeah, I mean, either way, that’s a very high level of success you’ll have reached. And yeah, I, I’m looking forward to watching your journey, so
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
Thank you so much.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, well speaking of that too, for anyone listening, if they want to follow along with what you’re doing is there anywhere like LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram that they can follow along?
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
Yes. I’m on Instagram as Dr. Huxtable underscore mount, and I’m on LinkedIn as Grace Huxtable Mount PhD. And then of course, I would love for everyone to visit the learning experience.com, whether it’s to learn more about the franchise opportunities or to learn more about our centers. All the centers are on Instagram at t l e, at the name of the location, and check us out because we are an innovative, exciting franchise to be a part of. I just got off of a call with our C E O corporate team. They do monthly calls during the pandemic. They were doing weekly calls. And just the level of support is really amazing. It’s encouraging, motivating, and it’s a great thing to be a part of.
The Wolf of Franchises:
That’s awesome. Well, Leah, we’ll have those social media handles in the show notes, so anyone can follow along. And yeah, thanks a lot for coming on, Dr. Grace, it was amazing to hear your story.
Dr. Grace Huxtable-Mount:
Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure.
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.